By using cages to experimentally control the access of fish to coral reefs, researchers have assessed the role of fish "grazing" in the ability of reefs to successfully recover from potentially devastating coral-bleaching events related to rises in ocean temperatures. The findings, reported by a group led by Terry Hughes of James Cook University in Australia, will appear in Current Biology online on February 8th.

Is the world basically good or basically bad? It appears that in the natural world the answer is "basically good." Positive interactions in which plants and animals benefit from association with one another create the basis for many of the world's ecosystems.

Marine scientists working on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have uncovered evidence that baby fish, only millimetres long, manage to find their way to their home coral reef across miles of open sea by using their sense of smell.

New research shows larval fish use smell to return to coral reefs

Coral reefs around the world are sustaining massive damage at an alarming rate. Geological Approaches to Coral Reef Ecology provides a uniquely historical perspective on the destruction--through both natural and human processes--of coral reef ecosystems.

Healthy coral reefs provide their adjacent coasts with substantially more protection from destructive tsunami waves than do unhealthy or dead reefs, a Princeton University study suggests.