Abstract
The phenomenon of crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is treated on a large scale as analogous to a disease (starfish outbreaks) spreading through a community of susceptibles (individual reefs). A simple (epidemiological) model is found which well represents the extant data on starfish abundance for the central sector of the GBR. The form of this model suggests that some long-term degradation of reef community structure is taking place. The model is also used to predict the gross outbreak behaviour for the central sector of the GBR up to the year 2000. A comparison with the (sparse) data for the northern and southern sectors of the GBR is also made which casts some doubt on a hypothesis of Kenchington (1977) concerning the primary locus of outbreaks.
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