Sea urchins in Israel's Gulf of Eilat have been dying off at an alarming rate, researchers announced Wednesday – a development that threatens the Red Sea's prized coral reef ecosystems.

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According to Tel Aviv University scientists, an unknown pathogen is killing off the black sea urchin, Diadema setosum. The massive die-off was first observed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in July and gradually spread. It was observed in the northern Gulf of Eilat in January, and researchers have since seen it spread south to the neighboring Red Sea, the scientists said.

The black sea urchin is critical to maintaining a healthy reef habitat. Without them, algae grow unchecked, choking off corals and compromising the delicate balance of the reef ecosystem.

A paper outlining the findings was published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"It's a fast and violent death: within just two days a healthy sea urchin becomes a skeleton with massive tissue loss," said Omri Bronstein, a marine biologist at Tel Aviv University and lead author on a series of papers on the sea urchin deaths.

He added that they have ruled out localized poisoning or pollution, and instead suspect a "rapidly spreading epidemic" caused by an as-yet-unidentified pathogen.

Last month, researchers in the United States identified a single-celled parasite responsible for a similar mass die-off of sea urchins in the Caribbean that has laid waste to reef ecosystems.

The Israeli researchers believe a similar pathogen might also be responsible for killing sea urchins in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and have called for urgent action by the Nature and Park Authority to protect Israel's already endangered reef ecosystems.

"This new outbreak of disease is a grave concern," said Ian Hewson, a professor at Cornell University's Marine Mass Mortality Lab who was not involved in the Tel Aviv University study.

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He added that it "would be interesting to know if the same agent is at work" in the Mediterranean as has been identified killing sea urchins in the Caribbean. "If that is the case it will raise questions about how it is vectored between such geographically separated sites."

The Gulf of Eilat, a branch of the Red Sea shared by Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is home to exquisite coral reefs that scientists believe might be more resilient to warming waters resulting from human-caused climate change.

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Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

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Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.

"When I went there for the first time, I thought, 'Wow – we need to study that reef. There's something special about that reef," said Hédouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.

What struck Hédouin was that the corals looked healthy and weren't affected by a bleaching event in 2019. Corals are tiny animals that grow and form reefs in oceans around the world.

Globally, coral reefs have been depleted from overfishing and pollution. Climate change is also harming delicate corals – including those in areas neighboring the newly discovered reef – with severe bleaching caused by warmer waters. Between 2009 and 2018, 14% of the world's corals were killed, according to a 2020 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Project.

The newfound reef, stretching 2 miles (3 kilometers), was studied late last year during a dive expedition supported by UNESCO. Unlike most of the world's mapped corals, which are found in relatively shallow waters, this one was deeper -- between 115 feet (35 meters) to 230 feet (70 meters).

Exploring such depths posed a challenge: the deeper a diver goes underwater, the shorter amount of time can be safely spent at each depth. The team was equipped with special tanks and did 200 hours of diving to study the reef, including taking photographs, measurements and samples of the coral.

The reef is in a spot where many researchers haven't spent a lot of time in, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Mark Eakin.

"We'll be seeing more of these discoveries as the technology is applied to these locations," said Eakin. "We may find some bigger ones somewhere, but I think this is always going to be an unusual reef."

The recent volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves across the Pacific has not affected the reef off Tahiti, said Hédouin.

Hédouin hopes the research can help experts understand how the reef has been resilient to climate change and human pressures, and what role these deeper corals might play in the ocean ecosystem. More dives are planned in the coming months.

"We know very little about the ocean, and there's still so much that needs to be recorded, needs to be measured," said Julian Barbière, the head of UNESCO's marine policy and regional coordination.

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Australia's government said Tuesday that it would oppose the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) plan to downgrade the status of the Great Barrier Reef following years of climate change-induced damage, reported Deutsche Welle (DW).

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Stretching 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) along Australia's northeast coast, the world's largest coral reef system, a huge draw for tourists, has been battered by global warming.

In the past five years rising ocean temperatures have caused three episodes of mass coral bleaching, when the invertebrates expel the algae living in their tissues that supply a crucial source of nutrients.

The site, which has also been lashed by cyclones and attacked by crown-of-thorns starfish, has lost half its corals since 1995.

In 2015 and 2017, Canberra narrowly avoided having UNESCO put the reef on its endangered list.

Four years on, UNESCO acknowledges the government's efforts to shore up the site but notes that Australia's own outlook for the ecosystem has been downgraded from "poor" to "very poor."

Australian Environmental Minister Sussan Ley protested the move stressing that the country had spent billions of dollars on trying to protect the reef.

"I agree that global climate change is the single biggest threat to the world's reefs but it is wrong, in our view, to single out the best-managed reef in the world for an 'in danger' listing," she said in a statement.

Other top tourist sites in danger of losing their World Heritage status include Venice, Budapest, Liverpool, and the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania.

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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A year and a half ago, the 300-meter (1,000-foot) -long beach was handed back to the public after the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company (EAPC), whose facilities are gated off and subject to military secrecy, scaled back its operations.

Scientists found a magical undersea world of unspoiled corals and schools of fish.

Faced with huge visitor interest in the virgin site, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority decided to relocate the corals for their own protection so the industrial debris left by EAPC could be removed.

"The most complicated part of opening this beach is preserving the wealth of species in this unique spot, while still allowing the public to enjoy the natural treasure," said Assaf Habary, manager of the Eilat region for the nature authority.

Coral reefs are home to an estimated 25% of all marine life. They are under threat worldwide by climate change, pollution and unregulated fishing and tourism, so saving each piece is important.

"There are hundreds of colonies of coral that we need to relocate, one by one, delicately," Habary said.

Watched by a passing dolphin, he and his teammate used hammers and chisels to gently chip the richly colored corals off cement barrels and pipes half-buried in the seabed. Enough tapping at the base of the coral and it simply peels off.

The collection of corals, ranging from the size of a baseball to a basketball, were then floated down the shore and placed on a natural, hard surface they would hopefully adopt as their new home.

Roughly one-quarter of coral reefs worldwide are already considered damaged beyond repair, with another two-thirds under serious threat, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

In Eilat, however, aquatic life seems to be bucking the global trend. Scientists have found coral here can tolerate unusually large rises in temperature, while those elsewhere are turning white and dying as oceans warm.

They believe the corals that settled thousands of years ago in the northern Red Sea had to pass through a narrow strait of warmer water that acted as a thermal barrier, ensuring they are more resilient to temperature increases.

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