Professor Mark McCormick runs the Coral Reef Ecology Laboratory at JCU.  He and his students often use the facilities of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station for their field research. One of Mark’s major areas of interest is fish/habitat interactions and the influence of habitat degradation on fish communities. Cyclones, the Crown of Thorns […]

This post lists some of the scientists and research projects utilizing the facilities of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station this year.  A complete list will be published as part of the Station’s full 2017 Report. The results from most of these projects will be published in scientific journals.  For prior years, see Publications […]

Death is the end of growth. But not all corals die when a reef is subject to bleaching conditions. This story is about survivors and a scientist – Kristin Anderson King PhD.   Kristen’s research focuses on three important species of branching coral – Acropora muricata, Pocillopora damicornis and Isopora palifera.  It explores the complex […]

When thinking about coral loss and recovery, it helps to have a sense of time and a sense of urgency. Time began about 13.5 billion years ago.  The first organisms were formed in the sea around 3.8 billions years ago. Corals have existed for over 500 million years, through periods of glaciation, global warming and […]

Scientists  conducted detailed surveys of fish and coral around Lizard Island in 2011, 2015 and 2017. By counting surviving species, they quantify the impact of the major detrimental events that occurred in this period.  Such detailed multi-year site-specific species-specific surveys of wild fish and coral are quite rare. The data will inform reef management and conservation. These surveys were funded by LIRRF Fellowship […]

There is lots to see and study at Lizard Island, despite loss of coral as a result of the 2016 bleaching. The images in this post were captured in Nov-Dec 2016 and Jan 2017.  Further bleaching occurred in March 2017, but if you were to visit today you would still find these and many other species and […]

In calendar year 2016, 124 scientists used facilities of the Lizard Island Research Station to conduct 106 field research projects. They came from leading research institutions in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.  We are fortunate to have so many contributions to our understanding of the Reef and its myriad species. See full list. The […]

The Lizard Island Research Station currently holds 2,062 scientific publications in its Shuetrim Library. Each year over 100 new publications are added to this collection. All are based on field research conducted at the Station.  See Publications & Projects for the complete catalogue. This remarkable concentration of local knowledge spans decades, and is reflected in the Lizard […]

I am a PhD candidate in Archaeology at JCU.  I have recently completed a 4.5 month internship at the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station that enabled me to gain valuable professional development skills as well as conduct research for my PhD project. Preparation for my research included consultations with Dingaal Traditional Elders, internships at […]

Dr Greg Torda has been awarded LIRRF’s John & Laurine Proud Fellowship to study population genomics of coral recovery at Lizard Island following the 2016 bleaching events. He is interested in understanding how quickly corals adapt (genetically) or acclimatise (non-genetically) to changes in their environment, and whether they will be able to keep pace with climate change.  His research […]