Professor Andrew Baird presented a seminar at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies on the Topic “When does coral taxonomy matter?” The full talk is available to watch at the link below. https://youtu.be/J_tWYYP_gH8
News
2022 Lizard Island Critical Research Grant award to Project Phoenix members
Andrew Baird, Tom Bridge, Pete Cowman and Josh Madin have just been awarded the 2022 Lizard Island Critical Research Grant to re-visit the taxonomy of the reef-building corals of Lizard Island, Australia. For an excellent summary of the project by Dr Anne Hoggett, co-director of the Lizard Island Research Station, see the link below. https://lirrf.org/2022-critical-research-grant-awarded/ The … Continue reading 2022 Lizard Island Critical Research Grant award to Project Phoenix members
FY2022 JSPS Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan
Professor Andrew Baird from James Cook University has been awarded a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Long-Term Invitation Fellowship. The purpose of the programme is to invite overseas researchers with excellent track records to collaborate with Japanese colleagues. Andrew will spend four months with his host, Dr Saki Harii, at the Tropical … Continue reading FY2022 JSPS Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan
Coral mass spawning explained
Author: Andrew Baird *This article was originally written for the Norfolk Island's Reef website. As adults, corals are sedentary or sessile animals, meaning that they are attached to the ocean floor. One consequence of being sessile is that they cannot move to find a mate with which to reproduce. When the time comes to breed … Continue reading Coral mass spawning explained
New paper: Solving the Coral Species Delimitation Conundrum
Catalina Ramírez-Portilla and colleagues from Project Phoenix have just published a paper in Systematic Biology titled Solving the Coral Species Delimitation Conundrum. In this case study, the authors focused on delineating tabular Acropora species in Okinawa (Japan) using morphology, cross-breeding trials and DNA sequences. Tabular Acropora spp. are notoriously difficult to identify, a phenomenon that … Continue reading New paper: Solving the Coral Species Delimitation Conundrum
Review for Coral Finder 2021
Coral Finder 2021 (CF2021) is a significant milestone for all those interested in coral identification. For the first time since the molecular revolution threw coral taxonomy into a state of chaos, there is now a guide that summarises all the changes at the family and genus level in a single publication. Russell Kelley, author of … Continue reading Review for Coral Finder 2021
Wepfer et al. (2021) have now written a reply to Bonito et al. (2021)
You can access the reply here. They accept that their work will need to be repeated using the approach outlined in Bonito et al. 2021 i.e. test all nominal species in the genus Galaxea using vouchered topotypes. Knowing where to look for topotypes will soon become much easier once Project Phoenix finish compiling a nomenclature for the … Continue reading Wepfer et al. (2021) have now written a reply to Bonito et al. (2021)
Workshop on the use of nomenclatures in taxonomy
Author: Andrew Baird The Project Phoenix Townsville + Sydney + Perth crew ran a workshop on the use of nomenclatures in taxonomy on 19th February 2021. The workshop outlined how to put together a useful nomenclature and how to use a nomenclature to progress coral taxonomy. The bottom line is that working within the “accepted” … Continue reading Workshop on the use of nomenclatures in taxonomy
Changing coral taxonomy: What can we do in the meantime?
Author: Hanaka Mera As a PhD student, if someone told me that the species I am working with (or planning on) for my research project actually might be something entirely different or might be five different species, it would be quite overwhelming, maybe feel a bit devastated. This could be true for any researcher or … Continue reading Changing coral taxonomy: What can we do in the meantime?
Types, topotypes and vouchers are the key to progress in coral taxonomy: Comment on Wepfer et al. (2020)
Victor Bonito, Andrew Baird, Tom Bridge, Peter Cowman, and Doug Fenner recently published a Letter to the Editor on Wepfer et al. (2020) re-iterating why the current accepted coral taxonomy is not the place to begin when examining species boundaries or evolutionary relationships in scleractinian corals. They highlighted how the taxonomic value of the study … Continue reading Types, topotypes and vouchers are the key to progress in coral taxonomy: Comment on Wepfer et al. (2020)
Project Phoenix 