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Captive movement rates of the Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster solaris

This data respresents movement rates of crown-of-thorns starfish in captivity. To quantify mean and maximum rates of movement, individual A. solaris were placed into a large (5-m diameter) round tank. Three different substrate types were tested: i) a 5-cm thick layer of coarse (sediment-free) sand, which was collected from intertidal areas in inter-reefal back reef habitat; ii) a continuous layer of paving tiles which were coated in calcareous algae following extended deployment (up to 6 months) in reef environments before being air dried (reflective of consolidated carbonate pavement); and iii) coral rubble, mostly comprising an assortment of dead and air dried coral fragments (up to 10 x 10 x 5 cm) from experiments conducted at Lizard Island Research Station. All starfish were filmed from above and movement rates (cm/ second) were determined for all possible 15-second intervals for each starfish.

The full methodology is available in the Open Access publication from the Related Publications link below.
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    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Captive movement rates of the Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster solaris
    Data Publication title Captive movement rates of the Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster solaris
  • Description

    This data respresents movement rates of crown-of-thorns starfish in captivity. To quantify mean and maximum rates of movement, individual A. solaris were placed into a large (5-m diameter) round tank. Three different substrate types were tested: i) a 5-cm thick layer of coarse (sediment-free) sand, which was collected from intertidal areas in inter-reefal back reef habitat; ii) a continuous layer of paving tiles which were coated in calcareous algae following extended deployment (up to 6 months) in reef environments before being air dried (reflective of consolidated carbonate pavement); and iii) coral rubble, mostly comprising an assortment of dead and air dried coral fragments (up to 10 x 10 x 5 cm) from experiments conducted at Lizard Island Research Station. All starfish were filmed from above and movement rates (cm/ second) were determined for all possible 15-second intervals for each starfish.

    The full methodology is available in the Open Access publication from the Related Publications link below.

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  • Other Descriptors
    • Data type dataset
  • Keywords
    • Acanthaster
    • behaviour
    • coral reefs
    • management
    • ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
  • Funding source
  • Research grant(s)/Scheme name(s)
    • 22165 - (James Cook University Research Activities) NESP Tropical Water Quality Hub Leader
    • 21943 - (James Cook University Research Activities) Towards Solving COTS on the GBR Through Integrated Pest Management
    • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
    People and Societies in the Tropics
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  • Locations
    • Acanthaster solaris were collected at Lizard Island (14o40’S, 145o27’E) and surrounding reefs (mainly Eyrie Reef) in the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia
- Data
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Attachment COTS_Movement_Summarised.xlsx Excel file showing the mean and maximum movement rates (based on the estimates of minimum displacement distance in each 15 second interval) of each individual starfish.
    The Data Manager is: Morgan Pratchett
    College or Centre
    Access conditions Open: free access under license
  • Alternative access conditions
    • Data record size 217 trials
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  • Related publications
      Name Pratchett MS, Cowan Z-L, Nadler LE, Caballes CF, Hoey AS, Messmer V, et al. (2017) Body size and substrate type modulate movement by the western Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster solaris. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0180805.
    • URL https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0180805
    • Notes Open Access
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    The data will be licensed under CC BY: Attribution 3.0 AU
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  • Data owners
      James Cook University
- Citation
    Citation Pratchett, Morgan (2017): Captive movement rates of the Pacific crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster solaris. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.4225/28/5976dd643fff8