SYDNEY, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from Australia's James Cook University (JCU) have discovered that brightly colored fish communities are becoming increasingly rare as their coral reef habitats decline and lose their color.

The findings of the study, published in the Global Change Biology journal and released to the public on Thursday, came from a JCU research station based on Orpheus Island off the coast of far north Queensland.

Lead researcher Christopher Hemingson from JCU's Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, told Xinhua the study compared observations with 27 years of detailed data from the reef.

"I was able to take photographs of these fishes, and then pair it with this long-term data to track how the coloration of the reef has changed through time. "

What he and his team found was that the color of the fish that inhabited each patch of the reef would decline as the reef did.

"What we found is that actually, the brightly colored fish species are actually just going away," said Hemingson.

"So, either they're dying off or they're not producing young for whatever reason, or they're not actually coming back and are actually being replaced by different species of reef fish."

Hemingson added that this was likely due to colorful fish losing their competitive advantage when reefs lose their color.

"Brightly colored fishes against a really dull, gungy reef stand out a lot more and most likely will have a higher chance of being consumed by predators and things like that."

He said that this relationship was particularly pronounced during times of rapid decline or coral bleaching -- he pointed to a major coral bleaching event in 1988 which prompted a massive decline in brightly colored fish in the following years.

Hemingson hoped the research would highlight the huge cultural and ecological value of both these brightly colored fish and the equally colorful coral that ensures their survival.

"I think it's sort of this first step that shows this is changing, we found evidence that it's changing, and it's probably worth looking into, because a lot of people value reefs for, for this really cool, colorful property." Enditem

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