As Coral-Feeding Fish Starve, They Kill Weakened Sections Of Great Barrier Reef - AAP

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"There's a whole suite of coral-feeding fish and during normal conditions, they don't kill the reef," Dr Pratchett told AAP. "However, during periods of stress on the reef, they do contribute to excess mortality among corals. "The typical example is when you have coral bleaching and the coral is already experiencing reduced energy reserves and then as the fish continue to feed on them it imposes a further energetic cost."

Dr Pratchett said that butterfly fish, which are the main group of coral-feeding fish, had all but disappeared from some sections of the central Great Barrier Reef. "We are already looking closely at one particular species, which is a really specialised butterfly fish which could face a really high extinction risk as a consequence of ongoing bleaching," Dr Pratchett said.

"It's already happened in some locations, that's for sure. Even in the central Great Barrier Reef during the bleaching that happened in 2001 and 2002, this one species, which is the chevron butterfly fish, disappeared entirely."

Their recovery had been so slow that only a few chevron butterfly fish had been seen in the region in the last year, he said. It was just another indication of the effects of global warming, he said. "It's getting more and more serious and just another one of the stories that show we need to respond to climate change.

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http://news.theage.com.au/national/starving-fish-killing-great-barrier-reef-20080623-2v8o.html