WWII wreck turned into a reef in the Red Sea

Was a merchant vessel, now is a reefobject of study of the scientific community. But also divers who enjoy exploring the seabed. It was in fact by combining the interest of the former with the availability of the latter that a team of Italian researchers from theUniversity of Bologna has managed to photograph, over time, the marine community that inhabits the Thistlegormthe British merchant ship sunk in WWII bound for Alexandria on her last voyage. The results of this collaboration have recently been published on Plos One and they are important for understanding how reef life evolves over time.

The premise of the researchers, in fact, is that natural and artificial reefs they look alike. Studying one allows you to have some information on the others and those of the Red Sea, although very famous, are less studied than others, the experts explain. Even the evolution of reefs over time, especially the artificial ones, is little known. This is why, in an attempt to build a wealth of knowledge useful for the conservation of reefs, especially in the light of the challenges posed by climate change, the researchers monitored the community formed by the species that inhabit the merchant ship.

They did so by pooling the observations of some different of the “Scuba Tourism for the Environment” project collected between 2007 and 2014, i.e. by collecting data both regarding the characteristics of the dive – such as duration and temperatures – and above all the sightings due to the presence and abundance of about seventy animal species, thanks to the use of some questionnaires. The species chosen, the authors explain, were both representative of the ecosystem and easy to identify. And, not least, the wreck of the Thistlegorm, a 30 meters deepis a very fascinating destination for divers: this means that it is not difficult to find those who want to visit it, unfortunately the risk is the opposite, that is, that too many visitors endanger its survival, damaging it.

Putting together the data collected, the researchers observed that during the 8 years of monitoring virtually all identified target species had been observed (only manta rays were the exception), albeit with some year-to-year variation. Among the most variable species, the authors mention the soft corals Dendronephthya, there giant morayi squirrel fishThe clownfish and the napoleon fish. But overall the marine community around the wreck is stable, which leads the authors to state that the old merchant ship could become a sort of refuge for the species of the Red Sea, meaning the word refuge from a marine conservation perspective.