Crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS: Acanthaster spp.) remain one of the foremost causes of coral mortality on coral reefs throughout the Indo West-Pacific, and recurrent population irruptions compound upon other major disturbances, especially climate-induced coral bleaching. Renewed scientific and management interest in CoTS stems from both the initiation of new and renewed population irruptions and sustained degradation of coral...

The ecological effects of high densities of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS, Acanthaster spp.) are driven by their cumulative feeding pressure on coral assemblages, making accurate predictions of feeding impacts essential for management. Despite this, a limited understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of feeding behaviour, and the environmental and biological drivers underlying them constrains our capacity to predict feedin...

Effective monitoring of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) populations and coral cover is critical for informing management of COTS outbreaks throughout their tropical Indo-Pacific range, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. However, existing monitoring tools such as manta tow and cull diver surveys have well-known limitations including accuracy and resource demands. This study evaluates a range of monitoring tools for asses...

The Great Barrier Reef, like most reef ecosystems, is increasingly subject to major acute disturbances, including population irruptions of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) and climate-induced coral bleaching. Given their increasing incidence, acute disturbances are likely to occur simultaneously or successively, though interactive effects of major disturbances are generally unknown. This study explores changes in the feeding be...

Despite extensive research on the western Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS; Acanthaster cf. solaris ), especially from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), there are persistent knowledge gaps that constrain understanding and management. Given renewed population irruptions of CoTS on the GBR, alongside escalating climate impacts and direct anthropogenic pressures, a quantitative assessment of knowledge gaps was undertake...

Coral reefs in the Persian/Arabian Gulf (PAG) are subject to extreme heat stress. Moreover, effects of temperature-induced bleaching on local coral assemblages are being further compounded by coral disease. This manuscript explores taxonomic and seasonal variation in disease prevalence, at Ras Ghanada, Abu Dhabi, from 2010 to 2024. Thirty-two image-based surveys were conducted across winter, spring, and summer seasons which lo...

Limited detectability of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) undermines the capacity to survey and manage population irruptions, though few studies have considered the factors that influence detectability. This study explores spatiotemporal variation in detectability of CoTS during emerging population irruptions in four regions of the Northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR), by comparing recorded densities based on the number of CoTS si...

Approximately half a billion people engage in recreational fishing, and are estimated to capture at least 10 million tons of fish annually, equivalent to 12% of the global fish catch. However, the recreational fishing sector can be difficult to monitor due to the lack of mandatory reporting of catch and participation. Australia, where one in five adults, or 4.2 million people, participate in recreational fishing annually, high...

Here, we provide the first in situ observations of foraging habitats of Chaetodon daedalma, which is endemic to the subtropical north‐west Pacific. Overall, 62.4% of bites were from the substratum, 30.7% from scleractinian corals, 3.3% from crustose coralline algae, 2.1% from macroalgae, and 1.2% from hydroids. The range in the percentage of bites taken from scleractinian corals among individuals was 0%–76%, and no fish fed ex...

Densities of juvenile corals (≤ 50 mm diameter) are expected to vary between geographically isolated and more spatially proximate reefs, and may constrain local recovery potential. This study compared juvenile coral densities and their relationships with local abundance of adult congenerics at geographically isolated reefs within Australia’s Coral Sea Marine Park (CSMP) versus highly connected reefs within the Great Barrier Re...

Crown-of-thorns seastar (CoTS, Acanthaster cf. solaris ) outbreaks remain a significant cause of coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and across the West-Pacific Ocean. Previous outbreaks on the GBR have only been discovered once fully established, which constrains opportunities for effective control. Early detection of outbreaks would provide an important opportunity for early intervention and increase understanding of...

Coral-eating crown-of-thorns seastars (CoTS, Acanthaster spp.) are major contributors to the coral reef crises across the Indo-Pacific region. Until recently, CoTS throughout the Indo-Pacific were regarded to be a single species, Acanthaster planci . However, genetic and morphological analyses demonstrated that there are at least four distinct species: Acanthaster benziei in the Red Sea, Acanthaster mauritiensis and A. planci...

There are a wide variety of fishes that occur exclusively on coral reefs, though it is unclear to what extent these species (especially larger-bodied fisheries target species) are reliant on the specific reef habitat provided by corals. This study explored variation in the physiological condition of common coral trout (Plecropomus leopardus) on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, explicitly testing whether fish condition varied wi...

Universal Adaptive Strategy Theory aims to predict how taxa and assemblages respond to disturbances on the basis of adaptive strategy group (ASG) membership. Here, we test such predictions using the adaptive strategy scheme for reef-building corals developed by Darling et al. (Ecol Lett 15:1378–1386, 2012) and a long-term dataset of coral assemblage structure from inshore reefs on the central Great Barrier Reef. Several distur...

Nearly a billion people depend on tropical seascapes. The need to ensure sustainable use of these vital areas is recognised, as one of 17 policy commitments made by world leaders, in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 (‘Life below Water’) of the United Nations. SDG 14 seeks to secure marine sustainability by 2030. In a time of increasing social-ecological unpredictability and risk, scientists and policymakers working toward...

Scientists and managers rely on indicator taxa such as coral and macroalgal cover to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on coral reefs, often assuming a universally positive relationship between local human disturbance and macroalgae. Despite evidence that macroalgae respond to local stressors in diverse ways, there have been few efforts to evaluate relationships between specific macroalgae taxa and local human‐driven d...

Ocean warming and population irruptions of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS; Acanthaster cf. solaris ) are two of the greatest threats to coral reefs. As such, there is significant interest in understanding how CoTS may be directly impacted by rising ocean temperatures. Settlement of planktonic larvae and subsequent metamorphosis is purported to be a major population bottleneck in marine invertebrates, yet it is unknown how ocea...

Coral reef fishes often exhibit specific or restricted depth distributions, but the factors (biotic or abiotic) that influence patterns of depth use are largely unknown. Given inherent biological gradients with depth (i.e. light, nutrients, habitat, temperature), it is expected that fishes may exploit certain depths within their environment to seek out more favourable conditions. This study used baited remote underwater video...

Population irruptions of Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish ( Acanthaster cf. solaris ) have caused substantial damage to coral reefs, but it is largely unknown how this asteroid will fare in a warmer ocean. We exposed these starfish to one of four thermal treatments, with final temperatures of 26 °C (control, annual average), 28 °C (summer average), 30 °C (summer maximum) and 32 °C (predicted summer maximum by 2100). We measure...