The ‘Huon’ and ‘Tasman Fracture’ areas off southern Tasmania contain seamounts that support unique deep-sea coral reefs, which are part the Australian Marine Park network. This report presents findings of the RV Investigator voyage V06. The surveys aimed to determine the extent of deep-sea coral communities in and adjacent to the Huon and Tasman Fracture parks, and quantify changes in the communities on these seamounts since 1997 and 2007. The survey also sampled the St. Helens Seamount in north-east Tasmania which was previously surveyed in 2008. The study found that coral reefs extend from seamounts onto adjacent rocky areas, and also occur on small areas on the continental shelf edge, expanding their previously known distribution. The results will provide important data on recovery and resilience to bottom trawling on deep sea coral communities and improve our understanding of the dynamics of deep-sea communities.

The Marine Biodiversity Hub provided scientific leadership and communication support for this voyage.

Link to Investigator Post Voyage Report => INV 2018_06 Voyage Summary

Link to Voyage Blogs => Blogging the Seamounts 23 Nov - 19 Dec 2018

The Evidence Based Decision Making (EBDM) paradigm encourages managers to base their decisions on the strongest available evidence, but it has been criticized for placing too much emphasis on the choice of study design method without considering the types of questions that are being addressed as well as other relevant factors such as how well a study is implemented. Here we review the objectives of Australia’s Marine Park network, and identify the types of questions and data analysis that would address these objectives. Critically, we consider how the design of a monitoring program influences our ability to adequately answer these questions, using the strength of evidence hierarchy from the EBDM paradigm to assess the adequacy of different design strategies and other sources of information. It is important for conservation managers to recognize that the types of questions monitoring programs are able to answer depends on how they are designed and how the collected data are analyzed. The socio-political process that dictates where protected areas are placed typically excludes the strongest types of evidence, Random Controlled Trials (RCTs), for certain questions. Evidence bases that are stronger than ones commonly employed to date, however, could be used to provide a causal inference, including for those questions where RCTs are excluded, but only if appropriate designs such as cohort or case-control studies are used, and supported where relevant by appropriate sample frames. Randomized, spatially balanced sampling, together with careful selection of control sites, and more extensive use of propensity scores and structured elicitation of expert judgment, are also practical ways to improve the evidence base for answering the questions that underlie marine park objectives and motivate long-term monitoring programs.

In this report, we develop a set of recommended measures to monitor the social and economic dimensions of the Australian Marine Parks. Our recommendations are based on a review of approaches used nationally and internationally, and a series of regional workshops with marine park managers and experts from around Australia. The report provides a long-overdue synthesis of approaches used to monitor the social and economic dimensions of marine parks in Australia and should be useful both for informing monitoring of the Australian Marine Parks as well as state-managed marine parks.