by University of Sydney, May 28, 2018 in ScienceDaily

Over millennia, the reef has adapted to sudden changes in environment by migrating across the sea floor as the oceans rose and fell.

The study published today in Nature Geoscience, led by University of Sydney’s Associate Professor Jody Webster, is the first of its kind to reconstruct the evolution of the reef over the past 30 millennia in response to major, abrupt environmental change.

The 10-year, multinational effort has shown the reef is more resilient to major environmental changes such as sea-level rise and sea-temperature change than previously thought but also showed a high sensitivity to increased sediment input and poor water quality. (…)