This online article is a summary of one in a series of eco-narrative documents that synthesise our existing knowledge of Australian Marine Parks. Eco-narratives are intended to enable managers and researchers to ascertain the ecological characteristics of each park, and highlight knowledge gaps for future research focus. The information in this eco-narrative forms an initial characterisation of the physical, oceanographic and biological character of Arafura Marine Park, with a focus on results from a biodiversity and mapping survey undertaken by the NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub in 2020. This survey targeted two areas in the marine park: Money Shoal as an example of shallow coral reef habitat, and Pillar Bank as an example of a deeper water mixed seabed environments. This article focuses on survey results from Money Shoal.

Link to article: www.northwestatlas.org/nwa/money-shoal

Link to Fly-through =>  Fly-through of the Arafura Marine Park 2020

This fly-through video explores the seabed environments within Arafura Marine Park, offshore northern Australia. In November 2020, Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Marine Science completed a voyage to map and characterise two areas of the park, Money Shoal and Pillar Bank.  Money Shoal is a shallow carbonate reef within the southern part of the park that supports a diverse range of corals and an abundant fish community, including reef sharks and grouper. In contrast, Pillar Bank is in deeper water (150 – 200 m) on the outer shelf and is characterised by sparse benthic communities of filter feeders on local rock outcrop and a relatively low diversity of fish. Funding for the survey was provided by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program Marine Biodiversity Hub, with co-investment by GA and AIMS.

Further information: https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/document/arafura-marine-park-post-survey-r... and https://northwestatlas.org/nwa/money-shoal

This technical report presents preliminary results and observations of a seabed mapping and biodiversity survey of Arafura Marine Park within the North Marine Park network, undertaken in 2020 by the Australian Institute Marine Science and Geoscience Australia. The primary audience includes researchers and managers of the North Marine Parks and traditional owners of Sea Country in the Arafura Sea region. The objective of the survey was to collect field data to build baseline information by characterising benthic habitats in shelf waters of Arafura Marine Park that will support ongoing monitoring of the park. Bathymetry mapping and underwater imagery were collected in two areas of the park, Money Shoal on the inner continental shelf and Pillar Bank on the outer shelf. These data reveal that Money Shoal supports a diverse shallow water coral and demersal fish community as evidence for the conservation values of the marine park, and which suggest it is unique within its regional setting. Pillar Bank, in contrast, is clearly a different habitat, but is an extensive area within the park that supports benthic communities on hard substrate, albeit sparse in their distribution. Further analysis will be undertaken to quantify the abundance and diversity of these biological communities and to better understand the influence of environmental gradients across the marine park. These new data provide detailed insights into the distribution of sediment-dominated and hardground habitat within Arafura Marine Park, providing a baseline for the ongoing management of the benthic conservation values of this marine protected area.

Background: Our knowledge of the benthic fauna at lower bathyal to abyssal (LBA, > 2000 m) depths off Eastern Australia was very limited with only a few samples having been collected from these habitats over the last 150 years. In May–June 2017, the IN2017_V03 expedition of the RV Investigator sampled LBA benthic communities along the lower slope and abyss of Australia’s eastern margin from off mid-Tasmania (42°S) to the Coral Sea (23°S), with particular emphasis on describing and analysing patterns of biodiversity that occur within a newly declared network of offshore marine parks. Methods: The study design was to deploy a 4m (metal) beam trawl and Brenke sled to collect samples on soft sediment substrata at the target seafloor depths of 2500 and 4000m at every 1.5 degrees of latitude along the western boundary of the Tasman Sea from 42° to 23°S, traversing seven Australian Marine Parks. Results: The biological sampling included 35 beam trawls, 28 Brenke sleds, 8 box cores, 20 surface meso-zooplankton tows, and 7 Deep Towed Camera transects. In total, 25,710 specimens were identified to 1084 taxonomic entities, including 847 species-level, 144 genus-level and 69 family-level and 24 higher-level taxa. Of the species-level taxa, only 457 were assigned species-level taxonomic names, which implies that up to 58% of the collected fauna is undescribed. In addition, the ranges of numerous species have been extended to include the western Tasman Sea. Conclusions: The lower bathyal and abyssal fauna of soft sediment seafloors off eastern Australia has been systematically surveyed for the first time. The resultant collections will provide the foundation for much future ecological, biogeographical, phylogenetic and taxonomic research.