Daily feeding rates of Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris) vary with body size and coral cover across the Great Barrier Reef
Chandler, Josie F., Doll, Peter C., Burn, Deborah, Caballes, Ciemon F., Dubuc, Alexia, Figueira, Will F., Kwong, Sarah L.T., Lang, Bethan J., Pacey, Kai I., and Pratchett, Morgan S. (2026) Daily feeding rates of Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster cf. solaris) vary with body size and coral cover across the Great Barrier Reef. Coral Reefs. (In Press)
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Abstract
The ecological effects of high densities of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS, Acanthaster spp.) are driven by their cumulative feeding pressure on coral assemblages, making accurate predictions of feeding impacts essential for management. Despite this, a limited understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of feeding behaviour, and the environmental and biological drivers underlying them constrains our capacity to predict feeding impacts. We quantified daily feeding rates for 565 individual Western Pacific CoTS (Acanthaster cf. solaris) across a broad gradient of environmental conditions and population densities on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR). CoTS body size and local coral cover emerged as the strongest predictors of daily feeding rates, whilst population density, season, and water temperature had no significant effect. Notably, large CoTS (> 40 cm) at high coral cover sites consumed over ten times more coral tissue compared to smaller individuals (15–25 cm) at low coral cover sites, with mean daily consumption rates of 221.99 and 18.86 cm<sup>2</sup> (planar area), respectively. These estimates of daily feeding are aggregated across all different coral genera consumed. We present estimates of daily feeding rates for different size classes and coral cover that are directly compatible with existing monitoring methodologies used on the GBR, providing ecologically relevant parameters to improve outbreak impact modelling and enable more accurate forecasting of coral loss for targeted CoTS control on the GBR.
| Item ID: | 93312 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1432-0975 |
| Keywords: | Crown-of-thorns starfish, Ecosystem management, Feeding ecology, Great Barrier Reef |
| 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: | 12 Aug 2026 23:22 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems @ 50% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 50% |
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