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 […]

The Lizard Island Research Station is part of the Australian Museum Research Institute. Professor Kris Helgen has been appointed Chief Scientist and Director of AMRI. Prior to this appointment he was Curator in Charge of Mammals at the Smithsonian.  He has great knowledge of biodiversity and remains optimistic for the future of our natural world. […]

Recovery of coral growth rates and reef carbonate budget after severe bleaching events at Lizard Island Corals are the building blocks of remarkably diverse ecosystems, housing thousands of reef fish and associated organisms, but are extremely sensitive to anthropogenic stressors, such as ocean warming. The corals at Lizard Island experienced heat stress in unprecedented back-to-back […]

We’ve previously written about research conducted in the waters around Lizard Island on Mantis Shrimps, a group of marine crustaceans called stomatopods.  In fact over the past 3 decades there has been extensive sampling of stomatopods in the Lizard region providing a good baseline of species richness.  The Lizard Island Field Guide currently documents 28 […]

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 […]

Around this time of year, LIRS co-directors usually attend our Foundation’s Sydney and Melbourne dinners, updating our supporters on research undertaken at the Station. With LIRS closed to researchers since mid-March, Dr Anne Hoggett and Dr Lyle Vail join us by video, sharing their observations of recent bleaching and coral recovery around Lizard Island. This […]

Newly settled crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris, aka CoTS) have rarely been studied in the field. This knowledge gap in our understanding of CoTS population and outbreak dynamics has been my research focus for the past several years. My interest developed when I worked for two years on GBRMPA’s CoTS control program, where I taught […]

The Lizard Island Research Station’s 2019 Report is available here.  It includes 2019 in review by resident Directors Lyle Vail & Anne Hoggett; Visitors in 2019: details of the 106 visiting researchers and their projects;  Publications: Titles and citations for the 88 new scientific papers based on LI research that were added to the collection […]

In early 2020, the Great Barrier Reef suffered its third major coral bleaching event in five years due to heat stress.  At Lizard Island, bleaching first became noticeable in mid-February. February is normally “wet season”, with clouds and rain that keep the sea temperature down despite the tropical summer heat. But this year, the weather […]