Levering, Leighton, Doll, Peter, Garing, Madeline, Tebbett, Sterling, and Pratchett, Morgan (2026) Changes in feeding behavior of Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris) following mass coral bleaching in the northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Coral Reefs. (In Press)

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Abstract

The Great Barrier Reef, like most reef ecosystems, is increasingly subject to major acute disturbances, including population irruptions of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) and climate-induced coral bleaching. Given their increasing incidence, acute disturbances are likely to occur simultaneously or successively, though interactive effects of major disturbances are generally unknown. This study explores changes in the feeding behavior of CoTS during an emerging population irruption at Lizard Island that coincided with the 2024 mass bleaching, using in situ survey data. We conducted Scooter-Assisted Large Area Diver-Based surveys to investigate changes in CoTS demography and feeding, and point-intercept transects to examine changes in coral cover. From 2023 to 2025, there was a 49% decline in coral cover at Lizard Island, which was largely attributable to mass bleaching. Daily feeding rates of CoTS significantly declined over the same period, both in terms of the number of coral colonies (42.8% decline) and the combined tissue surface area of all corals consumed for each starfish (46.3% decline). CoTS density increased by 96.1% from 2023 to 2025 despite decreased feeding rates. Additionally, the relative consumption of different coral genera was consistent throughout the study period, with Acropora spp. contributing to > 80% of CoTS diet throughout the study. Though the 2024 bleaching event may have suppressed feeding rates and ecological impact of individual CoTS, the longer-term effects of CoTS are likely to conflate with coral loss due to mass bleaching, especially given sustained increases in CoTS densities.

Item ID:	90473
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1432-0975
Keywords:	Population irruption; Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreak; Marine heatwave; Coral reef disturbance · Corallivore feeding rate · Lizard Island
Copyright Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	11 Feb 2026 00:27
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 70% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410402 Environmental assessment and monitoring @ 30%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 50% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems @ 50%
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