Evolutionary history and local environmental conditions predict the distribution of species and communities on land and this underpin landscape management. The Marine Biodiversity Hub’s aim is to provide a similar predictive capacity for Australia’s seascape. The Hub will build research capacity and collaboration between marine research agencies, and provide new tools to support the identification, assessment, conservation and sustainable use of Australia’s marine assets, including enhancing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) and other ESD management applications. This will assist conservation agencies, resource management agencies, and users develop management approaches that provide comprehensive, adequate and representative conservation of Australia’s seascape. Hub outputs will help agencies and stakeholders meet the requirements of the NRSMPA, Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Commonwealth Fisheries Act, and various State Fisheries and Conservation Management legislation.

The Marine Biodiversity Hub is specifically organised to bring together partners with a proven history of bilateral cooperation into a single national collaboration that will combine resources, talents and knowledge of marine resources (biological and physical; static and dynamic) to deliver a common understanding and a common suite of spatial and non-spatial tools for the conservation management of marine resources. There are four multidisciplinary collaborative projects in the Hub. Each project consists of a number of tasks (2-6) that vary in their level of inter-agency participation. Collaboration on all tasks is encouraged. Explicit links are made between tasks and projects.