Coral reef monitoring

The specific objectives of the NERP TE Hub Science Communication Plan are to promote and facilitate the influential application of Hub-generated knowledge.

 

The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2009 is a stock-take of the Great Barrier Reef, its management and its future.

The aim of the Outlook Report is to provide information about:

The Multi-Year Research Plan, or MYRP, is a research plan that provides contextual information and a breakdown of research activities of the NERP Tropical Ecosystems Hub; describes the research that the Hub will be undertaking between 2011 and 2014; identifies research priorities and l

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority seeks to develop a socio-economic monitoring program, but there are a vast number of variables (or ‘indicators’) that could, potentially, be monitored and monitoring is not a costless exercise. So, it is important to ensure that the variables selected for ‘monitoring’, are ones which, (a) provide reliable, relevant information, which (b) measure interactions between sub-systems (e.g. socio-economic and biophysical) and which (c) are clearly associated with the Authority’s primary goal of protecting the Reef, i.e.

Our recent four-year MTSRF project demonstrated significant export of larvae of the inshore coral trout species (Plectropomus maculatus) from existing no-take marine reserves (green zones) in the Keppel Island group on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). In addition, no-take reserves were shown to make a disproportionately large contribution to recruitment in fished areas (blue zones) at this location.

Spatial zoning for multiple-use is the cornerstone of management for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP). Multiple-use zoning was first implemented widely in the GBRMP in the late 1980s and this original zoning plan was in place until 2004, when the marine park was completely rezoned under the Representative Areas Program (RAP).

Implementation of networks of protected areas is the single most widely advocated action to protect marine biodiversity; the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was one of the first and is one of the largest examples of such a network in the world. While some effects of marine protected areas can be seen rapidly, there are also long term changes that may develop over 1-2 decades. Surveys of the matched pairs of reefs during the term of the NERP Program will enable the longer-term effects of zoning to be assessed eight and ten years after the new zoning plan came into force.

The objective of this project is to assess how management of local stressors such as land runoff can help improve the resilience of coral reefs to global stressors (climate change) which are more difficult to manage.

Our current knowledge of diversity of the Great Barrier Reef and the mechanisms that determine it are minimal.  Based on a new statistical model of diversity, researchers will map the diversities of biota and environments of the Reef, and will relate biotic diversity to spatial, environmental and temporal drivers. These relationships will be interpreted in the context of risk, zoning and management.

The reefs of Torres Strait are threatened by a variety of local and global agents: notably climate change (widespread coral bleaching was recorded for the first time in 2010), but also by the coral feeding crown-of-thorns starfish and increasing levels of coral diseases.

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