OCeAnS InSTITUTe NeWS Issue 9 February 2013 Oceans Institute

r ese arch hig hlig htsD surveyingan Australianmarine frontierResearchers from The University ofWestern Australia’s Oceans Institute,the Australian Institute of MarineScience (AIMS), Geoscience Australia(GA), and the Museum & Art Galleryof the Northern Territory (MGNT) haveteamed up to map marine biodiversityin remote corners of the Timor Sea.A 21-day survey on board the AIMSVessel RV Solander, and undertakenunder the auspices of the NationalEnvironmental Research Program MarineBiodiversity Hub (www.nerpmarine.edu.au), yielded valuable insights into thedistribution, abundance and richnessof marine species within the OceanicShoals Commonwealth Marine Reserve,supporting the Australian Government’smarine bioregional plans.Spot tail shark4 oceans.uwa.edu.auAs part of this work, Oceans Instituteand Centre for Marine Futures postdoctoralfellow Dr Tom Letessier and OceansInstitute and School of Animal BiologyPhD student Phil Bouchet used a newand pioneering underwater video camerasystem called ‘SISSTA’ (Stereo-ImagerySystem for Shark and Tuna Assessment)to capture footage of a variety of openwater species such as sharks, tunas andother large predatory fishes.The goal of this research was todetermine how these relatively mobilespecies interact with submergedtopographic features such as shoals,pinnacles, and valleys, and whether suchfeatures are associated with hotspots ofoceanic biodiversity.Oceans Institute NERP project leader,Professor Jessica Meeuwig: “Marinereserves include a range of habitats andit is important to understand their valueto relatively mobile, open water speciesas well as the more commonly studiedresident species,”The SISSTAs are deployed 10 metresbelow the ocean surface for up to 3hours and each unit is fitted with a baitchamber to attract animals into the fieldof view of two stereo cameras.“We completed a total of 117pod of three killer whalesdeployments across three differentsurvey areas, and generated inexcess of 760 hours of video footage.It was an incredible success,” Dr TomLetessier said.Mr Bouchet and Dr Letessier alsorecorded sightings of large predatorssuch as cetaceans and seabirds whilsten route, including killer whales, falsekiller whales, Indo-Pacific dolphins, andover 400 seabirds from more than sevenfamilies.“There is a strong indication thatthis part of the Timor Sea may be ofimportance to several mobile marinemammal species at various stages oftheir life cycles,” Mr Bouchet said.The NERP Marine BiodiversityHub is a national marine researchcollaboration supporting the evidencebased management of Australia’smarine environment. It is funded bythe Department of Sustainability,Environment, Water, Populationand Communities.More details about the surveyand SISSTA footage can be foundat www.nerpmarine.edu.au/rvsolander-blog

r ese arch hig hlig htsTesting coastalvulnerabilityOceans Institute researchers ProfessorRyan Lowe and PhD students MarkBuckley and Andrew Pomeroy havejust completed a major six-weekinternational study on the dynamics ofwave transformation across coral reefsto assess the coastal vulnerability ofreef-protected shorelines.Whale shark (photo: Rob Harcourt)World’s biggest fish needsto swim near the surfaceWhale sharks, the world’s biggest fish,can dive to chilly waters hundreds ofmetres deep but they need to returnto the surface to warm up, accordingto a new study led by OI/AIMSresearcher Dr Michele Thums.The findings published in the Journal ofthe Royal Society deliver new insightsinto the little-known behaviour of thesegentle giants of the sea.Whale sharks have been known toundertake regular dives to around 100metres and then return to the surfacerelatively quickly, the so-called “bounce”or “yo-yo” dives. But the research team,including UWA Adjunct Professor DrMark Meekan of the Australian Institute ofMarine Research, discovered that whalesharks could also undertake very long,deep dives lasting more than two hours.“When we looked at our data, wefound that the whale sharks spent regularintervals at the surface between divingbouts. This pattern of returning to thesurface looked similar to the patternsseen in air-breathing marine animals,so we were curious as to why fishthat do not breathe air would do it,”Dr Thums said.The study involved four whale sharks:three at Ningaloo Reef off the NorthWest coast of Western Australia and oneat Christmas Island. The sharks weretagged with time-depth recorders whichalso recorded water temperatures.The researchers found that after thedeepest and coldest dives – an average340 metres deep with temperatures ofabout 14 degrees Celsius – the sharksspent the longest time at the surface, anaverage of 145 minutes.Dr Thums concluded that theyneed to do so to regulate their bodytemperature – in effect, to warm up afterspending time in the deeper, colder partsof the sea.“Whale sharks, like many other fishare ectothermic, which means thattheir body temperature is similar to thesurrounding water temperature and theycan’t regulate their body temperaturethrough internal physiological processes.So, behavioural mechanisms such asspending time in the warmer surfacewaters are needed to warm them, similarto a reptile basking in the sun to warmup and then moving under a rock oncesufficiently warmed,” Dr Thums said.A better understanding of the whalesharks’ behaviour will help in developingeffective conservation and managementstrategies, as well as predictingresponses to environmental changes.The large-scale laboratory experimentswere commissioned by UWA in theunique 55m long Deltares Scheldt waveflume in Delft, the Netherlands, and wereconducted using a scaled fringing reefprototype that was built to mimic thesteep morphological characteristics andbottom roughness properties of naturalcoral reefs.The study is the most detailed of itskind and will provide new insight intohow coral reefs protect coastlines byattenuating wave energy from extremestorms (e.g. cyclones) and tsunamis,including the response to sea level rise.The experimental program had twocomponents: a detailed study of wavebreaking and wave transformation acrosscoral reef flats led by Mark Buckley anda study of sediment transport processesand beach profile evolution led byAndrew Pomeroy with scaled-sedimentsadded to the lagoon.Prof. Lowe said the results willhave far-reaching impacts on ourunderstanding of the natural hazardsfacing topical coastlines and low-lyingislands that are abundant throughoutAustralia and more broadly throughoutthe Indo-Pacific region.“A major objective of this research isto develop and validate a new generationof numerical models that can be appliedto improve predictions of wave impactsand coastal erosion behind both coraland rocky reef structures,” he said.The study was supported by Prof.Lowe’s ARC Future Fellowship and a UWAResearch Collaboration Award with Dutchcoastal engineering collaborators Dr Apvan Dongeren and Prof. Dano Roelvink.L-R: Andrew pomeroy, Ap van dongeren,mark buckley and ryan loweOcea ns Ins titute issue 9 FEBRUARY 2013 5

r ese arch hig hlig htsJellyfish numbers unchangedDespite widespread belief thatthe world’s jellyfish populationis exploding, a new internationalstudy suggests that there is no realevidence of a global increase injellyfish over the past two centuries.The results of the study, “RecurrentJellyfish Blooms are a Consequenceof Global Oscillations”, appeared inProceedings of the National Academyof Science.The research was led by Dr RobCondon of the Dauphin Island Sea Labin Alabama, US, with experts from theGlobal Jellyfish Group, a consortium of30 researchers including lead co-authorWinthrop Professor Carlos M. Duarte, ofUWA’s Oceans Institute.Crambione mastigophora Broome, Australia(photo: James Brown)Fried Egg Jellyfish (Cotylrhiza) from Alicante,Spain, forms blooms along the Mediterraneancoastline. (Photo credit: Meaghan Schrandt).The key finding of the study showsglobal jellyfish populations undergoconcurrent oscillations with successivedecadal periods of rise and fall, includinga rising phase in the 1990s and early2000s that has contributed to thecurrent perception of a global increasein jellyfish. The previous period of highjellyfish numbers during the 1970swent unnoticed.“There are major consequences forgetting the answer correct for tourism,fisheries and management decisionsas they relate to climate changeand changing ocean environments,”Professor Duarte said.6 oceans.uwa.edu.auPortuguese Man-O-War (Physalia sp.)are common in the world’s oceans.(Photo credit: Elizabeth Condon).“The important aspect about our workis that we have provided the long-termbaseline backed with all data availableto science, which will enable scientiststo build on and eventually repeat theseanalyses in a decade or two from now todetermine whether there has been a realincrease in jellyfish.“The more we know, the better wecan manage oceanic ecosystems orrespond accurately to future effects ofclimate change,” Professor Duarte said.Salp bloom off the coast of New Zealand(Photo credit: Seacology)

10 0 ye ars of m arine science at uwa100 years ofMarine Science atUWA – a long anddistinguished historyIn this the first of our two-part centenary special,the Oceans Institute’s highly cited marine ecologist,Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Emeritus ProfessorDiana Walker, takes a look at what impact marinescience at UWA has had over the last century.In the next edition, one of the founding membersand mentors of the UWA Oceans Institute, ProfessorAlistar Robertson, maps the future direction forocean solution research.Imagine a world without satelliteimages available from Mr Google,no GPS fixes to navigate the world’socean, and no lap-top computers.That was only thirty years ago!Go back another thirty and mostAustralians were only just startingto be able to afford a car, SCUBAdiving was just emerging fromits naval origins and a report toJacques Cousteau said that only 10aqualung sets had been sent to theUSA because the market there wassaturated1! Plastics, especially thatscourge of the oceans, polystyrene,only became available in the late1950s. Scientists’ offices then hadsinks and light microscopes but nolabs with the wonderful technologiesavailable today. And in 1913, whenUWA began, the world was an evenmore different place.Early days at UWA had a focus onachieving growth and economicdevelopment for the State of WesternAustralia, and although there was anawareness of fisheries as important, themarine environment was not particularlyviewed as a source of wealth. Ourknowledge of the Southern Oceans waslargely based on voyages of explorationfrom Europe, and from the forays ofsealers and whalers into the Antarctic,where whale blubber provided lampoil for lighting before electricity wasavailable. In 1892, William Saville Kent, aBritish marine biologist, became WesternAustralia’s Commissioner of Fisheries,a position he held for three years. Hemade the first observations of tropicalfauna at the Abrolhos in 18972, providingthe earliest evidence of a warm waterflow down the west coast of Australia3.Saville Kent’s work on for both edible andpearl oyster fisheries set the stage forideas only now being followed up in theOceans Institute. He also examined andreported on fish, bêche-de-mer, corals,sponges, dugong and turtles duringthis period4.A famous early marine appointmentto The University of Western Australiawas William Dakin (1883–1950). In 1912,Dakin applied for the chair of biologyin the “new” University of WesternAustralia. On the withdrawal of a morefavoured candidate, Dakin, described bythe electors as ‘bright, keen and with agood manner’, was appointed, arriving in1913. To further his physiological studies,he twice visited the Houtman Abrolhosarchipelago; to widen the zoologicalimpact, he became president of thelocal Royal Society in 1913-15. In Perth,where a university was a novelty, Dakinhelped to gain acceptance for it. In 1919,Dakin reported on a southwards currentbetween Geraldton and the AbrolhosIsland when northerly winds blew.5Always ambitious, he left UWA for achair at the University of Liverpool beforereturning to Australia where he seemedto settle at the University of Sydney. Hewas most famous for his book AustralianSeashores6 (REF), produced by IsobelBennett and Elizabeth Pope after hisdeath in 1950, which continued to bere-printed until 1992.7UWA’s inspiring 20th centurymarine scientistsAt The University of Western Australia,biologists, geologists and geographerscontinued to “seek wisdom”, advanceour knowledge of organisms and theirenvironments, and train students.Joseph Hefetz Gentilli joined theDepartment of Geography in 1939and was associated with UWA until hisOcea ns Ins titute issue 9 FEBRUARY 2013 7

10 0 ye ars of m arine science at uwaDivers preparing to lay out a gridDi Walker, as a post-doctoral fellow,for sampling seagrass recruitmentin Shark Bay on the RV Uniwest in 1982in Two People Bay 2003 (Photo: Diana Walker)death in 2000. He built an internationalreputation as a geographer, studyingsubjects ranging from cartography,migration and economic geography,to climatology, physiography, ecologyand biogeography. Over his long careeras a researcher and educator, Gentillipublished hundreds of articles and morethan a dozen books (the best knownone was Climates of Australia andNew Zealand) and was an importantinfluence on the professionalization ofthe field of geography in his adoptedland. From his ground breaking researchon West Australian climate and winds8,9he became known as the “Grandfatherof the Leeuwin Current”. The 1991Symposium on the Leeuwin Currentallowed his work to be acknowledgedby others before his death. The RoyalSociety Special Issue 1991 (Volume 7410 ),organized and edited by Pearce andWalker, provides an interesting historicaland contemporary multidisciplinaryperspective. The more recent 2007Leeuwin Current Symposium11, alsoorganised by Alan Pearce, showshow much marine science has movedon even in the 16 years between thetwo symposia.Ernest Pease Hodgkin joined UWA’sDepartment of Zoology in 1946 asan entomologist, but rapidly becameinvolved with the marine and estuarineenvironment of Western Australia.He attracted a legion of keen andenthusiastic students, many of whomhave carried on his traditions ofgetting out in the field and carrying outpainstaking research. He became anInaugural Australian Marine SciencesAssociation Councillor in 1963, andremained on Council for some 15 years.He organised a symposium in 198312.Ernest Hodgkin led the first integratedstudy of a major WA waterway, the HardyInlet and Blackwood River, in the 1970s.This study led to a number of other largemultidisciplinary studies, including the8 oceans.uwa.edu.auinternationally recognised Peel-HarveyEstuary study with Professor ArthurMcComb, which led to the constructionof the Dawesville Channel. Both Ernestand Arthur were awarded Royal Societyof WA medals in 1997 for their researchin marine and estuarine environments inWestern Australia.Papers, photographs and othermaterial used by Dr Ernest Hodgkin arenow held by the UWA Library ScholarsCentre. Much of this material (1945-1998)was used in government reports andjournal articles about particular estuarysystems e.g. Blackwood and PeelHarvey and the South Coast (EstuarineStudy Series Volumes 1-8) published bythe Environmental Protection Authority.The material was also the basis of thebook Ernest Hodgkin’s Swanland. InSeptember 1998, shortly before his deathat the age of ninety, and with a paper inpress13, Ernest Hodgkin set up a TrustFund and made a substantial bequestfrom his estate to continue the workthat was so important to him – researchand education to promote soundmanagement of Western Australia’sestuaries. He selected trustees forthis bequest from the ranks of his exstudents and colleagues, many of whomwere UWA graduates, now holdingpositions in state government, or UWAacademic staff.The December 2005 publication of‘Ernest Hodgkin’s Swanland, Estuariesand Coastal Lagoons of SouthwesternAustralia’, by Dr Anne Brearley, publishedby UWA Press14, was significant for theuniversity as the book was launched bythe then Premier of Western Australia, DrGeoff Gallop, overlooking the Swan Riverat the Maritime Museum, Fremantle.Vice Chancellor of the day, ProfessorAlan Robson, who had also supportedthe book’s production by UWA Press,spoke at the launch. It was attended by averitable “who’s who” of marine sciencein Western Australia, many of themHodge’s ex-students and colleagues.15Emeritus Professor Arthur McComb,Botany, UWA 1962-1989Emeritus Professor Arthur McComb hada seminal influence on a generation ofresearchers, supervising some 30 PhDstudents. His gentle, unassuming mannercombined with his effectiveness andincisive thinking have resulted in majorshifts in our understanding of aquaticecosystems. His work has been ofconsiderable management significance,especially in relation to the accessionof nutrients from catchments and theireffects in receiving waters. Examplesinclude the Blackwood River Estuarywith Ernest Hodgkin, Cockburn Sound,and the Peel-Harvey Estuarine System.Cockburn Sound, a marine embaymentbordering a recently industrialisedarea on the eastern shoreline of theSound, had been a prolific seagrassenvironment, and a favoured recreationalfishing location. Seagrasses had diedback in the Sound, and subsequentlyphytoplankton blooms had becomeprominent. The death of seagrasswas traced to enhanced growth ofalgal epiphytes on leaf surfaces, whilethe distribution and concentration ofnutrients and phytoplankton in thewater was traced back to a fertiliserfactory. An improved sewage works wasalso becoming more important as thepopulation of Perth increased. Thesestudies were instrumental in the StateGovernment expending some 40 millionin re-routing the sewage effluent to amore appropriate site, while industryresponded by reducing levels of wastesentering the Sound. Dr A W Chiffings,and Dr M L Cambridge were studentsassociated with this work.Cambridge brought Dr John Kuo’sattention to seagrasses, another majorthrust for marine research at UWA,this time in the Centre for Microscopy.She had brought some specimensof Posidonia to Kuo and asked forhis help. These specimens did not fitthe existing descriptions of Posidoniaaustralis, Hook.f. and the outcome wasthe description of, first, two new speciesof Posidonia16, then another four moreleathery ones17.At Professor Kuo’s retirementFeitschrift in 2011, I spoke on how hisresearch had provided the taxonomicbackdrop to the development of ourunderstanding of the role and functioningof Western Australian seagrassesover the last 35 years. His detailedanatomy and taxonomy has allowedus to strengthen seagrass research in

10 0 ye ars of m arine science at uwawhat is its biogeographical centre, andcurrent research in the Oceans Instituteby Winthrop Professor Kendrick18 andcolleagues has also benefitted.The Peel-Harvey system, nearMandurah, was in the 1970s showingevidence of intense eutrophication,with accumulations of macroalgae andextensive blue-green algal blooms.The cause of eutrophication wasestablished as nutrients derived from theriver systems. Collaborative work withthe then Department of Conservationand Environment, the Department ofAgriculture and other state governmentinstitutions, together with a managementstudy which McComb jointly directedwith Ernest Hodgkin, led to theconclusion that altered procedures forapplying fertiliser will improve the estuary,but that a dramatic improvement in theshort-term would only be achieved bycutting a new channel to the ocean.These proposals were accepted; thechannel was constructed at a cost ofsome 37 million, and there have beenno subsequent blue-green blooms.Dr Rod Lukatelich (BP and EPA), DrDavid Gordon and Dr Paul Lavery(now Professor at ECU) were studentsassociated with this research.19Gary Kendrick had been associatedwith Arthur McComb’s research

in terms of world benchmarks included good news for UWA in general and the UWA Oceans Institute in particular. . of Tasmania’s Roger Proctor and James Cook University’s Peter Ridd as well as researchers from the Oceans Institute . in remote corners of the Timor Sea. A 21-day survey