A four-year collaborative research program has provided new knowledge and systems to support sustainable use of Australia’s oceans.
The National Environmental Research Program (NERP) Marine Biodiversity Hub was established by the to support decision making by marine stakeholders, including the commercial fishing industry.
Hub Director, Professor Nic Bax of the University of Tasmania, says the Hub has fostered scientific collaboration, mapped and surveyed new areas, and streamlined approaches to gathering, managing and analysing data
The 2011─2015 Final Report of the NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub provides non-technical, illustrated summaries of research projects funded by the Hub. Projects of particular relevance to the fishing industry include:
- Photographic inventories of deep-water fish communities made for the first time off Tasmania using baited, instrumented, remote camera systems, and mid-water camera systems developed to monitor pelagic sharks and fishes off Western Australia.
- An intensive rock lobster potting survey of reef systems in and adjacent to the Tasman Fracture CMR examined lobster abundances and size structure in fished and protected locations.
- New genetic and statistical approaches produced the first population estimate for Australia’s eastern white shark population, and are set to revolutionise knowledge-gathering for sharks, sawfish and other threatened species.
- FishMap, a free, online tool that generates lists of fishes by area, depth, family or ecosystem.
Science partners in the NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub were University of Tasmania, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Charles Darwin University, Museum Victoria and University of Western Australia. AFMA was a government member on the Hub’s Steering Committee.