One hundred years ago, in early 1922, the Royal Geographical Society was approached by Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, and President of the Queensland branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australia, seeking support for a research expedition to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).
This request came at a time of rapid political, economic and social transition in the UK following the Great War and at a time when British society was still reluctant to offer economic and social equality to women.
Six years later, a major expedition to the GBR, led by British scientists, was to take place with six of the 16 British participants being women.
The GBR Expedition was ground-breaking in many respects, particularly in the interdisciplinary nature of the science, the scope of scientific observations and measurements and the establishment of exceptional ecological and geomorphological benchmarks. It can reasonably be claimed to mark the birth of modern coral reef science.
The Expedition’s ‘home’ was on the reef platform’s tiny sand cay, only 0.03 square kilometeres in size. By being based at a single location, Low Isles, for 13 months, ‘the work of the Great Barrier Reef Expedition of 1928-29 emphasized for the first time the relationships between reef growth and environment and the critical importance for their study in the field.’ [2]
Low Isles, on the inner shelf, northern Great Barrier Reef, is the Barrier’s southernmost ‘low wooded island’. This island type has three components: arcuate shingle ramparts on the windward rim (to right below); a mangrove swamp immediately in the lee of the ramparts; and a leeward sand cay. The mangrove forest has expanded, now (2012) covering 25% of the reef platform, up from < 10% in 1928-1929. [3]
The Anglo-Australian scientific party at Low Isles, 3 November 1928, in front of one of the specially constructed huts. Seated in the centre of the front row is Henry Caselli Richards, Professor of Geology at the University of Queensland, founding President of the Great Barrier Reef Committee (inaugurated Brisbane, 12 September 1922) and a key driver behind the Expedition.
The Expedition had been formally endorsed by the British Association in Leeds on 2 September 1927 and widely publicised in the regional and national press. Much was made of the participation of Mattie Yonge, the wife of the Expedition Leader, Maurice Yonge. Press coverage tended to underplay the fact that she was a fully qualified doctor. Writing from Low Isles on 17 September 1928, with ‘tailors and dressmakers forgotten’, Mattie noted the female dress code was now one of ‘khaki shorts with a blouse or jumper – much more comfortable than skirts’. [4]
Once in Australia, press coverage commented upon the presence of four women in the advance scientific party; two further female participants joined in 1929, including the highly talented Sidnie Manton.
The participation of the female scientists served as a catalyst for the greater involvement of women in Australian science. Furthermore, members of the local indigenous community were not just in support staff roles but also contributed to field data collection.
Research was highly interdisciplinary, including meticulous microscopic work and painstaking laboratory observation; in situ monitoring and experimentation (e.g. coral transplant experiments); cataloguing linkages between reef habitats, tidal processes and physical and chemical properties of water; and quantitative inventories of reef-flat and reef-front biota.
What role do the symbiotic algae, living in corals, play in coral nutrition? This research involved both laboratory and field experiments, with the use of a ‘coffin-like’ structure on the reef which excluded light and into which corals were placed for a given period before examination. Above, the Expedition Leader, Maurice Yonge, (right) and his Australian Assistant, Aubrey Nicholls, demonstrate the experimental setup. Natural bleaching events (where symbiotic algae are lost from the coral) also provided insight into interactions between coral and their algae.
Expedition scientists measured the seawater temperature at 1m depth twice daily in The Anchorage throughout their stay on Low Isles (9.00h black line 17.30h red line).
In February 1929, when seawater temperatures were at their maximum, scientists noticed ‘whitened’ or bleached corals on the shallow reef flat. While some colonies survived, many died. Their observations of temperature-induced bleaching, the subsequent monitoring of time taken for corals to recover and microscopic studies on possible bleaching mechanisms were new and innovative.
Coral reproduction was also studied using the branching coral Pocillopora which broods its young (planulae) and planulates monthly on a lunar cycle. Planulae measure ~1mm long on release.
Ingenious devices described as ‘clocktowers’ were placed on the reef into which settled planulae were placed on petri dishes and the growth and development of the coral colony observed over time.
Meticulous repeated measurements of growth of coral colonies were made using specially devised photographic equipment (shown below, with Alan Stephenson), providing some of the most detailed observations of growth rates and additions of coral sub-units (polyps) ever recorded over time.
Careful field mapping (shown above by Michael Spender, with Anne Stephenson, at Lizard island) was a hallmark of the Expedition.
At Low isles, there was the major innovation of checking ground observations against aerial photography, flown on 24 September 1928 by the Royal Australian Air Force.
‘Spender is making a beautiful job of the map and when it is finished you will have the finest survey of this type of island ever accomplished.’ [6] [7]
In a further innovation, a diving hood, into which air was pumped from a boat, was used for underwater observations. However, as sketched by Sidnie Manton, the intended usage (top left) was not always matched by the reality of underwater mapping and sampling (bottom left).
Bathymetry, number of species of algae and corals and total number of coral colonies along a reef flat to reef margin traverse were all precisely tied to established tidal levels [8]. The value of these accurate measurements as a benchmark against which both ecological and geomorphological changes can be ascertained is now becoming clear.
One legacy of the 1928-29 GBR Expedition was a follow-up expedition in 1973 to the northern Great Barrier Reef led by Dr David Stoddart
A 90 year evaluation of reef top changes [3], including new mapping by drone, has revealed expansion of mangrove forests (below map) and rampart migration (below graph).
Comparisons against the ecological surveys reveal a long-term decline in coral and invertebrate richness at Low Isles in the fifty years since 1928–29. This is likely due to repeated cyclone damage and coral bleaching, on top of increased influence from regional mainland agricultural activity.
"When we there in 28/29 the reef flat when exposed at low tide was literally an aquarium. But I really saw it properly again in 1978 (50 years on) when I was working at AIMS south of Townsville. All that exposed reef was covered with sediments with only holothurians in their element and flourishing. The sediment had come from the mouth of the Daintree River some 10 miles away. This is the result of replacing the rain forest by sugar cane fields" [9]. Observations by the Leader of the 1928-29 Expedition, Maurice Yonge.
"… this Expedition set new standards and defined new goals in reef studies. This was true not only of C.M. Yonge’s work on coral physiology, but of Stephenson’s ecological and Steers’ geomorphological studies too. This co-operative work represented the first major advance on the predominately theoretical and deductive mode of work which had long dominated discussions of the ‘coral reef problem’." [10]
Acknowledgements:
Prepared by: Tom Spencer (1), Barbara E. Brown (2,3), Sarah M. Hamylton (4), Roger F. McLean (5)
- Cambridge Coastal Research Unit, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN UK
- School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
- Environmental Research Unit, University of the Highlands and Islands, Castle Street, Thurso, Caithness KW14 7JD, Scotland, UK
- School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
- School of Science, University of New South Wales - Canberra at ADFA, Canberra BC ACT 2610, Australia
Online exhibition by: Francesca Nugent
References:
[1] Stephenson TA 1946 Coral reefs. Endeavour 5: 96–106.
[2] Stoddart DR 1969 Ecology and morphology of recent coral reefs. Biological Reviews 44: 433-498.
[3] Hamylton SM, McLean R, Lowe M, Adnan FAF 2019 Ninety years of change on a low wooded island, Great Barrier Reef. Royal Society Open Science 6: doi: 10.1098/rsos.181314.
[4] Papers of Sir Maurice Yonge, Subseries C561-562, press cuttings, nla.obj-1127491484
[5] Yonge to Steers, 4 April 1929; Royal Geographical Society CB9 1921-1930, Great Barrier Reef Expedition, Box 1. By kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
[6] Map from Spender M 1930 Island-reefs of the Queensland Coast. The Geographical Journal 76: 193-214, 273-293. This map served as a template not only for the expeditioners’ field sites and reports but also for later publications.
[6] Reproduced from Spender, M. 1930. Island-reefs of the Queensland Coast. The Geographical Journal 76: 193-214, 273-293 (Figure 4), by kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)).
[7] Fairbridge RW & Teichert C 1948 The Low Isles of the Great Barrier Reef: A new analysis. The Geographical Journal 111: 67-88 (facing p. 74), by kind permission of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
[8] Re-drawn from Manton & Stephenson (1935). Manton SM & Stephenson TA 1935 Ecological surveys of coral reefs. Great Barrier Reef Expedition 1928-29 Scientific Reports 3: 273-312.
[9] CM Yonge to BE Brown, 14 September 1983; E75, correspondence files, Maurice Yonge Collection, Natural History Museum UK, with kind permission. © The Natural History Museum, London).
[10] Stoddart DR 1972.Opening remarks to scientific sessions. In Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Corals and Coral Reefs, Mandapam Camp, India, 12–16 January 1969. Mandapam Camp: Marine Biological Association of India, 17-19.