“Seamounts may serve as refuges for deep-sea animals”
Media release - Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), 11 Feb 2009
“Over the last two decades, marine biologists have discovered lush forests of deep-sea corals and sponges growing on seamounts offshore of the California coast.”
Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, launched A Marine Nation: National Framework for Marine Research and Innovation, on March 17, 2009.
Census of Marine Life explorers find hundreds of identical species thrive in both Arctic and Antarctic
Media release - 15 February 2009
“Earth’s unique, forbidding ice oceans of the Arctic and Antarctic have revealed a trove of secrets to Census of Marine Life explorers.”
Explore the ocean with Google Earth
Download the latest version of Google Earth (version 5) and dive beneath the surface, explore the ocean, learn about ocean observations and explore content on selected marine protected areas.
Biological information used to describe geomorphology off North-west Australia
AUSGEO News, March 2009, Geoscience Australia
Geoscience Australia (including Hub researcher Rachel Przeslawski) updated analyses of the relatively shallow Glomar shoals off North-west Australia using a biodiversity index as an additional layer in the seascapes model.
Paul Hedge joins Hub as knowledge broker
Linking researchers to marine planners and managers, and linking data to ongoing management needs is an important part of the Hub’s work.
by Prof Nic Bax, Director, CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub
Making maps is a major component of understanding and managing landscapes and seascapes, and the CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub is updating and testing the maps being used to understand and manage Australia’s underwater environment.
In Focus - Bioregionalisation
Each issue of the newsletter focuses on a particular area of research that CERF hub scientists are participating in. This time it is bioregionalisation. The following stories appear in this issue of the newsletter:
An introduction to the hierarchical framework for bioregionalisation
Bioregionalisation of Australia’s marine and coastal environments has progressed steadily since the early work on the 1998 Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia through to the 2006 Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia (IMCRA v4.0) and the 2007 Southern Ocean bioregionalisation. These regionalisations are enabling Australia to move towards sustainable management of its marine ecosystems, and are a key element of the international convention to conserve biodiversity (Convention on Biological Diversity) using reliable spatial environmental information.
New analysis of shelf provinces and biomes based on fish data
New and revised data on Australian shelf fishes were used to provide new provincial and biomic (depth) regionalisations of the continental shelf.
Ophiuroid bioregionalisation
Ophiuroids (commonly called brittlestars, snake stars or basket stars) have emerged as a key group to further our understanding of patterns of bioregionalisation in the Australian region.
Are regional patterns of distribution congruent for decapods and fishes?
Species composition and distributional patterns of decapod crustaceans along Australia’s western continental margin indicate that community breaks are consistent between decapods and fishes on the shallow upper slope.
Scales of habitat heterogeneity and megabenthos biodiversity on Australia’s west coast
The first systematic collection of epibenthic megafauna from Australia’s western continental margin was made in 2005. The distributions of five major invertebrate taxa broadly aligned with those of fish but with some intriguing differences.
Milestone - New physical and biological data coverage for Australia
A major milestone of the CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub has been achieved. The collation of extensive new and updated datasets of seabed physical variables and broad-scale biological survey records was an immense task only just completed. These new datasets are driving our research forward and at the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts’ (DEWHA) request we are developing new national analyses to support their regional planning.
New biologically informed marine biodiversity maps to support marine regional planning
Nic Bax, Director, CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub
Maps are representations of the way we view the world we live in.
- Mapping and characterising soft sediment habitats, and evaluating physical variables as surrogates of biodiversity in Jervis Bay, NSW
- Carnarvon Shelf survey
- Beyond corals and fish: the effects of climate change on noncoral benthic invertebrates of tropical reefs
- Australia’s deep-water reserve network: implications of false homogeneity for classifying abiotic surrogates of biodiversity
Profile - Jennifer Lavers, CSIRO
Jennifer Lavers received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta where her Honours research focused on the breeding and foraging ecology of waterfowl and terrestrial invertebrates in the Rocky Mountains of western Canada.
Surveys- Temperate Reef Sampling
A continental-scale temperate reef dataset collected since the 1980s using standardised methods is being used in the CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub to describe and predict patterns in biodiversity for this important habitat.
Surveys - Temporal and fine-scale variation in the biogeochemistry of Jervis Bay, NSW
Rachel Przeslawski, Geoscience Australia - Marine Benthic Ecologist, CERF Surrogates Program
A survey at Jervis Bay was recently completed in which we sought to investigate how relationships between biological and physical variables may vary across season and fine spatial scales.
Photo: Zoanthids collected from 21.5 m water depth in Jervis Bay
* World Conference on Marine Biodiversity
* Advancing the Science for Limnology and Oceanography
http://www.marinehub.org/index.php/site/contacts/
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Newsletter banner caption:
Australia’s deepest image. Live bamboo coral at 3850m depth in the Tasman Fracture Marine Reserve. For comparison, Australia’s highest mountain – Mt Kosciusko – is a mere 2228m above sea level. Photo credit Ron Thresher CSIRO
