Coral larvae move toward reef sounds

Free-swimming larvae of tropical corals go through a critical life-phase when they return from the open ocean to select a suitable settlement substrate. During the planktonic phase of their life cycle, the behaviours of small coral larvae (<1 mm) that influence settlement success are difficult to observe in situ and are therefore largely unknown. Here, we show that coral larvae respond to acoustic cues that may facilitate detection of habitat from large distances and from upcurrent of preferred settlement locations. Using in situ choice chambers, we found that settling coral larvae were attracted to reef sounds, produced mainly by fish and crustaceans, which we broadcast underwater using loudspeakers. Our discovery that coral larvae can detect and respond to sound is the first description of an auditory response in the invertebrate phylum Cnidaria, which includes jellyfish, anemones, and hydroids as well as corals. If, like settlement-stage reef fish and crustaceans, coral larvae use reef noise as a cue for orientation, the alleviation of noise pollution in the marine environment may gain further urgency.Mark J. A. Vermeij, Kristen L. Marhaver, Chantal M. Huijbers, Ivan Nagelkerken and Stephen D. Simpso

The Role of Digital Technologies in Responding to the Grand Challenges of the Natural Environment:The Windermere Accord

Digital technology is having a major impact on many areas of society, and there is equal opportunity for impact on science. This is particularly true in the environmental sciences as we seek to understand the complexities of the natural environment under climate change. This perspective presents the outcomes of a summit in this area, a unique cross-disciplinary gathering bringing together environmental scientists, data scientists, computer scientists, social scientists, and representatives of the creative arts. The key output of this workshop is an agreed vision in the form of a framework and associated roadmap, captured in the Windermere Accord. This accord envisions a new kind of environmental science underpinned by unprecedented amounts of data, with technological advances leading to breakthroughs in taming uncertainty and complexity, and also supporting openness, transparency, and reproducibility in science. The perspective also includes a call to build an international community working in this important area

ecoEd: Cohesive training and skill development for digital ecoscience tools

Digital research infrastructures such as data portals and virtual laboratories enable easier access to data and analytical tools. Such infrastructures are essential to deliver research excellence that drives innovation, but we also need to ensure that we have a skilled workforce that can use these infrastructures. Therefore, training and skill development of students, researchers, government practitioners and industry professionals is key to the long-term success of this investment. In Australia, a suite of digital infrastructures has been developed for environmental sciences to enhance our understanding of the natural world and making forward projections into novel conditions (e.g. Atlas of Living Australia, Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory, ecocloud, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network). To provide users with a holistic approach to environmental spatial data discovery and analysis, these infrastructures have joined forces to deliver an exciting and innovative new training program. This program, called ecoEd, provides cohesive training and skill development to university lecturers, researchers and industry professionals enabling them to combine theoretical concepts with real-world applications. In this presentation, I will present how ecoEd was developed and the outcomes of the training sessions in which a group of ecoEd Champions absorbed ready-to-use lecture and workshop modules along with tools and knowledge on how to use the platforms. These resources can immediately be used in undergraduate courses that focus on topics such as ecology, biogeography, conservation biology, environmental management and spatial analysis as well as in stand alone workshops for researchers and practitioners. The training program aims to provide the Champions with the resources and knowledge required so that they can confidently re-deliver the lectures and workshops in their own institutions. As such, ecoEd is increasing the capacity of Australia’s environmental science community to advance science and deliver outcomes that underpin the sustainable use of our ecosystems using the latest advances in digital technologies. Moreover, it is enabling first-rate science education in Australia by supporting and nurturing our future scientists

Virtual Laboratories for Biodiversity Modelling: An Australian perspective

Recent technologies have enabled consistent and continuous collection of ecological data at high resolutions across large spatial scales. The challenge remains, however, to bring these data together and expose them to methods and tools to analyse the interaction between biodiversity and the environment. These challenges are mostly associated with the accessibility, visibility and interoperability of data, and the technical computation needed to interpret the data. Australia has invested in digital research infrastructures through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Here we present two platforms that provide easy access to global biodiversity, climate and environmental datasets integrated with a suite of analytical tools and linked to high-performance cloud computing infrastructure. The Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL) is a point-and-click online platform for modelling species responses to environmental conditions, which provides an easy introduction into the scientific concepts of models without the need for the user to understand the underlying code. For ecologists who write their own modelling scripts, we have developed ecocloud: a new online environment that provides access to data connected with command-line analysis tools like RStudio and Jupyter Notebooks as well as a virtual desktop environment using Australia’s national cloud computing infrastructure. ecocloud is built through collaborations among key facilities within the ecosciences domain, establishing a collective long-term vision of creating an ecosystem of infrastructure that provides the capability to enable reliable prediction of future environmental outcomes. Underpinning these tools is an innovative training program, ecoEd, which provides cohesive training and skill development to enhance the translation of Australia’s digital research infrastructures to the ecoscience community by educating and upskilling the next generation of environmental scientists and managers. Both of these platforms are built using a best-practice microservice model that allows for complete flexibility, scalability and stability in a cloud environment. Both the BCCVL and ecocloud are open-source developments and provide opportunities for interoperability with other platforms (e.g. Atlas of Living Austalia). In Australia, the same technical infrastructure is also used for a platform for the humanities and social science domain, indicating that the underlying technologies are not domain specific. We therefore welcome collaborations with other organisations to further develop these platforms for the wider bio- and ecoinformatics community. This presentation will showcase the tools, services, and underpinning infrastructure alongside our training and engagement framework as an exemplar in building platforms for next generation biodiversity science

An innovative tool for mapping and modelling species distributions: the Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory

Models play a critical role in synthesising our understanding of the natural world and making forward projections into novel conditions. While they are central to ecological forecasting, models remain inaccessible to most ecologists, in large part due to the informatics challenges of managing the flows of information in and out of such models. The Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL) is a “one stop modelling shop” that simplifies the process of biodiversity and climate impact modelling. It uses national computational infrastructure to provide access to global biodiversity, climate and environmental data integrated with a suite of tools in a coherent online environment. In this demo, we will showcase how the BCCVL enables researchers to investigate, explore and accelerate biodiversity and climate change research

Towards an Integrated Biodiversity Technology Program Supporting Transparent Decision Making in Australia

Effective management of our natural world under current and future conditions requires efficient, collaborative and complementary planning and decision-making processes with clear lines of accountability. While there has been significant progress in establishing national databases for the management of species observation data, these only represent samples of a species' total distribution. The need and challenge therefore is to model these point-based observation data to obtain estimates or projections of the total range and distribution of the species. Such Species Distribution Models (SDMs), also known as Environmental Niche Models (ENMs), and the geographic data (or “maps”) they generate, provide vital information needed by governments at all levels to meet various policy and statutory responsibilities and obligations. SDMs quantify the response of species occurrence to environmental conditions described by variables such as climate, substrate, productivity and vegetation. The outcomes of an SDM can be used to identify locations and regions with potentially suitable environmental conditions for a species, as well as assess how species may respond to projected future climate changes or habitat loss. While SDMs are widely used in many decision- and policy-making programs, investment in species distribution information has been fragmented and limited. In Australia, three different government departments joined forces with the Atlas of Living Australia and the Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory to develop a standard framework for modelling threatened species distributions for use in policy and environmental decision-making. The pilot program that will be conducted throughout 2019 includes three complementary pillars: An expert panel with both researchers and government practitioners who will review current SDM practices used in government and develop a set of best-practice methods. A technology program that includes the development of a new modelling platform that implements the best-practice methods for transparent and reproducible SDMs for decision making as established by the expert panel. Additionally, there will be an online portal for publishing ecological model outputs in a searchable catalogue to enhance cross-jurisdiction collaborations. Establishment of a training and skill development program to upskill decision makers using the new tools and methodology in practice. This presentation will showcase the outcomes of this program and highlight how digital infrastructure can enhance decision making. In this case specifically, the collaboration across government departments ensures a) a consistent approach across jurisdictions, b) an increase in model quality, thereby leading to a decrease in unnecessary survey or consultation efforts, c) an increase in suitability, robustness and reproducibility of SDMs, and d) increased advocacy and coordination in national programs and resources

Urbanisation alters processing of marine carrion on sandy beaches

Sandy shores are highly attractive for urban development. Urbanisation of beaches is, however, not without environmental consequences, but metrics of ecological change along metropolitan coasts are poorly developed. This lack of metrics impedes environmentally effective coastal zone management. Here we test the effects of urbanisation on a pivotal ecological process on sandy shorelines: carrion removal by vertebrate scavengers. Scavenging is a key process linking ocean and land ecosystems via animal carcasses deposited on beaches and subsequently consumed by mostly terrestrial animals. In this study, experimentally placed fish carcasses were monitored with motion-triggered cameras on urban and rural beaches on the east coast of Australia. Urbanisation substantially influenced the structure of the scavenger guild and the frequency of carrion removal within 24 h. Large raptors were abundant on rural beaches where they rapidly detected and consumed carrion (98% of carcasses removed within 24 h). We detected no scavenging activity of raptors on urban beaches, where scavenging birds of prey were functionally replaced by nocturnally foraging, non-native mammals (red fox, Vulpes vulpes) or feral species (cats, dogs) known to threaten beach-dwelling wildlife. Our findings emphasise the value of non-urbanised coastal dunes and sandy beaches as important feeding sites and habitats for iconic and threatened raptors. We also show that human changes in coastal land-use profoundly alter ecological structures and processes on sandy shorelines, aspects that warrant explicit inclusion in landscape management and planning of the coastal strip

Appendix A. Description of the spatial simulation model.

Description of the spatial simulation model

Appendix D. Optimization of the size-dependent dispersal model.

Optimization of the size-dependent dispersal model

Map of the study area.

<p>Reef contours (approx. 17 m depth) are indicated by thick black lines. Hatched area indicates location of the mangrove forest. SGK  =  sampling site at the shoreline seagrass bed at Kunduchi. Nearshore reefs fringe the island of Mbudya, while offshore reefs are located at ‘Far Reef’ and ‘Gold Reef’.</p