The UN Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( IPBES ) is completing its Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.  Compiled by 145 expert authors from over 50 countries with inputs from another 310 contributors, it is based on a review of around 15,000 scientific and government sources and is expected to exceed […]

If you have spent any time exploring healthy coral reefs, you will have seen clouds of small fish hovering above and then darting into branching corals as you swim past. The fish clearly benefit from the protection offered by the coral branches, retreating to cover whenever they are threatened by predators. It is already well […]

Scientific publications based on field work at the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station show the quality and scope of its science.   The Station’s 2018 Report lists 107 such publications from that year – all written or closely supervised by eminent scientists, and most published in leading peer-reviewed journals. Here we highlight 15 subject […]

The Lizard Island Research Station 2018 Report is available here (PDF 4.9 MB). The Report is set out under the following headings, showing donors how their funds are being put to good use: Welcome: Messages from Australian Museum Director & CEO Kim McKay and myself. (page 1) 2018 in review: Research Station Directors Lyle Vail […]

This is a story of a unique data set quantifying the relationship between the loss of adult corals and new coral recruitment. It is reported in Terry P Hughes et al Global warming impairs stock-recruitment dynamics of corals. Recruitment occurs when tiny coral larvae transition from their open-water zooplankton stage and settle. Once settled, they […]

On coral reefs, tiny cleaner fish and shrimps remove parasites from large fish “clients”. The cleaners obtain nourishment by eating the parasites.  Although some clients are fearsome predators, the cleaners are rarely prey.   Scientific studies of this remarkable relationship provide insight into behaviour for mutual benefits, how it could be employed in aquaculture, and […]

  This book describes the animals, plants and other organisms of the reef, and the biological, chemical and physical processes that influence them. It also has chapters on shelf slopes, fisheries, climate change, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, coral disease, seabirds, invasive species and much more. Pat Hutchings led the editorial team. She is a Senior Fellow […]

My colleagues and I are researching how plastic consumption may affect the transition (recruitment) that fish make from an open water (pelagic) existence to settlement in a coral reef community. Microplastics have been found in the digestive tracts of juvenile coral trout caught at Lizard Island.  It is likely fish misidentify these particles as a potential food […]