Please join me in congratulating the newly “minted” Dr Mike Hynes on the publication of his exciting new paper just published in Coral Reefs. This paper provides a rare long-term perspective on how coral reef communities have changed through time in Indonesia’s Spermonde Archipelago, one of the world’s most biodiverse reef systems.

Hynes, M. G., Parenden, D., Ke, S., Spanowicz, K., Masdar, H., Putra, S. A., Ambo-Rappe, R., Jompa, J., Webster, J. M., Hoeksema, B. W., de Voogd, N. J., & Renema, W., 2026. Millennial-scale reef assemblage shifts in the Spermonde Archipelago, Makassar Strait, Indonesia. Coral Reefs. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-026-02911-1

Using 16 reef sediment cores collected from two reef islands, the study reconstructs changes in corals, larger benthic foraminifera and sponge communities over the past 7,200 years. By looking far beyond the timescale of modern ecological monitoring, the research helps overcome the problem of “shifting baselines” and places today’s reef condition into a much broader geological context.

Key Scientific Highlights

• Reef communities have been changing for thousands of years, with many ecological shifts beginning long before recent human impacts.
• Coral assemblages evolved from mixed communities to branching Acropora-dominated reefs, largely in response to Holocene sea-level change.
• A locally extinct coral species, Palauastrea ramosa, was identified in the cores, highlighting the value of the fossil record for revealing past biodiversity.
• Changes in foraminifera and sponge communities indicate long-term shifts in reef habitats and increasing coral rubble through time.
• The study demonstrates the power of combining multiple fossil archives to reconstruct the environmental history of tropical reef ecosystems.

Congratulations to Mike and the international team on this excellent contribution to reef paleoecology and our understanding of the long-term evolution of Coral Triangle reef ecosystems.

Cheers

Jody

#MarineScienceSydneyUni