Hugh Sweatman, Australian Institute of Marine Science

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is an iconic marine ecosystem. It has been declared a World Heritage Area for its intrinsic natural values but is also a busy multiple-use marine park generating over $5 billion dollars per annum for the Australian economy from marine tourism and fisheries within a core area of over 200,000 square kilometres. 

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) staff began broad-scale monitoring of the GBR more than 20 years ago to provide governments with information about episodic outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci. These surveys metamorphosed into a systematic monitoring program of reef fish and coral abundance as well as Acanthaster, to provide general situational awareness across the GBR Marine Park, the AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP).  The program is unusual in being resourced and run by a research organisation, though in close consultation with the GBRMPA.  The program has been a major source of information for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority State of the Reef Report and, more recently, the 2009 GBR Outlook Report.

The program subsequently incorporated a component to assess the effects of the major rezoning of the marine park in 2004. This involves applying the standard monitoring procedures to pairs of reefs that were chosen for their general similarity, but differed in that one member of each pair was rezoned as a no-take area in 2004.  This program has shown rapid effects of protection on primary target fish species across a large area.  Other secondary effects such as trophic cascades are not yet evident.

The LTMP for coral reefs complements other AIMS monitoring activities such as a decadal monitoring program for land-sea discharges, part of the Reef Rescue Plan and a new program for sustained observations of forcing across the oceanic margin arising from the changing heat content and chemistry of water in the Coral Sea, with resultant effects on productivity of the GBR lagoon.

(The AIMS LTMP is supported by the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility.)

Reference: 

Sweatman H (2008) No-take reserves protect coral reefs from predatory starfish. Curr. Biol 18:R598-R599.

More info:  http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/research/monitoring/reef/reef-monitoring.html

Contact:  h.sweatman@aims.gov.au

Dr Hugh Sweatman B A ( Zool ), PhD is a senior research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Trained as a fish ecologist, he has worked in tropical Australia and in the Caribbean. For the past 14 years he has headed the AIMS monitoring program on the Great Barrier Reef, contributing to CRC and MTSRF research programs.

Changes in cover of hard coral based on phototransects on core survey reefs 1993-2007.

Ecosystem effects of marine park zoning?  Considering mid-shelf reefs of the GBR in the period 1993-2004, the majority of survey reefs that were open to fishing had outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), while only a minority of no-take reefs had outbreaks.  Solid fill = reefs with outbreaks; hatched = reefs without outbreaks.  See Sweatman (2008).

Average abundances of coral trout (Plectropomus spp.) on 5 regional sets of reefs on the GBR.  The sets consisted of 4 or 6 pairs of reefs, matched by size and distance from the coast, one open to fishing and one re-zoned as “No-take” in 2004.  Blue lines and square symbols refer to reefs that were open to fishing, green lines and circular symbols refer to no-take reefs, error bars are S.E.s.