FUTURES FOR THE GREAT-BARRIER-REEF ECOSYSTEM

The crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci, is dramatically damaging the coral on many reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. It is still very uncertain what the result of this will be for the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem as a whole. We used a very simple artificial reef system, implemented in the cellular automata formalism, to model this problem and in particular to study the effects of predation and larval dispersal and survival. The results show the two types of behaviour (local outbreaks, wave) which have already been observed on the Great Barrier Reef, but also show a third type of behaviour (pulse). Because of the serious impact a pulse type behaviour might have for the future of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem, we think this possibility should be seriously considered and certainly needs further research.