Congratulation to Hanaka Mera and colleagues for a paper just published in Coral Reefs that should be of interest to everyone working on coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef. The paper is published with open access and can be viewed here. The paper explored coral spawning patterns using over 30 years of direct coral … Continue reading New Paper: “Patterns of coral spawning in the Palm Islands, Great Barrier Reef”
News
New paper: “The tables have turned: taxonomy, systematics and biogeography of the Acropora hyacinthus (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) complex”
In 2020 when Project Phoenix launched this website, we promised a revolution and thanks to some excellent work led by Dr Sage Rassmussen, we have just delivered with a taxonomic revision of the Acropora hyacinthus species complex (Rassmussen et al. 2025). To quote the singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman and to paraphrase the title of the paper published in … Continue reading New paper: “The tables have turned: taxonomy, systematics and biogeography of the Acropora hyacinthus (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) complex”
New paper: “Identity of Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) (Scleractinia, Acroporidae)”
In a new open access paper in Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies, Nomura et al. (2024) redescribe Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) through reference to the type material and field specimens from Japan, and revisit the taxonomic status of morphologically similar species through comparison of the type material. Due to the poor taxonomic resolution of current molecular markers in … Continue reading New paper: “Identity of Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) (Scleractinia, Acroporidae)”
Shedding light on the dark diversity of corals
A new article is available at the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation website summarising what we found in our recent project: https://lirrf.org/shedding-light-on-the-dark-diversity-of-corals/ Related article: https://coralprojectphoenix.org/2024/06/11/taxonomy-of-the-reef-building-corals-of-lizard-island/
Taxonomy of the reef-building corals of Lizard Island
Project Phoenix has just submitted a final report for funding received from the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation. Preliminary results of the research into the taxonomy of the reef-building corals of Lizard Island indicate that species richness in many groups of stony coral is 4-5 times higher than previously recognised, largely due to an extraordinary … Continue reading Taxonomy of the reef-building corals of Lizard Island
A big win for citizen science in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories Marine Parks
A citizen science project in the Indian Ocean Territories (IOT) Marine Parks funded by Parks Australia has just produced some novel and important data to assist in the conservation and management of the IOT. Following a training workshop run by Professor Andrew Baird and Dr Jean-Paul Hobbs from James Cook University on Christmas Island in … Continue reading A big win for citizen science in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories Marine Parks
New paper on Montipora fauna of Daito Islands in Okinawa
A new open access article describing the Montipora fauna of the remote Daito Islands in Okinawa, Japan is now available online at Fauna Ryukyuana. The fauna includes M. stalagmites Ortmann, 1888, the first record of this species since its original description.
Public talk on Magnetic Island, Australia
Andrew Baird will be giving a presentation on the Corals of Magnetic Island on Thursday 2nd November 2023 at 18:30 at the Magnetic Island Brewery, Picnic Bay. The talk is free and free return tickets on the ferry are available from Sealink. Please contact andrew.baird[at]jcu.edu.au if you would like to take advantage of the ferry tickets.
New paper: “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’(Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.”
Author: Andrew Baird The team at Project Phoenix has just published a paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society titled “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’ (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.” The paper is open access and available here. In the words of one of the reviewers, "This … Continue reading New paper: “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’(Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.”
Interview article with ABC on recent Ningaloo Project
Check out this recent ABC article by Peter de Kruijff on Project Phoenix’s recent project, assessing the biodiversity of coral on the Ningaloo Reef. Thank you Peter and ABC for this opportunity!
Project Phoenix 