Great Barrier Reef chronicles: Half a year of discovery on Heron Island

Approximately 80 kilometres northeast of Gladstone, Queensland, Australia, lies the Capricorn group, including a small coral cay known as Heron Island. The reef that surrounds this humble, 16-hectare island happens to be a biodiversity hotspot that includes ~60% of the ~1500 fish species and 72% of the coral species found on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It is this one-of-a-kind, extraordinary place I was beyond fortunate to call home for six months while I conducted field work for my PhD.

Coral reef landscape. Photo © Caitlin Lawson

It had been a dream of mine since I could remember to one day see and experience the Great Barrier Reef for myself. If I could go back and tell my younger self that I would be essentially living on the reef for several months, I couldn’t begin to imagine how awestruck that kid would be. I’ve never been so immersed in as much beauty and life before, and I will cherish those memories forever.

Sadly, my childhood dream had an abrupt, rude awakening. I happened to arrive during the peak 2024 heatwave, resulting in mass coral bleaching and extensive mortality throughout the GBR. As I swam past the ghostly white forests of bleached coral, it became a striking admonition of the inevitable future with climate change.

Bleached coral on the reef. Photo © Caitlin Lawson

As I reflected on witnessing the consequences of ocean warming firsthand, my mind was flooded with a myriad of emotions. Through conversations with other researchers on the island, the resident research station staff, and deriving inspiration from the spectacle of life I was surrounded by, I was able to hone these emotions into a refined sense of motivation to conduct my work and of hope that there can be a brighter future for the precious natural wonders of our planet. I set out to study the impacts of climate change on a small, benthic, charismatic reef shark species that call this island home, but the knowledge and experiences that I came home with were more than I could ever have imagined.

Project

Aaron is testing how epaulette sharks respond to different temperatures that model future climate scenarios. He wants to understand the genetics that underpin how epaulette sharks might respond. These sharks already have adaptations that allow them to live in extreme environments, as when they are exposed to low oxygen levels and high temperatures at low tide. How do they do this? And how might this make them resilient in the face of change? Aaron believes that this information is vital to predict the success of different sharks and rays in the future.

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