12th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium) 2012 was held in Cairns on 9-13 July. Close to 2,000 delegates have converged on Australia from 80 countries. The symposium focused on the theme “climate change and coral reef protection” and included 72 Mini-Symposia, 9 key-note speeches and 1,500 presentations. Scientists in the word reported recent progress on coral reef studies. The Darwin Medal was awarded to Prof. Jeremy Jackson fromSmithsonian Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography by theInternational Society for Reef Studies.

Profs. Huang hui and Lian jiansheng from SCSIO attended the symposium and have gave talks on “Skeletal density and microstructure of the calcifying coral Pocillopora damicornis” and “Health assessment indexes for the coral reefs in mainland China”. Drs. Li xiubao, Yuan tao, Zhou guowei and Zhang yuyang also gave oral presentations in the symposium. This is the first time for scientists in “coral biology and coral reef ecology Research Group” of SCSIO to report their recent progress on many aspects in international symposiums.

After the meeting, invited by Prof. Zeng chaoshu from James Cook UniversityProf. Huang hui, Xie qiang and Dr. Yuan tao visited James Cook University and discussed on tank system design, aquaculture biology and reproduction biology of tropic reef fishes. After discussion, they visited tropic ornamental fish aquaculture room and scientific laboratory in James Cook University.

The symposium and visits promoted information communications with international coral reef community on chief research progress and hotspot studies.