Reef Watch Community Education in Action Dr Sue Murray-Jones Reef Watch - Liaison Officer and Technical Advisor (Office for Coast and Marine, DEH)

PREMISE: Volunteers can do good science! - importance of temperate reefs - introduce Reef Watch - describe methodology - limits and challenges

- rocky shores accessible - well studied - lots of books, kits, material - lots of community action

Temperate reefs - subtidal less accessible - not as well studied - fewer books, kits, material - few community programs BUT - we know they are highly productive - key role in coastal processes - interest from divers - VERY expensive for researchers to work in subtidal

The Unique South - very high biodiversity - extremely high endemism e.g. 85% of fish 95% of molluscs 90% of echinoderms (estimates from Poore 1991) 30% of Chlorophyta (green algae) 75% of Rhodophyta (red algae) 57% of Phaeophyta (brown) (Womersley 1991) - more species of algae than the GBR has corals

Algal diversity

Why is this so? - Current patterns - tropical influences - East Australian Current - Leeuwin Current - Antarctic influence - Isolation - Longest E-W temperate coastline

Reef Watch - set up to monitor metro reefs - methodology and training developed - got community involvement, funding - raised awareness - events such as Marathon Dive - participate in Sea Week etc - ID workshops using scientific experts

Surveys - visual fish census - quadrat counts - line intercept transects (LIT) - use of life form codes

Life Form Codes

Adelaide University Botany Department - Reef Health Assessment - Development of LIT - use transect line, weighted ruler - record along transect using life form codes - simple - reproducible - directly comparable to U Adelaide/ EPA survey data Line Intercept Transects (LIT)

LIT

Successful program - >80 participants in marathon dives - c. 300 divers have participated - developed a solid data base - interactive web site - developing web engine to generate reports - has been copied by other states - held up as a model in election policy statements

Limits - some data quality problems (addressing) - resourcing - commitment in winter! - data is semi-quantitative - need more spatial cover/replication - need more temporal replication

Challenges - funding (always) - need to find a way to run w/o paid project officer - insurance!!! - need to extend to less “interesting” areas eg seagrass, degraded reefs, estuaries - time

Keys to success - involvement of trained scientists at all levels, e.g. development, analysis, training, dives - high quality training and ID workshops - lots of information eg training manuals, kits - lifeform codes - progression of skills - basic fish census, quadrats - “graduate” to LIT - liasion with Government, SARDI, Unis

Where to now? - expansion of programs - Feral and in Peril - “adopt a reef” program …. temporal repetition and ownership - devolving to local areas eg grants from Marion, Onka councils - expand to regions - add an intertidal component - Seagrass Watch - Blue Groper survey - fish biology workshop

Acknowledgements - Coastcare & now Fishcare - active steering Committee, past, present and future - Jon Emmett, Sheralee Cox, Chris Ball - David Turner and Anthony Cheshire - SARDI - OCM