CURTIN University researchers believe rising sea temperatures are to blame for the plummeting number of invertebrates such as molluscs and sea urchins at Rottnest Island off Western Australia, with some species having declined by up to 90 per cent between 2007 and 2021.
A parasite that devastated long-spined sea urchins in the Caribbean and Florida in 2022 has caused another die-off more than 7,000 miles away in the Sea of Oman.