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Developing long-term monitoring programs in offshore waters with little prior knowledge: Applying a novel sampling design to inventory biological assets
Citation
Hill, Nicole and Lawrence, E and Dambacher, J and Barrett, NS and Hulls, J and Williams, A and Barker, B and Nichols, S and Lucieer, VL and Althaus, F and Kool, J and Hayes, K, Developing long-term monitoring programs in offshore waters with little prior knowledge: Applying a novel sampling design to inventory biological assets, Program Handbook and Abstracts, 7-11 July 2013, Gold Coast, Australia, pp. 175. (2013) [Conference Extract]
Abstract
Australia’s declaration of a Commonwealth Marine Reserve (CMR) Network, has resulted in a pressing need to 1) provide
quantitative inventories of the species and communities represented within reserves, and 2) develop methods that enable
trends in their composition, abundance and distribution to be monitored. These objectives require a general but flexible
long-term monitoring framework where sampling is conducted using non-destructive methods such as towed video, baited
underwater video and still imagery, and informed by habitat data derived from multibeam acoustics. Here we describe the
application of a flexible sampling program tailored for assessing the biodiversity associated with continental shelf habitats in the
Flinders CMR, north-east Queensland. This program is based on a probabilistic and spatially-balanced sampling design called
Generalized Random Tessellation Stratified (GRTS). While GRTS has been used for continental and regional-scale monitoring
programmes in the United States, its application to marine systems in Australia is new. Within the Flinders CMR, little previous
knowledge existed on the spatial distribution of shelf habitats, necessitating a two-phase sampling approach. Firstly, GRTS
was applied to gain an understanding of the distribution of shelf habitats across the CMR shelf; secondly, this information
was used to design a biological sampling program. Here we 1) discuss the suitability of this method for conducting ship-based
sampling programs with little prior information over large spatial scales, and 2) present the first quantitative assessment of
the distribution, composition, and abundance of fish and fish assemblages within the Flinders CMR, as determined with baited
underwater videos.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Conference Extract |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Environmental Sciences |
| Research Group: | Environmental Science and Management |
| Research Field: | Conservation and Biodiversity |
| Objective Division: | Manufacturing |
| Objective Group: | Wood, Wood Products and Paper |
| Objective Field: | Paper Products (incl. Coated Paper) |
| Author: | Hill, Nicole (Dr Nicole Hill) |
| Author: | Barrett, NS (Associate Professor Neville Barrett) |
| Author: | Hulls, J (Mr Justin Hulls) |
| Author: | Lucieer, VL (Dr Vanessa Lucieer) |
| ID Code: | 86041 |
| Year Published: | 2013 |
| Deposited By: | Sustainable Marine Research Collaboration |
| Deposited On: | 2013-08-20 |
| Last Modified: | 2013-08-20 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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