We are excited to be coordinating an upcoming special issue of Coral Reefs titled, ‘Functional studies on coral reefs: insights from a changing world’. This issue will focus on the study of ecosystem functions (i.e. the movement or storage of energy or material) on coral reefs. The study of functions/processes on coral reefs provides a language that transcends time and space, allowing us to understand and compare reefs over evolutionary timescales, across biogeographic realms, and among taxonomic groups. Indeed, in a world that is changing fast, one of the primary challenges for coral reef sc ..read more

  Our Post Doc alumna Dr Sharon Wismer has just published her first kids’ book “Keepers of the Reef” illustrated by Alice Wong.   The book summarizes much of Sharon’s and our lab’s research about the important jobs that herbivorous fishes perform on coral reefs. But frankly, it does so in a far more beautiful and inspiring way than we have ever managed :) The book follows two young kids exploring the Great Barrier Reef in beautifully detailed watercolor illustrations. “When children discover the wonders of the natural world, they become fascinated and curious, and this often spark ..read more

    End of March is graduation season at James Cook Uni in Townsville! Biggest congratulations to all the students who graduated from their various degrees! This year, we're proud to celebrate a total of 9 amazing scientists, who are our Function Hub colleagues. Get to know them here and see some impressions from the day.   The proud graduates of 2022 A total of 9 Reef Function Hubbers graduated from their different degrees this year! Congratulations to these brand-new Doctors! Congratulations Dr Victor Huertas and congratulations Dr Chris Hemingson! Well done, Doctors! It ha ..read more

New Paper: Are fish communities on coral reefs becoming less colourful? by Christopher Hemingson, Michalis Mihalitsis, and David Bellwood, published now in Global Change Biology Coral reef fishes display a striking array of colours. For many reef fish ecologists we work with, it may have been these colours that sealed the deal on choosing their career paths.   Watch Chris talk about his research in the video below, or read on to find out more…   Coral reefs and their fishes are famous and admired for being exceptionally colourful. Across biology, the body-colours of animals are oft ..read more

New paper: Dangerous demographics in post-bleach corals reveal boom-bust versus protracted declines. by Juliano Morais, Renato Morais, Sterling Tebbett, Morgan Pratchett and David Bellwood, published now in Scientific Reports   This reef looks pretty with its high coral cover! But is this what a “recovered”, healthy reef looks like? photo: RP Streit   Coral reefs are beautiful. But especially in recent years many people have mostly heard about one thing that coral reefs seem to be doing: dying. But what’s really going on with corals on reefs? In particular since 2016 “coral bleachi ..read more

     In March 2021 we presented the inaugural annual Reef Function Hub Awards: The Howard Choat Award for Outstanding Mentorship The Best Publication Award The Mentorship Award is named in honour of Emeritus Prof. Howard Choat whose mentorship underpinned the global leadership of Marine Biology at James Cook University, and who, to this day, continues to mentor scientists of the future. The Mentorship Award is based on peer voting. Everyone in the lab can vote for everyone else. This award is designed to recognize lab members who have made outstanding contributions to a collabo ..read more

  The twinspot goby (Signigobius biocellatus) is a wearer of prominent eyespots on coral reefs. Many fishes show these patterns - but how did they evolve? Photo: R. Streit Coral reefs are well known for their exceptional diversity of various colours and patterns. Each unique colouration provides certain fitness costs and benefits to its bearers. Thus, understanding the factors that shape these costs and benefits has remained a key interest to researchers for decades, and was the focus of PhD student Christopher Hemingson’s Doctoral Thesis. “Colouration is a fascinating trait to study ..read more

Planktivorous reef fishes Pseudanthias pascalus feed above the coral reefs of French Polynesia. Photo: Victor Huertas Biodiversity on coral reefs is not evenly distributed around the globe. It is clustered in hotspots. The hottest hotspot for corals, fishes and other reef-dwellers is the Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA). Being such a special location, the IAA has long received attention from researchers aiming to identify why species cluster there in particular. “The archipelago is one of the most complex and dynamic geological regions in the tropics. And its fishes underpin its status as a ..read more

This paper by David Bellwood, Christopher Hemingson and Sterling Tebbett was just published in BioScience and is the first publication associated with the Reef Function Hub. Dave, Chris and Sterling surveyed 37 years of reef fish publications and categorised them according to which fish were studied, where and how. They found that of an estimated 6000-plus reef fish species, less than 7 per cent were selected for study, with just 0.1 per cent examined 10 per cent of the time. But how were they selected? “Remarkably, most fish research focuses on a handful of butterflyfishes and dam ..read more

This Functional Ecology paper from 2019 by David Bellwood, Robert Streit, Simon Brandl and Sterling Tebbett summarizes some key concepts that have lead us to establish the Reef Function Hub. In this review, we discuss the many different uses of the seemingly simple word ‘function’ in the context of ecological research on coral reefs. The word seems to carry a connotation of increased importance and thus is commonly used, yet rarely defined. Mislabelled ‘functional importance’ may lead to skewed perspective on the future of coral reefs. Faced with rapid changes in global ecosystems, and in th ..read more