A contingent of 21 AIMS personnel will attend the 11th
International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 7 to
11 July, the world’s largest conference devoted to coral reef
science. It is held every four years, sanctioned by the
International Society for Reef Studies. AIMS is sponsoring all
plenary sessions at ICRS and is also setting up a display.
At the conference, the Award for Best Paper of 2007 appearing in
the journal Coral Reefs will go to: J.C. Mieog, M.J.H. van
Oppen, N.E. Cantin, W.T. Stam, J.L. Olsen (2007) "Real-time PCR
reveals a high incidence of Symbiodinium clade D at low levels in
four scleractinian corals across the Great Barrier Reef:
implications for symbiont shuffling." Coral Reefs 26:449-457.
The lead author, Jos Mieog, is a PhD student supervised by co-author
and AIMS principal research scientist Dr Madeleine van Oppen.
Protected fish stage
a comeback
Evidence that protected fish populations can bounce back from the
impact of years of heavy fishing has been obtained by a team of
marine scientists led by Professor Garry Russ of the ARC Centre of
Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University and Dr
Hugh Sweatman of AIMS.
They observed a spectacular recovery in coral trout numbers on
unfished reefs following the imposition of a strict no-fishing
policy across 33 per cent of the total GBR area in 2004, to form the
world’s largest network of no-take reserves. The team has found
coral trout numbers rebounded by 31-75 per cent on a majority of
reefs which had been closed to fishing for as little as 18 months to
two years.
To see the details, go to:
www.aims.gov.au/docs/media/news2008/20080624-01.html
