Conservation and Threats
This species is generally not collected for the aquarium trade1, although it is apparently easy to keep in an aquarium2. Although it has no known threats, it has only been recorded from a few restricted locations in Australia. Hence it could be vulnerable to disturbances that occur within its range, or if harvesting for the aquarium trade were to begin1. It also hosts symbiotic zooxanthellae, of which a chronic loss has been suggested to weaken the cnidarian metabolism, and may eventually lead to reduced fitness and death3. Hence, elevated temperature stress which is known to affect the photosynthetic machinery and hence elicit zooxanthellae to be expelled from cnidarians may also affect sea anemones.
1Wallace & Richards 2007
2Erhardt & Knop 2005
3Merle et al. 2007
4Perez, Cook & Brooks 2001 |