Operation Crayweed: How scientists are reviving Sydney's lost underwater forests
Selection and Planting: Healthy male and female crayweed are collected from natural populations and attached to biodegradable mats, which are anchored to selected reef sites.
Natural Reproduction: Male plants release sperm into the water, fertilizing eggs from nearby females. The resulting juveniles, or 'craybies,' attach themselves to the reef and begin to grow.
Mats Removal: Once the young crayweed are established, the mats are removed, allowing the forest to expand naturally.
Results and impact
Live Events
The road ahead
(You can now subscribe to our
(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel
Sydney's iconic coastline is witnessing a remarkable ecological comeback. Once devastated by pollution, its underwater crayweed forests—vital to marine life and coastal health—are being painstakingly restored through a pioneering project known as Operation Crayweed . This effort not only brings back a lost habitat but also offers a blueprint for global marine restoration.Launched over a decade ago, Operation Crayweed is a collaborative project led by scientists from the University of New South Wales and other institutions, with support from government agencies and community volunteers. The mission: to restore 60 hectares of crayweed forest to Sydney's shallow rocky reefs.Crayweed (Phyllospora comosa) is a large, golden-brown seaweed that once flourished along the southeastern shores of Australia . These underwater forests are crucial: they sequester carbon, provide shelter and nursery grounds for marine life such as abalone, rock lobsters, and numerous fish species, and underpin coastal biodiversity and food webs.However, during the 1980s, a 70-kilometer stretch of crayweed vanished from Sydney's reefs, coinciding with the discharge of untreated sewage into the ocean. The loss went largely unnoticed at the time, but its effects rippled through the ecosystem, impacting fisheries, reducing biodiversity, and diminishing the coastline's natural resilience.This approach, known as 'applied nucleation,' creates small, self-sustaining patches that act as seed sources for further natural spread.Since its inception, Operation Crayweed has targeted 16 sites along Sydney's reefs. Seven of these now support self-sustaining crayweed forests, spanning more than two hectares. Notably, new sites added in 2024—such as Dee Why and South Maroubra—have shown rapid growth, with South Maroubra alone seeing over 1,500 craybies established by early 2025.Microscopic organisms and other marine life are already returning, signaling the gradual restoration of the broader ecosystem. Biodiversity at restored sites is beginning to resemble that of natural crayweed forests, supporting key fish and shellfish populations and enhancing recreational fishing opportunities.Not all restoration attempts have succeeded. Some sites have struggled due to high levels of herbivory (grazing by marine animals) or burial by sand. The project's adaptive approach—testing different plot sizes, donor sites, and genetic diversity—has been key to understanding what drives successful restoration.Operation Crayweed is not just about reintroducing a single species; it's about rebuilding an entire ecosystem and the services it provides. As Dr. Adriana Vergés, co-founder of the project, explains, 'We're not merely reintroducing one species; we're cultivating an entire ecosystem'.With three new sites added in 2024 and plans for ten more over the next two and a half years, Operation Crayweed is scaling up its efforts. The project has also become a model for public engagement, combining science, community action, and creative outreach to inspire support for marine conservation.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
'Miracle': After 15 failed IVFs and 19 years of tears, how AI helped a couple finally have a baby
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel It sounds almost unbelievable, but artificial intelligence has just helped a couple get pregnant after 19 long years of failed attempts. Diagnosed with azoospermia, a condition where no sperm are detectable in the ejaculate, the couple had been through 15 heartbreaking IVF failures. But in March this year, their journey took a miraculous turn, thanks to a pioneering AI tool developed by scientists at Columbia University Fertility tool, aptly named Sperm Track and Recovery (STAR), works much like AI systems used by astrophysicists to detect rare stars in the sky, except this one hunts for extremely rare sperm in semen to Dr Zev Williams, the lead researcher and developer of STAR, 'It's like finding a needle not just in a haystack, but in a thousand haystacks.' In an interview with Time Magazine, he explained how the system can locate living sperm that traditional lab techniques often miss, and do so in under two technology combines AI, high-speed imaging and robotics. A fluidic chip is used to flow a semen sample through a small plastic tube. If the AI algorithm detects even a single viable sperm, that portion of the fluid is isolated in a separate tube, ready to be used for fertilisation or frozen for later exactly what happened in this couple's case. Within two hours of collecting the husband's sample, the AI system had not only identified sperm but helped fertilise the wife's eggs. Just a few days later, the fertilised embryo was transferred to her uterus. Four months on, the mother-to-be and the baby are both doing stands out for its ability to detect sperm in cases where even trained embryologists fall short. Dr Williams recalled an internal test where embryologists spent two days analysing a sample and found no sperm. STAR found 44 viable sperm in just an hour. 'They didn't want to be outdone by a machine,' he joked, but the results were gentle, chemical-free method marks a massive leap forward in tackling male infertility, particularly azoospermia, which affects around 1% of all men and is responsible for 10% of male infertility Williams says STAR could soon help redefine possibilities for many men and couples who have lost hope. 'The dream is to develop technologies so that those who are told 'you have no chance of being able to have a child' can now go on to have healthy children,' he told such scientific breakthroughs, it's no longer just wishful thinking, it's becoming from agencies
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Time of India
Fukushima nuclear plant evacuated after massive tsunami hits Japan. A haunting reminder of 2011 resurfaces
What happened at Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011? Live Events Where is the Fukushima nuclear plant? (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel A tsunami has hit coastal areas of Russia's Kuril Islands and Japan's large northern island of Hokkaido after a powerful, 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia early Wednesday. Warnings are also in place for Alaska, Hawaii and other coasts south toward New Japan Meteorological Agency said a tsunami as high as 40 centimeters (1.3 feet) had been detected in 16 locations as the waves moved south along the Pacific coast from Hokkaido to just northeast of Tokyo. Officials urged caution, saying that bigger waves could come at the Fukushima nuclear plant , which was damaged in the 2011 tsunami, have been evacuated as a precautionary 2011, the 9.0-magnitude quake was so forceful it shifted the Earth off its axis. It triggered a tsunami which swept over Japan's main island of Honshu, killing more than 18,000 people and wiping entire towns off the map at that the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the gigantic wave surged over coastal defences and flooded the reactors, sparking a major disaster. Authorities set up an exclusion zone which grew larger and larger as radiation leaked from the plant, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate from the than a decade later, that zone remains in place and many residents have not returned. Authorities believe it will take up to 40 years to finish the work of decontamination, which has already cost Japan trillions of Fukushima Disaster is classified as a level seven event by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the highest such event and only the second event to meet this classification after the 1986 Chernobyl Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is in the town of Okuma, in Fukushima Prefecture. It sits on the country's east coast, about 220km (137 miles) north-east of the capital 11 March 2011 at 14:46 local time (05:46 GMT) the earthquake - known as the Great East Japan Earthquake, or the 2011 Tohoku earthquake - struck east of the city of Sendai, 97km north of the had just 10 minutes warning before the tsunami hit the almost half-a-million people were forced to leave their homes as a result of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Time of India
NASA-ISRO collaborative satellite NISAR all set for launch
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Aimed at boosting ties between India and the United States on space exploration, India is geared up to launch an earth observation satellite jointly developed by ISRO and NASA on to study the planet Earth as a whole from a Sun-synchronous Orbit , the NISAR satellite is a combination of human skills and exchange of software and hardware between the two space agencies for over a an acronym for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, weighing 2,393 kg is expected to fly on a 51.7 metre tall, three stage, GSLV-F16 rocket at a prefixed time of 5.40 pm from the second launch pad at this spaceport situated about 135 km from Chennai on countdown for the launch commenced at 2.10 pm on July 29 and has been progressing, ISRO said, and the mission would be classified into launch phase, deployment phase, commissioning phase and science phase."GSLV-F16/NISAR Today's the day! Launch Day has arrived for GSLV-F16 and NISAR. GSLV-F16 is standing tall on the launch pad. NISAR is ready. Liftoff today," ISRO said in a social media post on the partnership between ISRO and NASA is first of its kind, it is also the first time for a GSLV rocket to carry a rocket destined to Sun-synchronous Polar Orbit (SSPO) unlike Polar Satellite Launch Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO has sent similar missions in the past (Resourcesat, RISAT) to study the Earth but were "operationally focused" on Indian territory. The NISAR mission is targeted to study the Earth and would provide information to global scientific fraternity, ISRO satellite would be able to study seasonal changes on forest dynamics, mountain shifts, glacier movements in the Himalayas and Antarctica, North and South mission's primary objectives are to study land and ice deformation, land ecosystems, and oceanic regions in areas of common interest to the United States and Indian science said the complex payloads and mainframe systems in the mission have been designed, developed, and realised over a period of 8 to 10 from both space agencies were involved in extensive collaborations and the NISAR satellite carries dual frequency -- two L Band provided by NASA and S-Band provided by ISRO for the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) enabling the collection of a vast amount of S-Band SAR and L-Band SAR were independently developed, integrated and tested at ISRO and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, United States, respectively, ISRO reaching the initial orbital conditions on Wednesday, scientists would engage in 'commissioning' the first 90 days after launch would be dedicated to commissioning or to perform In-Orbit Checkout, the objective of which is to prepare the observatory for science operations, ISRO dual-band Synthetic Aperture Radar employs an advanced, SweepSAR technique, which provides high resolution and large swath imagery. NISAR would image the global land and ice-covered surfaces, including islands, sea-ice and oceans, every 12 spacecraft and the launch system are developed by ISRO while the L-band Radar system, high speed downlink system, GPS receiver are delivered by NASA. ISRO is responsible for the satellite and commanding operations, while NASA would provide the orbit manoeuver and RADAR operations mission would be aided with ground station support of both the two space agencies for downloading the acquired images, which, after the necessary processing, would be disseminated to the user is the 18th flight of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and the 12th with indigenous cryogenic stage. It is also the 102nd launch from life of the NISAR Mission is 5 years, ISRO said.
