Advancing knowledge of life on the reef

With so many reef habitats and species under threat around the world, it is important to do the science while we still can.

The Great Barrier Reef is under threat from rising sea temperatures, increasingly frequent and severe tropical storms, adverse changes in water quality, periodic explosions in Crown-of-Thorns Starfish populations and illegal fishing.

Science informs efforts to save, restore, preserve and conserve the Reef. Most research projects at Lizard Island Research Station (LIRS) contribute in this direction. Some of the projects conducted at LIRS are directly related to environmental management, such as those that explore ways of mitigating predation by Crown-of-Thorns Starfish on corals. Long-term studies are also very important because they provide data that enables valid comparison between past and present, and evidence for predictions of the future.

Science provides important information on the causes and effects of climate change and how these major threats are affecting coral reefs. It is also advancing knowledge of coral resilience and recovery, how best to manage it, and how other species will be affected by further coral loss, deterioration in water quality, rising sea levels, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, ocean acidification, nutrient and silt runoff from mainland agriculture and land development, overfishing and other critical factors.

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