2017 – a year of further bleaching and hope for recovery January 2017: Greg Torda’s proposed research on ability of corals to adapt or acclimatise to higher sea temperatures was outlined in Coral recovery – basis for hope. Daniela Ceccareli and Zoe Richards were counting survivors. February: Archaeological studies at Lizard Island provide a baseline […]
Archives for December 2017
Closing COTS knowledge gaps
Professor Morgan Pratchett is a leading researcher on the Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS). In our 2014 LIRRF donor update he outlined knowledge gaps relating to COTS. That year we received a $500,000 Commemorative Grant from The Ian Potter Foundation for research to improve ability to control coral-killing outbreaks. The goal was to make a […]
2017 Publications
Publication is vital in science. It invokes the quality assurance of peer review and shares the research with everyone. Projects at Lizard Island are rarely ready for publication when the scientists leave the island. There is always more work to be done back in their home institutions, analysing samples and data, incorporating other research, consulting […]
Marine research helps human vision
A device inspired by Lizard Island research identifies susceptibility to age-related macular degeneration. It prompts actions to reduce the chance of blindness later in life. Dr Shelby Temple was awarded a 2012 Yulgilbar Fellowship to study polarised vision. His work at at the Lizard Island Research Station required apparatus that displayed pattens of polarised light. […]
Stylasterid corals
Stylasteridae (“lace corals”) are a family of hydroids, closely related to stony corals in the phylum Cnidaria. They and one other hydroid family, Milleporidae (“fire corals” ) have a hard, calcareous skeleton. Globally, some 330 stylasterid species have been described. They have unusual characteristics. Unlike fire corals and many other corals on the Great Barrier Reef, stylasterids […]
In praise of taxonomy
In biology, taxonomy is the science of describing, identifying, naming and classifying organisms. Without taxonomy, scientific communication about the living world would be almost meaningless, because there are millions of species and no other practical way of specifying exactly which animal, plant, bacteria, fungus, virus or other organism is being referred to. Taxonomy makes many important […]
Climate links
[ Updated in November 2018 ] Marine scientists at the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station do not study climate directly. However, many of their research projects examine the impact of cyclones and surges in sea temperature, and how life on the Reef will be affected by increasing CO2 emissions, ocean acidification and rising sea levels. They know […]