A program to ‘remotely-sense’ patterns of inshore marine biodiversity at continental scales through support from recreational divers.

iMAGE

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Graham Edgar and Rick Stuart-Smith, Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute/UTAS
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A fundamental problem faced by managers dealing with increasing threats to the inshore marine environment is that they occur out of sight. Little reliable information exists on the distribution and true scale of threats, causing great difficulty when allocating resources to where conservation intervention is most useful. The Reef Life Survey (RLS) program seeks to remedy these problems by providing high-quality information needed for marine research and management. A small network of skilled recreational divers has been trained in the technical knowledge needed to scientifically and cost-effectively survey abundances and sizes of fish and invertebrate species, and marine flora, along transects on temperate and tropical reefs.

RLS places particular emphasis on data quality, which is achieved by limiting the program to the most capable divers, by providing immediate feedback when divers complete surveys or have queries, and by organising collaborative surveys with researchers. The program is directed by a steering committee that, in addition to scientists and recreational divers, includes representatives from Australian national and state coastal management agencies, thereby ensuring that the data collected from priority regions contributes to coastal planning. Ecological data are managed within a central database and made freely available to the public.

Because of lower costs, RLS data allow ecological analyses based on consistent methodology to be undertaken at larger geographic and temporal scales than possible for scientific dive teams. To date, RLS data have been used to: (i) assess efficacy of management zones within marine protected areas (MPAs), (ii) assist planning of the South Australian MPA network, (iii) quantify impacts of fish farms on coastal flora and fauna, (iv) analyse changes in ecological communities with urban pollution gradients, (v) assess fish range extensions associated with oceanographic anomalies and climate change, and (vi) contribute to a range of current student projects on marine biodiversity (some of which are still in progress). Through the immediate short-term, and well into the future, the data will also be used to track the distribution of threatened and invasive species, and contribute to Commonwealth and other state marine biodiversity management plans.

The great value of RLS data in identifying general patterns at continental scales is illustrated using the case example of MPA planning. Analysis of data collected inside versus outside 15 MPAs distributed across temperate and subtropical Australia indicate that effects of MPAs depend strongly on life history attributes of species and also on MPA age. Data describing the composition and distribution of reef communities around the South Australian coast allow planning of the state MPA network to extend beyond representation of physical habitat types to ecological communities.

(The Reef Life Survey was initiated by University of Tasmania researchers through support from the Commonwealth Environmental Research Facility program. The volunteer program is operated by the People and Parks Foundation, a national non-governmental organisation with a mission to improve the physical, mental and social health and wellbeing of people, and ensure the sustainability of parks.)

More info www.reeflifesurvey.com

References
Edgar G.J., Barrett N.S. and Stuart-Smith R.D. (2009). Exploited reefs protected from fishing transform over decades into conservation features not otherwise present in the seascape. Ecological Applications, 19(8), 2009:1967–1974. abstract

Edgar, G.J. and Stuart-Smith, R.D. (2009). Ecological effects of marine protected areas on rocky reef communities: a continental-scale analysis. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 388:51-62 doi:10.3354/meps08149 abstract