Submerged Carbonate Banks Aggregate Pelagic Megafauna in Offshore Tropical Australia

Bouchet, Phil J.; Letessier, Tom B.; Caley, M. Julian; Nichol, Scott L.; Hemmi, Jan M.; Meeuwig, Jessica J.

doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00530

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 114 publications

(134 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The method has been used to identify areas important to ocean wildlife, both on biogeographical scales (>5,000 km) such as the last refuges of predators (Letessier et al, 2019), areas that should be considered as priority areas for protection. On smaller scales (10-50 km), mid-water BRUVS have helped quantify the pelagic fish assemblage structure of seamounts and other seabed features (Bouchet et al, 2020). Further assistance on MPA planning comes from an improved understanding of how cryptic and rare species use the vastness of this space: mid-water BRUVS have provided insight into the distribution and behavior of cryptic species such as turtles (Letessier et al, 2015a) and beaked whales (Thompson et al, 2019).…”

Section: Examples Of Important Ecological Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They have also been used to identify nursery areas for pelagic sharks (Forrest, 2019) analogous to the use of seabed BRUVS in identifying coastal shark nurseries (Oh et al, 2017). From a monitoring perspective, mid-water BRUVS have enabled the characterization of wildlife distributions within MPAs (Bouchet and Meeuwig, 2015;Bouchet et al, 2020), creating a basis for expectations in terms of benchmarking wildlife. Further work has shown the consistency of that distribution through time, emphasizing the value of static MPAs for pelagic wildlife (Forrest et al, 2021).…”

Section: Examples Of Important Ecological Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Pulling Back the Blue Curtain: A Pelagic Monitoring Program for the Blue Belt

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ocean health is fundamental to human prosperity. However, fisheries exploitation, industrialization and climate change imperil our oceans. Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established in coastal habitats since the 1970s and the ongoing monitoring of these MPAs has shown their general ecological and economic value. Demonstrable benefits can include biodiversity conservation, fisheries enhancement and climate resilience. Since the 2000s, large scale MPAs (LSMPAs) are increasingly established, with new parks including extensive areas of pelagic habitat. Seminal was the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) MPA created in 2010. In 2016, the United Kingdom Government established the Blue Belt Programme to provide long-term protection of the marine environment across the United Kingdom Overseas Territories and LSMPAs have now been established or designated in a number of these territories. However, empirical data for the Blue Belt LSMPAs are needed to test their effectiveness in conserving pelagic species and to allow managers to monitor and assess the LSMPAs based on the best available evidence. This Perspective presents current advances in video-based monitoring of pelagic wildlife and provides examples of key ecological insights gained from their use that are relevant to LSMPA planning and management. We present a case study from the BIOT MPA and finally generalize with respect to key learning’s that will support planning and monitoring of LSMPAs within the Blue Belt Programme.

show abstract

Section: Examples Of Important Ecological Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Examples Of Important Ecological Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulling Back the Blue Curtain: A Pelagic Monitoring Program for the Blue Belt

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Bathymetric and dynamic oceanographic features are known to harbour rich assemblages of pelagic species and are therefore of particular interest in marine spatial planning and reserve implementation. Features such as coasts, islands, reefs, seamounts, and canyons are frequently associated with aggregations of marine wildlife (Yen et al, 2004;Clarke et al, 2011;Bouchet et al, 2015Bouchet et al, , 2020. Islands often have higher productivity and biodiversity than surrounding waters (Doty and Oguri, 1956;Gove et al, 2016), and seamounts are often hotspots of pelagic biodiversity with higher species richness of commercially caught pelagic species around their summits than in coastal and oceanic areas (Morato et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Variation in Pelagic Wildlife Assemblages in the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area: Implications for Monitoring and Management

Thompson

Meeuwig

Brown³

et al. 2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Bathymetric features such as islands and seamounts, as well as dynamic ocean features such as fronts often harbour rich marine communities. We deployed mid-water baited remote underwater video systems on three expeditions in Ascension Island’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), surveying the waters associated with six different bathymetric and dynamic ocean features: Ascension Island, two shallow seamounts (summits ≤ 101 m), one deeper seamount (summit > 250 m), apparent fronts, and haphazardly sampled open ocean areas. At Ascension Island, the pelagic assemblage consisted of a moderate proportion of predators and a diverse range of other taxa, including turtles, dolphins, and large non-piscivores. At the two shallow seamounts, sharks, tunas, billfish, and other large pelagic predators formed the vast majority of the assemblage, contributing > 99.9% of biomass and > 86% of abundance. At the deeper seamount, the pelagic community was comparatively depauperate, however the functional composition of its assemblage indicated some similarities to the shallow seamounts. Apparent fronts did not significantly differ from random offshore sites for metrics such as total abundance and taxonomic richness. However, they harboured assemblages with more abundant sharks, tunas, and large piscivores than random ocean open locations and these differences may be driven by certain front-associated species. Our results illustrate that pelagic assemblages vary markedly among different physical and oceanographic features and that seamounts appear particularly important for pelagic predators. The diversity and abundance of the assemblage, as well as the threatened status of many of the species observed, serve to highlight the conservation value of the Ascension Island EEZ. Our results also provide important baseline information of pelagic wildlife assemblages against which the performance of the recently implemented Ascension Island Marine Protected Area can be evaluated.

show abstract

“…Mid‐water stereo‐baited remote underwater video systems (stereo‐BRUVS) are increasingly used to document pelagic assemblages as an alternative to lethal, fisheries‐based sampling, particularly in MPAs (Letessier et al 2019, Bouchet et al 2020). Here, we use a long‐term stereo‐BRUVS dataset collected between 2013 and 2019 to assess the potential conservation value of the area in terms of the predictability of its aggregations of wildlife.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

True blue: Temporal and spatial stability of pelagic wildlife at a submarine canyon

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In coastal systems, marine-protected areas (MPAs) have been shown to increase the diversity, abundance, and biomass of wildlife assemblages as well as their resilience to climate change. The effectiveness of pelagic MPAs is less clear, with arguments against their establishment typically based on the highly mobile nature of pelagic taxa. We used mid-water stereo-baited remote underwater video systems (stereo-BRUVS) and spatial predictive models to characterize the pelagic wildlife assemblage at the head of the Perth Canyon, one of the largest submarine canyons in Australia, over a 7-yr period (2013-2019). The total number of unique taxa and mean values of taxonomic richness, abundance, fork length, and biomass demonstrated strong interannual stability, although mean taxonomic richness and abundance were significantly lower in 2018 relative to other years. Seasonal variability was absent in 2016, but in 2018, taxonomic richness and abundance were three times greater in the Austral spring than in the autumn. Some mobile megafauna were only recorded at the Perth Canyon Marine Park (PCMP) in the autumn, suggesting a seasonal component to their occurrence. The fine-scale distribution of pelagic taxa at the canyon head was largely stable over time, with many areas of higher relative probability of presence located outside protected zones. Despite a degree of variability that may relate to the effect of the El Niño Southern Oscillation on the Leeuwin Current, the PCMP assemblage demonstrates a relatively high degree of spatiotemporal stability. Stronger protection of the PCMP (IUCN II or higher) would potentially improve conservation outcomes for many species of pelagic wildlife.

show abstract

Submerged Carbonate Banks Aggregate Pelagic Megafauna in Offshore Tropical Australia

Cited by 9 publications

References 114 publications

Pulling Back the Blue Curtain: A Pelagic Monitoring Program for the Blue Belt

Pulling Back the Blue Curtain: A Pelagic Monitoring Program for the Blue Belt

Spatial Variation in Pelagic Wildlife Assemblages in the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area: Implications for Monitoring and Management

True blue: Temporal and spatial stability of pelagic wildlife at a submarine canyon

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About