A plastic bottle trapped on a coral reef.
Coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific have been deluged with an estimated 11.1 billion pieces of plastic waste, increasing the risk of coral disease more than 20-fold.
Giant triton molluscs are a useful ally in battling the coral-grazing crown-of-thorns starfish.
AAP Image/AIMS, K Goodbun
The federal government's new funding aims to spread the net wide in investigating possible ways to protect the Great Barrier Reef's corals. Winning this battle will require a wide range of weapons.
Some reefs are strong sources of coral larvae.
A new study identifies dozens of individual reefs on the Great Barrier Reef that are especially important for coral larvae dispersal and which could help the entire ecosystem bounce back.
How the Great Barrier Reef can be helped to help repair the damaged reef.
Corals on the Great Barrier Reef that are tolerant to warmer waters can be used to help repair other parts of the reef damaged by recent coral bleaching events.
The southern Great Barrier Reef escaped both of the recent mass bleaching events. But time is running out.
AAP Image/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Tory Chase
Tropical coral reefs can be saved from climate change and other pressures, but the window of opportunity is closing. And reefs are guaranteed to be markedly different in the future.
A typical reef scene within the Chagos Archipelago.
The British overseas territory faces an environmental crisis.
Coral reefs in Australia’s northwest have experienced severe bleaching and coral mortality in 2016.
Western Australia's super-corals are adapted to high temperatures, but even they didn't escape the recent bleaching event unscathed.
We think of coral reefs as a diverse ecosystem, but each coral is an entire and complex microworld of organisms imperceptible to our eyes.
Just like humans, corals live with myriad microscopic organisms. We are just starting to understand this unseen world.
Fluorescent image of the coral
Pocillopora damicornis. The field of view is approximately 4.1 x 3.4 mm.
Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD
Could this new technology do for the microscopic marine world what the first telescopes did for the heavens above?
Nemo is actually a ‘false clownfish’.
The recent severe bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef has also affected anemones, which provide homes for clownfish.
Corals north of Cairns have been hit hardest by the recent bleaching.
AAP Image/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Kerry
An estimated one-third of corals have now died in the parts of the Great Barrier Reef hit hardest by bleaching, meaning recovery could take years or even decades.
Bleached coral can take on luminously beautiful pink and purple hues - but don’t be deceived, these corals are under stress.
The bleaching hitting the Great Barrier Reef not only harms corals. As these close-up photos show, it also deprives many other species of a home and livelihood.
Professor Morgan Pratchett surveys bleached corals on Australia’s GBR.
Cassy Thompson, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
Bleaching has hit a huge swathe of the Great Barrier Reef, with many corals in the reef's remote northern reaches now expected to die as a result of warm waters linked to this summer's El Niño.
Corals grow better in the more alkaline ocean conditions that existed in pre-industrial times.
By artificially going 'back in time' to more alkaline ocean conditions, researchers have shown the damage that ocean acidification is already doing to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef is made up of thousands of individual reefs.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
Ocean acidification will hurt some parts of the Great Barrier Reef more than others.
Adult corals need a good developmental start to establish themselves on the reef.
Anders Poulsen/Wikimedia Commons
Without action to curb the rising acidity of our seas, corals will start to develop deformed skeletons at a crucial young stage of their lives.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most magnificent wonders of our world.
With the United Nations set to decide on whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as officially in danger, we look at the various threats to the reef's survival, starting with the biggie... climate change.
Give up, brain coral, we have you surrounded.
Joseph Pawlik, UNCW
With their natural predators removed, sponges are free to take over coral reefs.
Leiopathes, also known as black corals, are some of the oldest organisms in the sea.
A flock of scientists turned their focus to understand the Deepwater Horizon's impact, including one team that studied deep-sea corals.
Where did the oil go?
Five years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists are researching how much oil dropped to sea floor, hitchhiking via 'marine snow.'