Aini S. Febrianti, Halmar Halide, Andika, Abdi N. Rajalau
ABSTRACT
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, internationally
recognized as a highly significant World Heritage Area. The emergence of the crown-of-thorns starfish
(Acanthaster planci, Linnaeus, 1758), known as a coral predator, has caused damage to the coral reefs
in the GBR area. Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain the increase in COTS population,
one of which is the change in sea surface temperature and salinity. This study aims to model the COTS
population influenced by ocean atmospheric predictors in the GBR using the multiple regression (MR)
model with the stepwise method. The data used in this study is divided into two categories:
observational data and prediction data. Observational data consists of the COTS population in the GBR
from 1992 to 2021, while prediction data includes sea currents, sea surface temperature (SST), and
salinity data from 1991 to 2022. Based on the research results, five significant predictors were identified:
SST 11, CUR 9, CUR 8, SALT 7, and CUR 1, with a Pearson correlation value (R) of 0.64 and a Root Mean
Square Error (RMSE) of 218.26±13.69 cases.
Key Words: crown-of-thorns starfish, multiple regression, sea surface temperature, salinity, sea
current.
