South East Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) Seamounts project

Current projects

Project aims:

• To review knowledge and re-survey the Tasmanian Seamounts Marine Reserve to better define the conservation values of this reserve and to determine whether there have been observable changes (e.g. relative to adjacent fished areas) since 1999.
• To provide baseline surveys for three new Commonwealth Marine Reserves – Huon, Tasman Fracture, South Tasman Rise – in the South East Region (SER). More information from the Department of the Environment and Water Resources website.
• To provide advice on suitable indicators for monitoring temperate offshore MPAs, bearing in mind potential monitoring frequency and limits on destructive sampling.

Survey design:

Survey 1:

• mapping using Multibeam Swathmapper
• visual sampling using a Deep Video System
• Research Voyage SS11/2006 Survey and monitoring for SE MPAs including the Tasmanian Seamounts Marine Reserve [PDF]

Survey 2:

• physical sampling using Epibenthic Samplers and additional video
• Museum collaboration for taxonomy – focus groups Voyage Report: SS02/2007 Survey and monitoring for SE MPAs including the Tasmanian Seamounts Marine Reserve [PDF]

Outputs to date:

Detailed maps of known and newly discovered semounts

[Click for larger view]

Photographic inventories:

• In situ photographs – species
  • Echinoidea
  • Octocorallia
  • Porifera
• In situ photographs – habitats [PDF 528kb]
• Taxonomic photographs [PDF 812kb]

Scientific Poster:

Seamount Ecosystems conserved in the Huon Commonwealth Marine Reserve [PDF 3.5 MB]

Seamount lists and species data from biological samples were provided to SeamountsOnline (http://seamounts.sdsc.edu/)

See also; Publications

The team:

Members of the team include:

• Alan Williams
• Rudy Kloser
  
• Franzis Althaus

Last updated: 19/04/11