The world's largest coral reef system, stretching along Australia's Queensland coast and home to diverse marine life studied for ecology and conservation.
Researcher David Schoeman warns a record El Niño could flip parts of the Great Barrier Reef to seaweed after six bleaching events in ten years. Warming now brings bleaching even in cooler La Niña years, he says, so corals get less time to recover between events.
Reality
Australian Institute of Marine Science biologists re-identified 31 black teatfish by DNA after 24 years and estimate the species can live more than 120 years. Adults barely grow, so a teatfish's size reveals little about the age of an endangered animal still prized as a delicacy.
Reality
University of the Sunshine Coast researchers call it the first detailed description of kleptoparasitism in any cetacean. The evidence is one identifiable animal across 20 logged encounters in four years, and no one has measured the energy saving.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
A University of Sydney survey of coral feeding scars on the Great Barrier Reef found crown-of-thorns starfish moving on before a colony died, with regrowth concentrated in the slow-growing corals Montipora and Porites.
Reality
Up to 37 years of monitoring on seven Queensland river systems show nitrogen and sediment falling. Fertilizer use is down as much as 49 percent from its peak; the rivers moved a lot less.
Reality
The GCRMN's 2025 assessment, built on more than 21 million observations, puts global hard coral cover down 9.5% and the interval between bleaching events at five to six years, short enough that the next hit lands before a recovery finishes.
Reality
A 78-day playback experiment on Great Barrier Reef spiny chromis separates the window that stunted growth from the one that broke escape responses, which is what makes vessel traffic a lever managers can pull.
Reality