Where have all the crinoids gone?

Colorful feather stars (comatulid crinoids, Phylum Echinodermata) were plentiful on the reefs of Curaçao and Bonaire in the late 1960s when David Meyer was seeking accessible localities for the study of their ecology and distribution. From 2000 to 2010, and with the help of several students, David Meyer resurveyed sites on the leeward reefs of both islands where previous quantitative surveys had been conducted. Results confirmed that populations of crinoids were decreasing, 

This news article was published in BioNews 22

BioNews is produced by the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.