Bird Crap Makes Coral Reefs Grow Faster, but Rats are Messing it up for Everybody

Birds in the Chagos Archipelago are being eaten by an invasive species of rat, and because of it, the health of the coral reefs are deteriorating. The reason is that the bird crap which gets washed into the ocean, which is high in nitrogen, raises the productivity of the reefs. Areas without the rats had higher nitrogen levels and corals and fish in those areas also grew faster and larger.
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  1. AnonymousAugust 29, 2018 at 5:12 PM

    I agree with this because I work with fish at my shop at BCTC. Nitrogen also helps plants that we eat grown and if they"re nitrogen deficient they will have a lighter green pigment to they're leaves, this also occurs if there is an iron deficiency. The only reason that areas without rats had a higher nitrogen level is because its not coming from a secondary source its coming from one directs source which is the birds feces and also the birds eat different types of prey for a source of energy while the rats eat different prey from the birds. This causes the amount of nitrogen that comes out in the feces to be different for each. You also have to look at the way they evolved, what was their prey before their prey now. There are many variables that can be looked at for the cause of the nitrogen being high and low.

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