Mitigating the devastating effects of coral eating Crown of Thorns Starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris , aka CoTS) has been the focus of 21 LIRS based projects over the past 5 years. This extensive and collective research has been funded by the generous $500,000 grants program donated by The Ian Potter Foundation 50th Anniversary Commemorative Grant in […]
Archives for September 2020
Nooks, crannies and critters
Drawing on field work conducted at the Lizard Island Research Station, a large team of ecologists and engineers has developed a relatively simple way to standardize how habitat complexity is measured. The research, recently published in Nature, Ecology and Evolution, begins with a simple insight: places with lots of nooks and crannies contain lots of […]
Going to the LIMIT on Lizard Island: the impact of ecological disturbance on coral reef metabolism
By Tyler Cyronak Lizard Island is one of the few sites in the world where a long-term historical study of coral reef metabolism can be conducted. Historical measurements of reef photosynthesis and calcification date back to 1975 when the Lizard Island Metabolic Exchange on Reefs (LIMER) expedition first measured reef metabolism by following dye patches […]