刺冠海星更喜欢吃长得快的物种。
The faster-growing species are the preferred food of the CoT starfish.
刺冠海星通常生活在聚居的环境中。
Crown of thorns starfish normally live in high population densities.
刺冠海星更偏好分枝的珊瑚。
刺冠海星是一种以珊瑚虫为食的珊瑚礁捕食者。
The crown of thorns starfish is a coral reef predator that preys on coral polyps.
一只棘冠海星每年可以吃掉5到6平方米的珊瑚虫。
A single Acanthaster can consume five to six square meters of coral polyps per year.
刺冠海星生活在热带太平洋的珊瑚礁上，以珊瑚为食。
The Cot starfish is found on coral reefs in the tropical Pacific Ocean and it eats coral.
幸运的是，刺冠海星的数量渐渐地自发减少了，珊瑚礁也恢复了。
Luckily, the CoT starfish population gradually declined on its own and the reefs recovered.
棘冠海星很大，直径长达25到35厘米，有7到21条手臂，上面布满了刺。
The crown of thorns starfish is large, twenty-five to thirty-five centimeters in diameter, and has seven to twenty-one arms that are covered in spines.
例如在20世纪60年代，在澳大利亚东海岸的大堡礁，刺冠海星的数量暴增。
For example, during the 1960s, there was an outbreak of CoT starfish in the Great Barrier Reef, off the east coast of Australia.
很难理解捕食减少是如何导致在特定年份的同一时间内，几个地方的棘冠海星数量突然增加。
It is difficult to understand how reduced predation would lead to sudden increases in Acanthaster numbers in several places at the same time in specific years.
现在，让我们来看一个自然捕食者的具体例子，它会对珊瑚礁造成很大的伤害——那就是刺冠海星。
Now let's focus on a specific example of a natural predator that can cause a lot of damage to coral reefs—the Crown of Thorns, or CoT starfish.
当刺冠海星爆发时，它们会使快速生长的珊瑚变薄，并可能给生长缓慢的珊瑚一个重新生长的机会。
When an outbreak of CoT starfish occurs, they thin out the fast-growing coral and may give the slower ones a chance to reestablish.
还有人认为，捕捞棘冠海星的脊椎动物和无脊椎动物捕食者可以降低死亡率、增加成年个体的数量。
Others have suggested that the harvesting of vertebrate and invertebrate predators of Acanthaster could have reduced mortality and caused increased abundance of adults.
有一种假说认为，这是一种自然现象；在特别适合产卵的那几年后，刺冠海星自然会经历种群数量的波动。
One hypothesis is that it's a natural phenomenon, that the starfish naturally undergo population fluctuations following particularly good spawning years.
年幼的刺冠海星在出生后的第一个月就以浮游植物为食，所以海洋中肥料越多，浮游植物就越多，也意味着海星越多，这对珊瑚礁非常不利。
Larval CoT starfish eat phytoplankton in their first month of life, so more fertilizer in the ocean means more phytoplankton, which means more starfish, bad for the reefs.
其他对于大堡礁及其生态系统的环境压力来自径流的水质问题，伴随着大规模珊瑚白化的气候变化以及棘冠海星的周期性爆发现象。
Other environmental pressures to the reef and its ecosystem include water quality from runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish.
棘冠星鱼会捕食珊瑚虫，大量的海星会摧毁珊瑚。
The crown-of-thorns starfish preys on coral and large outbreaks of these starfish can devastate reefs.
棘冠星鱼会捕食珊瑚虫，大量的海星会摧毁珊瑚。
The crown-of-thorns starfish preys on coral and large outbreaks of these starfish can devastate reefs.
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