Development of an industry-based habitat mapping/monitoring system FRDC Project No 2011/021

Mapping / monitoring in the marine environment can be a very costly exercise. Scientists from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development; Fisheries Division (FD) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have developed a small, low-cost automated camera system that, when fitted to commercial fishing gear, can achieve this at minimal cost. The POTBot (Pictures Of The Bottom) system is a cheap, small “smart” camera that can track its position globally and the date and time, and can record high-definition video and water temperature readings when it determines it has been deployed into the ocean

Evaluating source-sink relationships of the western rock lobster fishery using oceanographic modelling: Final FRDC Report – Project 2008/087

Objectives 1. To determine the relative contribution of larval production from different areas to the abundance and spatial distribution of puerulus settlement over 15 years using a larval advection mode

Observational insights into chlorophyll distributions of subtropical South Indian Ocean eddies

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Identifying factors affecting the low western rock lobster puerulus settlement in recent years Final FRDC Report – Project 2009/18

Objectives 1. To use a larval advection model and the rock lobster population dynamics model to assess the effect of the spatial distribution of the breeding stock on the puerulus settlement 2. To assess environmental factors (water temperature, current, wind, productivity, eddies) and breeding stock affecting puerulus settlement 3. To examine climate change trends of key environmental parameters and their effect on the western rock lobster fisher

Coral larval recruitment in north-western Australia predicted by regional and local conditions

Understanding ecological processes that shape contemporary and future communities facilitates knowledge-based environmental management. In marine ecosystems, one of the most important processes is the supply of new recruits into a population. Here, we investigated spatiotemporal variability in coral recruitment at 15 reefs throughout the Dampier Archipelago, north-western Australia between 2015 and 2017 and identified the best environmental predictors for coral recruitment patterns over this period. Large differences in recruitment were observed among years with the average density of recruits increasing by 375% from 0.017 recruits cm−2 in 2015 to 0.059 recruits cm−2 in 2017. Despite differences in recruitment among years, the rank order of coral recruit density among reefs remained similar among years, suggesting that spatial variation in recruitment within the Dampier Archipelago is partly deterministic and predictable. The density of coral recruits was best explained by percent cover of live corals at both local (within 5 m) and meso-scales (within 15 km), water turbidity and an oceanographic model that predicted larval dispersal. The highest density of coral recruits (~0.13 recruits cm−2 or 37 recruits per tile) occurred on reefs within sub-regions (15 km) with greater than 35% coral cover, low to moderate turbidity (KD490 < 0.2) and moderate to high modelled predictions of larval dispersal. Our results demonstrate that broad-scale larval dispersal models, when combined with local metrics of percent hard coral cover and water turbidity, can reliably predict the relative abundance of coral recruits over large geographical areas and thus can identify hotspots of recruit abundance and potential recovery following environmental disturbances; information that is essential for effective management of coral reefs

Проблемы и перспективы развития тепловой энергетики в России

Данная статья посвящена обзору экономических проблем и перспектив развития тепловой энергетики в России. Проведенное исследование показало - техническое оборудование тепловых станций морально устарело, что ведет к снижению технико-экономических показателей. Перспективы развития этой отрасли требуют хорошо скоординированных научно-технических усилий. Проблемы теплоэнергетики в стране, как никогда актуальны

Underwater macrophotogrammetry to monitor in situ benthic communities at submillimetre scale

Abstract Larval settlement and recruitment of sessile organisms are key ecological processes for population recovery and maintenance that occur at scales invisible to the human eye. Accordingly, proxies of recruitment have commonly been quantified using artificial substrata such as settlement tiles made of diverse materials and shapes, which are typically transported to the laboratory for examination. However, it is unknown how much bias is introduced with this sampling strategy and how recruitment quantified on tiles relates to recruitment on nearby natural substrata. Here, we applied techniques that combine macrophotography with photogrammetry (macrophotogrammetry) underwater to monitor benthic communities at submillimetre scale. This application allows the investigation of recruitment and community succession of the earliest life‐history stages in situ and on natural substrata. We tested the use of four different imaging systems, varying in costs from US$1400 to US$ 5440. While the most expensive SONY αRiv system provided the best visual output and ground resolution (up to 5 μm/pixel with a + 4 close‐up lens); regardless of systems, 3D models always had a ground resolution ≤23 μm/pixel and errors in planar measurements of submillimetre features were similar among systems. This level of resolution compares well with stereomicroscopy in the range of 5:1 to 10:1 magnification, while providing detailed 3D digital records through time. Using a coral reef example, we apply this approach to demonstrate how it can be used to monitor small reef areas (~300–600 cm2) through time, including the quantification of biophysical metrics such as cover of small facilitative and competitive organisms and microhabitat complexity. We further show that organisms as small 0.5 mm in size, such as 2‐month‐old coral settlers, can be located accurately within the 3D models and measured with a good level of confidence. This method can be readily applied to other benthic environments to elucidate drivers of early recruitment and recovery of benthic organisms following disturbance impacts at very fine scales, directly on natural substrata, to avoid biases inherent with laboratory‐based analyses of artificial surfaces

Use of bio-optical profiling float data in validation of ocean colour satellite products in a remote ocean region

Utility of data from autonomous profiling floats for the validation of satellite ocean colour products from current satellite ocean colour sensors was assessed using radiometric and chlorophyll a fluorescence data from bio-geochemical profiling floats (BGC-Argo) deployed in the subtropical gyre of the Indian Ocean. One of the floats was equipped with downward irradiance and upwelling radiance sensors, allowing the remote sensing reflectance, R-rs, to be determined. Comparisons between satellite and in situ R-rs, indicated good agreement for the shorter wavelengths, but weak relationships for both satellites for the 555 nm channel, and showed that radiometers deployed on multipurpose, off-the-shelf BGC-Argo floats can provide validation-quality measurements. About 300 chlorophyll a concentration match-ups were achieved within 18 months, which increased the number of validation data points available for the Indian Ocean as a whole by a factor of similar to 4 from the previous historical record. Generally, the satellite data agreed with the float-derived chlorophyll concentration within the uncertainty of +/- 35%, for the band-difference (OCI) and band-ratio (OC3) algorithms, but not for a semi analytical ocean colour model (GSM) that exhibited significantly higher chlorophyll values (> 100% mean difference). Our results indicate that autonomous float-based measurements provide substantial potential for improving regional validation of satellite ocean colour products in remote areas