The key objective of the Department of Environment and Water’s state marine park network is to protect and conserve marine biodiversity and habitats and therefore the research goals are focused on assessing the effectiveness of the park network at achieving these goals, including:
- Assessing and cataloguing marine biodiversity and habitat assets contained within the park network
- Understanding ecological processes e.g. connectivity, habitat/species interactions, resilience
- Understanding factors that improve park design e.g. size, shape, management arrangements, connectivity, specie home range
- Development of metrics/indicators that are suitable to assess and track ecological change and assess performance
Long term monitoring of temperate reef ecosystems
Marine protected area management
Biodiversity assessment and monitoring using BRUVS and UVC methods
Benthic seafloor mapping
The long-term collaboration has helped local management by contributing to the establishment of a network of subtidal reef monitoring sites that:
- helped document the biodiversity contained by our temperate reef systems
- were instrumental in helping design the state’s marine park network
- provides critical “before” MPA implementation data to improve the power to assess the effectiveness of the park network
- access to a pool of experts who can provide advice/input to workshops, forums, strategic planning and contribute to delivery of the dive monitoring program
- development of robust and appropriate metrics for assessing ecological responses
- increased understanding of temperate reef ecosystems by continual publication of latest scientific advances and findings
- management and curation of temperate reef data
