CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub Surrogates Program - Overview and Major Outputs  

Authors / CoAuthors

Huang, Z.

Abstract

The Marine Biodiversity Hub was funded by the Australian Government Commonwealth Environmental Research Facilities (CERF) between 2007 and 2010. The Hub was developed to improve the scientific knowledge available to support marine bioregional planning and addressed two fundamental questions: 1. How can we predict the distribution of marine biodiversity; and 2. How can we use this improved capability to conserve and manage biodiversity in a multiple-use environment? This talk focuses on the Surrogates Program, one of four research programs in the Hub. The Surrogates Program addressed the above questions by testing and developing physical variables as surrogates of marine biodiversity, with a focus on seabed environments. In the program, we employed a range of marine survey technologies to collect high-quality and co-located benthic physical and biological data at four selected areas in temperate and tropical waters. We also developed advanced spatial and statistical approaches to test the degree of covariance between the physical and biological data, identify ecological processes, and generate prediction maps. During a number of field campaigns, we deployed a range of instruments to collect data including multibeam sonar, sediment grabs, benthic sleds, towed-video/still images and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. GIS, machine-learning models and the SWAN hydrodynamic model were used to derive and predict a large number of physical variables as potential surrogates. The effectiveness of the surrogacy approaches were examined using multivariate analyses and spatial modelling techniques. In general, we found that using physical surrogates to predict marine biodiversity is a cost-effective approach. The new knowledge of surrogates and seabed ecological processes directly supports the management of the Australian marine estate. Other major outputs of the Surrogates Program include: - Thirty-seven new and updated national-scale marine physical environmental datasets; - High resolution bathymetry of targeted areas, covering almost 2000 km2, plus 171 km of underwater video transects, 402 sediment grab samples and 232 epifauna samples; - New seabed exposure and fetch models/datasets; and - Peer-reviewed reports and papers in scientific journals. The success of the Marine Biodiversity Hub has enabled the Hub to be refunded for a further four years through the new National Environmental Research Program. In this, Geoscience Australia (GA) is collaborating with the University of Tasmania, CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Museum of Victoria, University of Western Australia and Charles Darwin University; GA is also leading Theme 3 Project 1 which focuses on identifying the functions and processes of shelf and canyon ecosystems. The project is expected to further advance marine biodiversity research in Australia by investigating the role of large-scale physical features on the shelf in influencing patterns of marine biodiversity.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

74122

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Keywords

• External PublicationAbstract

( Theme )

• marine biodiversity

( Theme )

• CERF

( Theme )

• marine

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

Publication Date

2012-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - restricted

Use - license

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Purpose

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unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

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Unknown

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Spatial Resolution

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Source Information

CERF Marine Biodiversity Hub