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van der Laan, J. D., and R. H. Bradbury. "Futures for the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem." Mathematical and Computer Modelling 14 (1990): 705–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0895-7177(90)90273-p.
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Lam, Vivian Y. Y., Milani Chaloupka, Angus Thompson, Christopher Doropoulos, and Peter J. Mumby. "Acute drivers influence recent inshore Great Barrier Reef dynamics." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285, no. 1890 (November 7, 2018): 20182063. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2063.
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Understanding the dynamics of habitat-forming organisms is fundamental to managing natural ecosystems. Most studies of coral reef dynamics have focused on clear-water systems though corals inhabit many turbid regions. Here, we illustrate the key drivers of an inshore coral reef ecosystem using 10 years of biological, environmental, and disturbance data. Tropical cyclones, crown-of-thorns starfish, and coral bleaching are recognized as the major drivers of coral loss at mid- and offshore reefs along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). In comparison, little is known about what drives temporal trends at inshore reefs closer to major anthropogenic stress. We assessed coral cover dynamics using state-space models within six major inshore GBR catchments. An overall decline was detected in nearly half (46%) of the 15 reefs at two depths (30 sites), while the rest exhibited fluctuating (23%), static (17%), or positive (13%) trends. Inshore reefs responded similarly to their offshore counterparts, where contemporary trends were predominantly influenced by acute disturbance events. Storms emerged as the major driver affecting the inshore GBR, with the effects of other drivers such as disease, juvenile coral density, and macroalgal and turf per cent cover varying from one catchment to another. Flooding was also associated with negative trends in live coral cover in two southern catchments, but the mechanism remains unclear as it is not reflected in available metrics of water quality and may act through indirect pathways.
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Harris, Peter T., Thomas C. L. Bridge, Robin J. Beaman, Jody M. Webster, Scott L. Nichol, and Brendan P. Brooke. "Submerged banks in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, greatly increase available coral reef habitat." ICES Journal of Marine Science 70, no. 2 (November 29, 2012): 284–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fss165.
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Abstract Harris, P. T., Bridge, T. C. L., Beaman, R. J., Webster, J. M., Nichol, S. L., and Brooke, B. P. 2013. Submerged banks in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, greatly increase available coral reef habitat. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 284–293. Anthropogenic global ocean warming is predicted to cause bleaching of many near-sea-surface (NSS) coral reefs, placing increased importance on deeper reef habitats to maintain coral reef biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, the location and spatial extent of many deep reef habitats is poorly known. The question arises: how common are deep reef habitats in comparison with NSS reefs? We used a dataset from the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to show that only about 39% of available seabed on submerged banks is capped by NSS coral reefs (16 110 km2); the other 61% of bank area (25 600 km2) is submerged at a mean depth of around 27 m and represents potential deep reef habitat that is spatially distributed along the GBR continental shelf in the same latitudinal distribution as NSS reefs. Out of 25 600 km2 of submerged bank area, predictive habitat modelling indicates that more than half (around 14 000 km2) is suitable habitat for coral communities.
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Glasl, Bettina, David G. Bourne, Pedro R. Frade, and Nicole S. Webster. "Establishing microbial baselines to identify indicators of coral reef health." Microbiology Australia 39, no. 1 (2018): 42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ma18011.
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Microorganisms make a significant contribution to reef ecosystem health and resilience via their critical role in mediating nutrient transformations, their interactions with macro-organisms and their provision of chemical cues that underpin the recruitment of diverse reef taxa. However, environmental changes often cause compositional and functional shifts in microbial communities that can have flow-on consequences for microbial-mediated processes. These microbial alterations may impact the health of specific host organisms and can have repercussions for the functioning of entire coral ecosystems. Assessing changes in reef microbial communities should therefore provide an early indicator of ecosystem impacts and would underpin the development of diagnostic tools that could help forecast shifts in coral reef health under different environmental states. Monitoring, management and active restoration efforts have recently intensified and diversified in response to global declines in coral reef health. Here we propose that regular monitoring of coral reef microorganisms could provide a rapid and sensitive platform for identifying declining ecosystem health that can complement existing management frameworks. By summarising the most common threats to coral reefs, with a particular focus on the Great Barrier Reef, and elaborating on the role of microbes in coral reef health and ecosystem stability, we highlight the diagnostic applicability of microbes in reef management programs. Fundamental to this objective is the establishment of microbial baselines for Australia's coral reefs.
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Fabricius, Katharina E., Kerryn Crossman, Michelle Jonker, Mathieu Mongin, and Angus Thompson. "Macroalgal cover on coral reefs: Spatial and environmental predictors, and decadal trends in the Great Barrier Reef." PLOS ONE 18, no. 1 (January 20, 2023): e0279699. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279699.
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Macroalgae are an important component of coral reef ecosystems. We identified spatial patterns, environmental drivers and long-term trends of total cover of upright fleshy and calcareous coral reef inhabiting macroalgae in the Great Barrier Reef. The spatial study comprised of one-off surveys of 1257 sites (latitude 11–24°S, coastal to offshore, 0–18 m depth), while the temporal trends analysis was based on 26 years of long-term monitoring data from 93 reefs. Environmental predictors were obtained from in situ data and from the coupled hydrodynamic-biochemical model eReefs. Macroalgae dominated the benthos (≥50% cover) on at least one site of 40.4% of surveyed inshore reefs. Spatially, macroalgal cover increased steeply towards the coast, with latitude away from the equator, and towards shallow (≤3 m) depth. Environmental conditions associated with macroalgal dominance were: high tidal range, wave exposure and irradiance, and low aragonite saturation state, Secchi depth, total alkalinity and temperature. Evidence of space competition between macroalgal cover and hard coral cover was restricted to shallow inshore sites. Temporally, macroalgal cover on inshore and mid-shelf reefs showed some fluctuations, but unlike hard corals they showed no systematic trends. Our extensive empirical data may serve to parameterize ecosystem models, and to refine reef condition indices based on macroalgal data for Pacific coral reefs.
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Madin, Elizabeth M. P., Alastair R. Harborne, Aaron M. T. Harmer, Osmar J. Luiz, Trisha B. Atwood, Brian J. Sullivan, and Joshua S. Madin. "Marine reserves shape seascapes on scales visible from space." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286, no. 1901 (April 24, 2019): 20190053. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0053.
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Marine reserves can effectively restore harvested populations, and ‘mega-reserves’ increasingly protect large tracts of ocean. However, no method exists of monitoring ecological responses at this large scale. Herbivory is a key mechanism structuring ecosystems, and this consumer–resource interaction's strength on coral reefs can indicate ecosystem health. We screened 1372, and measured features of 214, reefs throughout Australia's Great Barrier Reef using high-resolution satellite imagery, combined with remote underwater videography and assays on a subset, to quantify the prevalence, size and potential causes of ‘grazing halos’. Halos are known to be seascape-scale footprints of herbivory and other ecological interactions. Here we show that these halo-like footprints are more prevalent in reserves, particularly older ones (approx. 40 years old), resulting in predictable changes to reef habitat at scales visible from space. While the direct mechanisms for this pattern are relatively clear, the indirect mechanisms remain untested. By combining remote sensing and behavioural ecology, our findings demonstrate that reserves can shape large-scale habitat structure by altering herbivores' functional importance, suggesting that reserves may have greater value in restoring ecosystems than previously appreciated. Additionally, our results show that we can now detect macro-patterns in reef species interactions using freely available satellite imagery. Low-cost, ecosystem-level observation tools will be critical as reserves increase in number and scope; further investigation into whether halos may help seems warranted. Significance statement : Marine reserves are a widely used tool to mitigate fishing impacts on marine ecosystems. Predicting reserves' large-scale effects on habitat structure and ecosystem functioning is a major challenge, however, because these effects unfold over longer and larger scales than most ecological studies. We use a unique approach merging remote sensing and behavioural ecology to detect ecosystem change within reserves in Australia's vast Great Barrier Reef. We find evidence of changes in reefs' algal habitat structure occurring over large spatial (thousands of kilometres) and temporal (40+ years) scales, demonstrating that reserves can alter herbivory and habitat structure in predictable ways. This approach demonstrates that we can now detect aspects of reefs' ecological responses to protection even in remote and inaccessible reefs globally.
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Brodie, J., C. Christie, M. Devlin, D. Haynes, S. Morris, M. Ramsay, J. Waterhouse, and H. Yorkston. "Catchment management and the Great Barrier Reef." Water Science and Technology 43, no. 9 (May 1, 2001): 203–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.2001.0540.
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Pollution of coastal regions of the Great Barrier Reef is dominated by runoff from the adjacent catchment. Catchment land-use is dominated by beef grazing and cropping, largely sugarcane cultivation, with relatively minor urban development. Runoff of sediment, nutrients and pesticides is increasing and for nitrogen is now four times the natural amount discharged 150 years ago. Significant effects and potential threats are now evident on inshore reefs, seagrasses and marine animals. There is no effective legislation or processes in place to manage agricultural pollution. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act does not provide effective jurisdiction on the catchment. Queensland legislation relies on voluntary codes and there is no assessment of the effectiveness of the codes. Integrated catchment management strategies, also voluntary, provide some positive outcomes but are of limited success. Pollutant loads are predicted to continue to increase and it is unlikely that current management regimes will prevent this. New mechanisms to prevent continued degradation of inshore ecosystems of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area are urgently needed.
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Vercelloni, Julie, Sam Clifford, M. Julian Caley, Alan R. Pearse, Ross Brown, Allan James, Bryce Christensen, et al. "Using virtual reality to estimate aesthetic values of coral reefs." Royal Society Open Science 5, no. 4 (April 2018): 172226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172226.
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Aesthetic value, or beauty, is important to the relationship between humans and natural environments and is, therefore, a fundamental socio-economic attribute of conservation alongside other ecosystem services. However, beauty is difficult to quantify and is not estimated well using traditional approaches to monitoring coral-reef aesthetics. To improve the estimation of ecosystem aesthetic values, we developed and implemented a novel framework used to quantify features of coral-reef aesthetics based on people's perceptions of beauty. Three observer groups with different experience to reef environments (Marine Scientist, Experienced Diver and Citizen) were virtually immersed in Australian's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) using 360° images. Perceptions of beauty and observations were used to assess the importance of eight potential attributes of reef-aesthetic value. Among these, heterogeneity, defined by structural complexity and colour diversity, was positively associated with coral-reef-aesthetic values. There were no group-level differences in the way the observer groups perceived reef aesthetics suggesting that past experiences with coral reefs do not necessarily influence the perception of beauty by the observer. The framework developed here provides a generic tool to help identify indicators of aesthetic value applicable to a wide variety of natural systems. The ability to estimate aesthetic values robustly adds an important dimension to the holistic conservation of the GBR, coral reefs worldwide and other natural ecosystems.
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Albright, R., C. Langdon, and K. R. N. Anthony. "Dynamics of seawater carbonate chemistry, production, and calcification of a coral reef flat, central Great Barrier Reef." Biogeosciences 10, no. 10 (October 28, 2013): 6747–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-6747-2013.
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Abstract. Ocean acidification is projected to shift coral reefs from a state of net accretion to one of net dissolution this century. Presently, our ability to predict global-scale changes to coral reef calcification is limited by insufficient data relating seawater carbonate chemistry parameters to in situ rates of reef calcification. Here, we investigate diel and seasonal trends in carbonate chemistry of the Davies Reef flat in the central Great Barrier Reef and relate these trends to benthic carbon fluxes by quantifying net ecosystem calcification (nec) and net community production (ncp). Results show that seawater carbonate chemistry of the Davies Reef flat is highly variable over both diel and seasonal cycles. pH (total scale) ranged from 7.92 to 8.17, pCO2 ranged from 272 to 542 μatm, and aragonite saturation state (Ωarag) ranged from 2.9 to 4.1. Diel cycles in carbonate chemistry were primarily driven by ncp, and warming explained 35% and 47% of the seasonal shifts in pCO2 and pH, respectively. Daytime ncp averaged 37 ± 19 mmol C m−2 h−1 in summer and 33 ± 13 mmol C m−2 h−1 in winter; nighttime ncp averaged −30 ± 25 and −7 ± 6 mmol C m−2 h−1 in summer and winter, respectively. Daytime nec averaged 11 ± 4 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in summer and 8 ± 3 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in winter, whereas nighttime nec averaged 2 ± 4 mmol and −1 ± 3 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in summer and winter, respectively. Net ecosystem calcification was highly sensitive to changes in Ωarag for both seasons, indicating that relatively small shifts in Ωarag may drive measurable shifts in calcification rates, and hence carbon budgets, of coral reefs throughout the year.
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Richards, Zoe T., and Jon C. Day. "Biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef—how adequately is it protected?" PeerJ 6 (May 8, 2018): e4747. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4747.
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BackgroundThe Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s most iconic coral reef ecosystem, recognised internationally as a World Heritage Area of outstanding significance. Safeguarding the biodiversity of this universally important reef is a core legislative objective; however, ongoing cumulative impacts including widespread coral bleaching and other detrimental impacts have heightened conservation concerns for the future of the GBR.MethodsHere we review the literature to report on processes threatening species on the GBR, the status of marine biodiversity, and evaluate the extent of species-level monitoring and reporting. We assess how many species are listed as threatened at a global scale and explore whether these same species are protected under national threatened species legislation. We conclude this review by providing future directions for protecting potentially endangered elements of biodiversity within the GBR.ResultsMost of the threats identified to be harming the diversity of marine life on the GBR over the last two–three decades remain to be effectively addressed and many are worsening. The inherent resilience of this globally significant coral reef ecosystem has been seriously compromised and various elements of the biological diversity for which it is renowned may be at risk of silent extinction. We show at least 136 of the 12,000+ animal species known to occur on the GBR (approximately 20% of the 700 species assessed by the IUCN) occur in elevated categories of threat (Critically Endangered, EndangeredorVulnerable) at a global scale. Despite the wider background level of threat for these 136 species, only 23 of them are listed as threatened under regional or national legislation.DiscussionTo adequately protect the biodiversity values of the GBR, it may be necessary to conduct further targeted species-level monitoring and reporting to complement ecosystem management approaches. Conducting a vigorous value of information analysis would provide the opportunity to evaluate what new and targeted information is necessary to support dynamic management and to safeguard both species and the ecosystem as a whole. Such an analysis would help decision-makers determine if further comprehensive biodiversity surveys are needed, especially for those species recognised to be facing elevated background levels of threat. If further monitoring is undertaken, it will be important to ensure it aligns with and informs the GBRMPA Outlook five-year reporting schedule. The potential also exists to incorporate new environmental DNA technologies into routine monitoring to deliver high-resolution species data and identify indicator species that are cursors of specific disturbances. Unless more targeted action is taken to safeguard biodiversity, we may fail to pass onto future generations many of the values that comprise what is universally regarded as the world’s most iconic coral reef ecosystem.
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MAMO, BRIONY L. "Benthic Foraminifera from the Capricorn Group, Great Barrier Reef, Australia." Zootaxa 4215, no. 1 (December 23, 2016): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4215.1.1.
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Effective reef management and monitoring has become increasingly important as anthropogenic processes impact upon natural ecosystems. One locality that is under direct threat due to human activities is the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Marine foraminifera represent an abundant and readily applicable tool that can be used in reef studies to investigate a variety of ecological parameters and assist in understanding reef dynamics and influence management protocols. The first step is to establish a baseline knowledge of taxonomic composition within the region to facilitate comparative studies and monitor how assemblages change in order to maximise effective management. A detailed taxonomic assessment is provided of 133 species of benthic foraminifera in 76 genera from Heron Island, One Tree Island, Wistari and Sykes Reefs, which form the core of the Capricorn Group (CG) at the southern end of the GBR. Of these 133 species, 46% belong to the order Miliolida, 34% to Rotaliida, 7% to Textulariida, 5% to Lagenida, 3% to Lituolida, 3% to Spirillinida, 1% to Loftusiida and 1% to Robertinida. Samples were collected from a variety of shallow shelf reef environments including reef flat, lagoonal and channel environments. Seventy species, representing the most abundant forms, are formally described with detailed distribution data for the remaining 63 species supplied.
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Albright, R., C. Langdon, and K. R. N. Anthony. "Dynamics of seawater carbonate chemistry, production, and calcification of a coral reef flat, Central Great Barrier Reef." Biogeosciences Discussions 10, no. 5 (May 3, 2013): 7641–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bgd-10-7641-2013.
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Abstract. Ocean acidification is projected to shift coral reefs from a state of net accretion to one of net dissolution this century. Presently, our ability to predict global-scale changes to coral reef calcification is limited by insufficient data relating seawater carbonate chemistry parameters to in situ rates of reef calcification. Here, we investigate natural trends in carbonate chemistry of the Davies Reef flat in the central Great Barrier Reef on diel and seasonal timescales and relate these trends to benthic carbon fluxes by quantifying net ecosystem calcification (nec) and net community production (ncp). Results show that seawater carbonate chemistry of the Davies Reef flat is highly variable over both diel and seasonal timescales. pH (total scale) ranged from 7.92 to 8.17, pCO2 ranged from 272 to 542 μatm, and aragonite saturation state (Ωarag) ranged from 2.9 to 4.1. Diel cycles in carbonate chemistry were primarily driven by ncp, and warming explained 35% and 47% of the seasonal shifts in pCO2 and pH, respectively. Daytime ncp averaged 36 ± 19 mmol C m−2 h−1 in summer and 33 ± 13 mmol C m−2 h−1 in winter; nighttime ncp averaged −22 ± 20 and −7 ± 6 mmol C m−2 h−1 in summer and winter, respectively. Daytime nec averaged 11 ± 4 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in summer and 8 ± 3 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in winter, whereas nighttime nec averaged 2 ± 4 mmol and −1 ± 3 mmol CaCO3 m−2 h−1 in summer and winter, respectively. Net ecosystem calcification was positively correlated with Ωarag for both seasons. Linear correlations of nec and Ωarag indicate that the Davies Reef flat may transition from a state of net calcification to net dissolution at Ωarag values of 3.4 in summer and 3.2 in winter. Diel trends in Ωarag indicate that the reef flat is currently below this calcification threshold 29.6% of the time in summer and 14.1% of the time in winter.
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Stuart-Smith, Rick D., Christopher J. Brown, Daniela M. Ceccarelli, and Graham J. Edgar. "Ecosystem restructuring along the Great Barrier Reef following mass coral bleaching." Nature 560, no. 7716 (July 25, 2018): 92–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0359-9.
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Che Din, Mohd Safuan, Nazli Aziz, Izarenah Md Repin, Xiong-Zhi Xue, Muhammad Ashraf Abdul Rahman, Zainudin Bachok, Nik Nurhazirah Nik Omar, Nor Hafzan Abd Rasid, and Wan Izatul Asma Wan Talaat. "Assessment of Governance and Ecological Status of Terengganu Marine Park, Malaysia: Toward Marine Spatial Planning." Sains Malaysiana 51, no. 12 (December 31, 2022): 3909–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/jsm-2022-5112-04.
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Terengganu Marine Parks (TMP) is a 591.37 km2 marine protected area. TMP are popular tourist destinations that significantly generate revenue to the government and local businesses through tourism sector. However, the anthropogenic activities have contributed to TMP’s declining ecosystem health, particularly the coral reefs. Therefore, a sustainable ecosystem-based management is required to maintain the ecosystem. In this study, we identify issues related to the marine park’s governance, development on islands, tourist activities and coral health status in the TMP for assessing potential management strategy for conserving the ecosystem. The findings on management in TMP found that there is an overlapping in managing the marine park between the federal and state government. Unintegrated development to accommodate rising number of tourist and their activities in the marine parks are identified as the factors contributing towards degradation of the ecosystems. Relatively, reef areas close to these local pressures are in ‘poor’ condition, indicating that threats arising from the activities affecting the marine ecosystem. Hence, this study analyses the potentials in adopting Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) in the TMP for managing the conflict between user and the ecosystem. The Australian Great Barrier Reef Marine Park which applied the zoning of marine area is used as a benchmark to examine the best practices of MSP to govern the TMP. At present, we suggest using coral reef health status as an early alternative and best practice to provide different zoning criteria for strategic marine protected area (MPA) management for TMP.
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Triki, Zegni, and Redouan Bshary. "Fluctuations in coral reef fish densities after environmental disturbances on the northern Great Barrier Reef." PeerJ 7 (April 8, 2019): e6720. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6720.
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Global warming is predicted to increase the frequency and or severity of many disturbances including cyclones, storms, and prolonged heatwaves. The coral reef at Lizard Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef, has been recently exposed to a sequence of severe tropical cyclones (i.e., Ita in 2014 and Nathan in 2015) and a coral bleaching in the year 2016. Reef fishes are an essential part of the coral reef ecosystem, and their abundance is thus a good marker to estimate the magnitude of such disturbances. Here, we examined whether the recent disturbances at Lizard Island had an impact on the coral reef fish communities. To do this, we examined fish survey data collected before and after the disturbances for potential changes in total fish density post-disturbance. Also, by sorting fish species into 11 functional groups based on their trophic level (i.e., diet), we further explored the density changes within each functional group. Our findings showed an overall decline of 68% in fish density post-disturbance, with a significant density decrease in nine of 11 trophic groups. These nine groups were: browsers, corallivores, detritivores, excavator/scrapers, grazers, macro-invertivores, pisci-invertivores, planktivores, and spongivores. The piscivores, on the other hand, were the only “winners,” wherein their density showed an increase post-disturbance. These changes within functional groups might have a further impact on the trophodynamics of the food web. In summary, our findings provide evidence that the fish assemblage on the reefs around Lizard Island was considerably affected by extreme weather events, leading to changes in the functional composition of the reef fish assemblage.
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Lantz, Coulson A., William Leggat, Jessica L. Bergman, Alexander Fordyce, Charlotte Page, Thomas Mesaglio, and Tracy D. Ainsworth. "Will daytime community calcification reflect reef accretion on future, degraded coral reefs?" Biogeosciences 19, no. 3 (February 14, 2022): 891–906. http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-891-2022.
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Abstract. Coral bleaching events continue to drive the degradation of coral reefs worldwide, causing a shift in the benthic community from coral- to algae-dominated ecosystems. Critically, this shift may decrease the capacity of degraded coral reef communities to maintain net positive accretion during warming-driven stress events (e.g., reef-wide coral bleaching). Here we measured rates of net ecosystem calcification (NEC) and net ecosystem production (NEP) on a degraded coral reef lagoon community (coral cover < 10 % and algae cover > 20 %) during a reef-wide bleaching event in February 2020 at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef. We found that during this bleaching event, rates of NEP and NEC across replicate transects remained positive and did not change in response to bleaching. Repeated benthic surveys over a period of 20 d indicated an increase in the percent area of bleached coral tissue, corroborated by relatively low Symbiodiniaceae densities (∼ 0.6 × 106 cm−2) and dark-adapted photosynthetic yields in photosystem II of corals (∼ 0.5) sampled along each transect over this period. Given that a clear decline in coral health was not reflected in the overall NEC estimates, it is possible that elevated temperatures in the water column that compromise coral health enhanced the thermodynamic favorability for calcification in other ahermatypic benthic calcifiers. These data suggest that positive NEC on degraded reefs may not equate to the net positive accretion of a complex, three-dimensional reef structure in a future, warmer ocean. Critically, our study highlights that if coral cover continues to decline as predicted, NEC may no longer be an appropriate proxy for reef growth as the proportion of the NEC signal owed to ahermatypic calcification increases and coral dominance on the reef decreases.
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Hay, Rachel, Lynne Eagle, and Muhammad Abid Saleem. "Social marketing’s role in improving water quality on the Great Barrier Reef." Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics 31, no. 5 (November 11, 2019): 1308–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/apjml-08-2018-0318.
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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on the implications of claimed detrimental impacts for the agricultural activity of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) ecosystem health in Queensland, Australia. The authors discuss the complex interaction of factors that have contributed to the decline in reef ecosystems and the challenges presented by multiple industries operating within the GBR catchment area. The authors then discuss measures employed to address agricultural run-off, claimed to be a significant factor in declining reef water quality.Design/methodology/approachSurveys of land managers were undertaken in partnership with two of the six natural resource management (NRM) organizations operating in areas adjacent to the GBR identified as having very high risk of natural and anthropogenic runoff. The sample population was obtained from a membership database within the two regions. Participants include land managers from the both regions who engaged in sugar cane production (Region 1 and Region 2, included in this paper) and cattle production (Region 2, to be reported later). Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed including open-ended responses.FindingsA large-scale study of land managers reveals several reasons for the lack of success at reducing agricultural run-off. The authors discuss the rationale for a move to a theory-grounded social marketing approach to encouraging land manager behavior change, highlighting barriers, and potential enablers of sustained behavior change.Originality/valueThis study is first of its kind that discusses the behavior of land managers in the GBR catchment area and highlights facilitators and impediments of land managers’ behavior change toward GBR protection actions.
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Copper, Paul. "100 Million Years of Reef Prosperity and Collapse: Ordovician to Devonian Interval." Paleontological Society Papers 17 (October 2011): 15–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1089332600002424.
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From the beginning of the Late Ordovician (Sandbian: 460.9myr) through end Devonian (Famennian: 359.2myr), coral-stromatoporoid sponge reefs formed a remarkable, evolving ecosystem that dominated sediment production on tropical carbonate platforms in a calcitic ocean. This was a time of maximal and unparalleled reef development in the Phanerozoic, with reef tracts vastly exceeding in size and biodiversity of those in the Holocene (e.g., the Great Barrier Reef). Within this circum-equatorial niche, the calcitic tabulate and rugose corals, and the aragonitic (or high Mg calcite) stromatoporoid sponges, were the primary Middle Paleozoic reef frame builders. These were supplemented ecologically and skeletally by now extinct groups of calcitic bryozoans, crinoids, brachiopods, and red algae, alongside aragonitic green algae, and enigmatic CaCO3precipitating and binding calcimicrobes. This 100 myr long Middle Paleozoic reef consortium thrived under SST averages of 30°+, to latitudes as high as 45°–55°, under high atmospheric CO2conditions of 6000+ ppm, and sealevels 150–200 m higher than today. This reef ecosystem was disrupted by several relatively short duration south polar glacial episodes, centered around northern Gondwana, defining the O/S boundary Mass Extinction Events (MEEs). Nearly all coral and stromatoporoid families survived this MEE: there were losses at the genus level. Reef-building stopped nearly everywhere, and during the ‘recovery’ interval, solitary rugose corals initially prevailed, and stromatoporoids were small. Full global re-establishment of the reef ecosystem, and biodiversity, took another 3–4 million years (not until the late Aeronian, Early Silurian). This was followed by a remarkable reef expansion in the Middle Silurian (Wenlock), then by declines in the latest Silurian (Ludlow-Pridoli), and earliest Devonian (Lochkovian) possibly due to sealevel lowstands, tectonic plate re-assembly, and ocean current re-direction. Maximal Phanerozoic reef success was during the Emsian-Givetian, when some 15 barrier reef tracts more than 1100 km long flourished in tropical shallow seas. Reef-building coral diversity exceeded 200 genera, and the calcifying stromatoporoids evolved 60+ genera, especially in the ‘Old World’ faunal province (Euramerica, Cathaysia, northern Australia). Near the end of the Middle Devonian (mid- to late Givetian), the primary reef dwellers declined sharply in diversity, marked generally by sealevel lowstand, followed in the Frasnian (Late Devonian) by shrinking latitudes for carbonate platforms, and reduced reef accommodation space. Sharp cooling, with the arrival of a global Icehouse climate, and aragonitic oceans, led to the second largest Phanerozoic Mass extinction around the Frasnian/Famennian boundary, with reef builder and reef inhabitant losses exceeding those of the O/S MEE. The global absence of coral-sponge reefs persisted for nearly all of the 16 myr long Famennian, as total CaCO3production fell some 60–90%, as aragonitic oceans took over. Only small and scattered Famennian coral-stromatoporoid patch reefs are known, with the last of these in the late Famennian (Strunian), punctuated by total disappearance of the whole keystone reef-building order. Famennian and Strunian corals belonged to Carboniferous families. During the Famennian, calcimicrobes, the first calcifying foraminiferans, and select ‘lithistid’ calcareous sponges dominated a highly stressed reef ecosystem, lacking barrier reef tracts. Biodiversity and reef construction were decoupled under global climatic stress during the succeeding icehouse Late Paleozoic.
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Sorokin, Yu I., and P. Yu Sorokin. "Plankton of the central Great Barrier Reef: abundance, production and trophodynamic roles." Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 90, no. 6 (June 30, 2010): 1173–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025315410000597.
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The abundance, composition and metabolic activity of plankton were assessed in the Tribulation zone of the central Great Barrier Reef (16°–17°S). Wet phytoplankton biomass ranged in shallow reef waters from 30 to 70 mg m−3, and from 60 to 270 mg m−3in the deep lagoon and in the estuarine areas which are dominated by pico- and nano-algae. Wet bacterioplankton biomass varied from 70 to 290 mg m−3. Wet meroplankton biomass was less than 10 mg m−3. Wet daytime mesozooplankton biomass ranged from 100 to 300 mg m−3in the deep lagoon. In the estuarine area, it reached 400 to 1300 mg m−3and in the shallow inner lagoon of the Low Isles ring reef it varied from 10 to 30 mg m−3. Zooplankton density increased at night and was 3 to 5 fold greater in the deep lagoon, for about 2 orders of magnitude greater over the reef shallows and up to 3 orders of magnitude greater in mangrove habitats, due to the emergence of demersal components from the benthos. The biomass of zooplankton hidden in the benthic substrates during the day reached 10 to 40 g m−2. Pelagic primary production in the deep lagoon varied between 0.2 and 0.5 g C m−2 d−1. A calculation of the energy balance suggests that the basic energy source for heterotrophic plankton production in the deep lagoon is the organic matter exported from surrounding reef benthic communities and from mangroves. The trophic status of coral reef pelagic ecosystem might range from mesotrophic to eutrophic.
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Olsson, P., C. Folke, and T. P. Hughes. "Navigating the transition to ecosystem-based management of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105, no. 28 (July 9, 2008): 9489–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706905105.
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Haller-Bull, Vanessa, and Elena Rovenskaya. "Optimizing functional groups in ecosystem models: Case study of the Great Barrier Reef." Ecological Modelling 411 (November 2019): 108806. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108806.
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Strzelec, Michal, Bernadette C. Proemse, Melanie Gault-Ringold, Philip W. Boyd, Morgane M. G. Perron, Robyn Schofield, Robert G. Ryan, et al. "Atmospheric Trace Metal Deposition near the Great Barrier Reef, Australia." Atmosphere 11, no. 4 (April 15, 2020): 390. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/atmos11040390.
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Aerosols deposited into the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) contain iron (Fe) and other trace metals, which may act as micronutrients or as toxins to this sensitive marine ecosystem. In this paper, we quantified the atmospheric deposition of Fe and investigated aerosol sources in Mission Beach (Queensland) next to the GBR. Leaching experiments were applied to distinguish pools of Fe with regard to its solubility. The labile Fe concentration in aerosols was 2.3–10.6 ng m−3, which is equivalent to 4.9%–11.4% of total Fe and was linked to combustion and biomass burning processes, while total Fe was dominated by crustal sources. A one-day precipitation event provided more soluble iron than the average dry deposition flux, 0.165 and 0.143 μmol m−2 day−1, respectively. Scanning Electron Microscopy indicated that alumina-silicates were the main carriers of total Fe and samples affected by combustion emissions were accompanied by regular round-shaped carbonaceous particulates. Collected aerosols contained significant amounts of Cd, Co, Cu, Mo, Mn, Pb, V, and Zn, which were mostly (47.5%–96.7%) in the labile form. In this study, we provide the first field data on the atmospheric delivery of Fe and other trace metals to the GBR and propose that this is an important delivery mechanism to this region.
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White, Erina, Farzane Mohseni, and Meisam Amani. "Coral Reef Mapping Using Remote Sensing Techniques and a Supervised Classification Algorithm." Advances in Environmental and Engineering Research 02, no. 04 (August 28, 2021): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.21926/aeer.2104028.
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The vitality of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is threatened by many human-made impacts. Monitoring this ecosystem makes it possible to study the general condition and the health of the GBR. However, due to the large extent of the GBR and limited accessibility in the ocean environment, mapping and monitoring this ecosystem has been always challenging task and connived. In this regard, Remote Sensing (RS) is an effective technique that provides valuable information for mapping and monitoring this ecosystem. In an attempt to monitor the GBR, this article applied a supervised machine learning algorithm to classify the Landsat 8 imagery collected over the GBR. To this end, the spectral responses of coral reefs, shallow water, deep ocean, rocks and sands, and green alga were initially determined from the satellite images. This information was then ingested to the Maximum Likelihood supervised classifier to map coral reefs in the GBR. Additionally, this study discusses how the GBR has been affected by anthropogenic disturbance. The results provide confirmatory evidence that RS techniques present great promise as a means of mapping coral reefs and monitoring their general conditions. We used the ambiguity matrix and validation data to estimate the accuracy of the proposed method. Overall, the proposed method was able to identify 5 different classes considered in this article with an average accuracy of 90%.
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Schmidt, Susanne, William C. Dennison, Gordon J. Moss, and George R. Stewart. "Nitrogen ecophysiology of Heron Island, a subtropical coral cay of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia." Functional Plant Biology 31, no. 5 (2004): 517. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/fp04024.
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Coral cays form part of the Australian Great Barrier Reef. Coral cays with high densities of seabirds are areas of extreme nitrogen (N) enrichment with deposition rates of up to 1000 kg N ha–1 y–1. The ways in which N sources are utilised by coral cay plants, N is distributed within the cay, and whether or not seabird-derived N moves from cay to surrounding marine environments were investigated. We used N metabolite analysis, 15N labelling and 15N natural abundance (δ15N) techniques. Deposited guano-derived uric acid is hydrolysed to ammonium (NH4+) and gaseous ammonia (NH3). Ammonium undergoes nitrification, and nitrate (NO3–) and NH4+ were the main forms of soluble N in the soil. Plants from seabird rookeries have a high capacity to take up and assimilate NH4+, are able to metabolise uric acid, but have low rates of NO3– uptake and assimilation. We concluded that NH4+ is the principal source of N for plants growing at seabird rookeries, and that the presence of NH4+ in soil and gaseous NH3 in the atmosphere inhibits assimilation of NO3–, although NO3– is taken up and stored. Seabird guano, Pisonia forest soil and vegetation were similarly enriched in 15N suggesting that the isotopic enrichment of guano (δ15N 9.9‰) carries through the forest ecosystem. Soil and plants from woodland and beach environments had lower δ15N (average 6.5‰) indicating a lower contribution of bird-derived N to the N nutrition of plants at these sites. The aquifer under the cay receives seabird-derived N leached from the cay and has high concentrations of 15N-enriched NO3– (δ15N�7.9‰). Macroalgae from reefs with and without seabirds had similar δ15N values of 2.0–3.9‰ suggesting that reef macroalgae do not utilise 15N-enriched seabird-derived N as a main source of N. At a site beyond the Heron Reef Crest, macroalgae had elevated δ15N of 5.2‰, possibly indicating that there are locations where macroalgae access isotopically enriched aquifer-derived N. Nitrogen relations of Heron Island vegetation are compared with other reef islands and a conceptual model is presented.
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Nahar, Kamrun, Justine Baillie, and Noor Azwa Zulkarnain. "Herbicide Fate and Transport in the Great Barrier Reef: A Review of Critical Parameters." Water 15, no. 2 (January 5, 2023): 237. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w15020237.
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Herbicides used for weed management on agricultural land in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef catchments are a key concern for its ecosystem, including the lagoon’s marine plants and corals, whose productivity has been found to decline. The most reliable way to assess herbicide risk is by monitoring a site regularly, but this is costly and time-consuming, so numerical simulations and computer models are an alternative method. Despite the availability of low-cost and less labor-intensive modelling methods, they have been limited in their effectiveness due to a lack of specific herbicide usage data and an inadequate understanding of the breakdown and transport processes of herbicides after application. This paper reviews current findings regarding herbicide risk in all Great Barrier Reef catchments according to their agricultural land use, and the most recent Reef Water Quality Protection Plan recommendations. The various pathways for fate and transport of the herbicides were also examined, and a list of critical parameters was developed to help with computer simulations. The accuracy and reliability of modelling can be improved by including aerial drifts, interceptions by crop residues, mechanisms within the root zone, and subsurface and groundwater contributions to the herbicide load in the GBR lagoon. Moreover, the findings will provide new directions for management practices adoption data with the fate and transport model from paddock to reef and improve the reliability of model results.
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McLeod, Ian M., Margaux Y. Hein, Russ Babcock, Line Bay, David G. Bourne, Nathan Cook, Christopher Doropoulos, et al. "Coral restoration and adaptation in Australia: The first five years." PLOS ONE 17, no. 11 (November 30, 2022): e0273325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273325.
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While coral reefs in Australia have historically been a showcase of conventional management informed by research, recent declines in coral cover have triggered efforts to innovate and integrate intervention and restoration actions into management frameworks. Here we outline the multi-faceted intervention approaches that have developed in Australia since 2017, from newly implemented in-water programs, research to enhance coral resilience and investigations into socio-economic perspectives on restoration goals. We describe in-water projects using coral gardening, substrate stabilisation, coral repositioning, macro-algae removal, and larval-based restoration techniques. Three areas of research focus are also presented to illustrate the breadth of Australian research on coral restoration, (1) the transdisciplinary Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), one of the world’s largest research and development programs focused on coral reefs, (2) interventions to enhance coral performance under climate change, and (3) research into socio-cultural perspectives. Together, these projects and the recent research focus reflect an increasing urgency for action to confront the coral reef crisis, develop new and additional tools to manage coral reefs, and the consequent increase in funding opportunities and management appetite for implementation. The rapid progress in trialling and deploying coral restoration in Australia builds on decades of overseas experience, and advances in research and development are showing positive signs that coral restoration can be a valuable tool to improve resilience at local scales (i.e., high early survival rates across a variety of methods and coral species, strong community engagement with local stakeholders). RRAP is focused on creating interventions to help coral reefs at multiple scales, from micro scales (i.e., interventions targeting small areas within a specific reef site) to large scales (i.e., interventions targeting core ecosystem function and social-economic values at multiple select sites across the Great Barrier Reef) to resist, adapt to and recover from the impacts of climate change. None of these interventions aim to single-handedly restore the entirety of the Great Barrier Reef, nor do they negate the importance of urgent climate change mitigation action.
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De Valck, Jeremy, and John Rolfe. "Linking water quality impacts and benefits of ecosystem services in the Great Barrier Reef." Marine Pollution Bulletin 130 (May 2018): 55–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.03.017.
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JOHNSON, A. K. L., S. P. EBERT, and A. E. MURRAY. "Distribution of coastal freshwater wetlands and riparian forests in the Herbert River catchment and implications for management of catchments adjacent the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park." Environmental Conservation 26, no. 3 (September 1999): 229–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0376892999000314.
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Because coral reefs are sensitive to land derived inputs of nutrient and sediment, there is concern worldwide for the effects of anthropogenic change in river catchments on reefs. Thirty-one river catchments drain directly into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, NE Australia. This case study was undertaken on the floodplain of the Herbert River catchment in north Queensland, utilizing remote sensing and GIS to assess both spatial and temporal changes in freshwater wetlands and riparian forests. We demonstrate that there has been a very large reduction in the area of these ecosystems since European settlement in the mid nineteenth century, with an 80% decline in their extent since 1943. We provide a range of quantitative measures to show that the landscape diversity of these ecosystems has also declined. These changes are of importance in terms of regional, national and international trends. We argue that policy, planning and management reform is required if the remaining ecological, economic and social values of these systems and the adjacent Great Barrier Reef Marine Park are to be maintained.
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Miller, I. R., M. Logan, K. A. Johns, M. J. Jonker, K. Osborne, and H. P. A. Sweatman. "Determining background levels and defining outbreaks of crustose coralline algae disease on the Great Barrier Reef." Marine and Freshwater Research 64, no. 11 (2013): 1022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf12330.
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Crustose coralline algae (CCA) play a vital role in coral-reef ecosystems and, like other marine organisms, they are vulnerable to disease. Between 2006 and 2011, incidence of two types of CCA disease was systematically recorded over a large portion of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The two CCA diseases that were recorded, coralline lethal orange disease and coralline white-band syndrome, were ubiquitous on the GBR, but generally at low levels comparable to those found on reefs in other parts of the Indo-Pacific. The present broad-scale study of the distribution and abundance of CCA disease on the GBR provides information on background levels of these diseases and allows regional thresholds for outbreaks to be defined. This will allow managers and researchers to focus attention on areas of high incidence of CCA disease to increase our understanding of causes and the environmental impacts of CCA disease at a time when coral reefs are under growing anthropogenic threats.
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Marshall, N. A., P. Dunstan, P. Pert, and L. Thiault. "How people value different ecosystems within the Great Barrier Reef." Journal of Environmental Management 243 (August 2019): 39–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.024.
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Chase, Tory J., and Mia O. Hoogenboom. "Differential Occupation of Available Coral Hosts by Coral-Dwelling Damselfish (Pomacentridae) on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef." Diversity 11, no. 11 (November 15, 2019): 219. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/d11110219.
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Associations between habitat-forming, branching scleractinian corals and damselfish have critical implications for the function and trophic dynamics of coral reef ecosystems. This study quantifies how different characteristics of reef habitat, and of coral morphology, determine whether fish occupy a coral colony. In situ surveys of aggregative damselfish–coral associations were conducted at 51 different sites distributed among 22 reefs spread along >1700 km of the Great Barrier Reef, to quantify interaction frequency over a large spatial scale. The prevalence of fish–coral associations between five damselfish (Chromis viridis, Dascyllus aruanus, Dascyllus reticulatus, Pomacentrus amboinensis and Pomacentrus moluccensis) and five coral species (Acropora spathulata, Acropora intermedia, Pocillopora damicornis, Seriatopora hystrix, and Stylophora pistillata) averaged ~30% across all corals, but ranged from <1% to 93% of small branching corals occupied at each site, depending on reef exposure levels and habitat. Surprisingly, coral cover was not correlated with coral occupancy, or total biomass of damselfish. Instead, the biomass of damselfish was two-fold greater on sheltered sites compared with exposed sites. Reef habitat type strongly governed these interactions with reef slope/base (25%) and shallow sand-patch habitats (38%) hosting a majority of aggregative damselfish-branching coral associations compared to reef flat (10%), crest (16%), and wall habitats (11%). Among the focal coral species, Seriatopora hystrix hosted the highest damselfish biomass (12.45 g per occupied colony) and Acropora intermedia the least (6.87 g per occupied colony). Analyses of local coral colony traits indicated that multiple factors governed colony usage, including spacing between colonies on the benthos, colony position, and colony branching patterns. Nevertheless, the morphological and habitat characteristics that determine whether or not a colony is occupied by fish varied among coral species. These findings illuminate the realized niche of one of the most important and abundant reef fish families and provide a context for understanding how fish–coral interactions influence coral population and community level processes.
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Sorokin, YI. "Phosphorus metabolism in Coral Reef Communities: Dynamics in the Water Column." Marine and Freshwater Research 41, no. 6 (1990): 775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf9900775.
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Phosphorus dynamics were studied in the coral reef waters of Heron and Wistari Reefs in the Capricornia group, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, using radioisotopic techniques. All studies were made during August-October 1986. Labelled phosphate (PO4 -33P) was used to measure total uptake as well as uptake by bacterioplankton alone. Rates of total PO4-P uptake by microplankton varied between 20 and 120 ng P L-1 h-1 at water temperatures of 20-24� C. The daily (24 h) uptake rate of PO4-P was 0.5-3.0 �g L-1. The ambient PO4-P content of water over the reefs was low (0.03- 0.3 �mol L-1, or 1-10 �g P L-1). Turnover time of PO4-P in the water column of these reef areas is therefore very short, being in the range of 2-8 days, even when its possible net consumption by bottom biota is ignored. Bacterioplankton, not phytoplankton, was found to be the major consumer of inorganic phosphorus in these waters. The percentage of total PO4-P uptake by bacteria varied from 50 to 90%. The results of these estimations are discussed in terms of the importance of active phosphorus dynamics in the water column to the nutrient budget of the coral reef ecosystem.
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Brodie, Jon, Stephen Lewis, Zoe Bainbridge, Alan Mitchell, Jane Waterhouse, and Frederieke Kroon. "Target setting for pollutant discharge management of rivers in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area." Marine and Freshwater Research 60, no. 11 (2009): 1141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf08339.
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Water Quality Improvement Plans (WQIPs) are being developed for individual river basins on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchment associated with the GBR Water Quality Protection Plan. Within each WQIP, marine ecosystem targets are linked to end-of-river pollutant (suspended sediments, nutrients and pesticides) load targets and to farm level management practice targets. The targets are linked through quantitative models; e.g. one model connects GBR chlorophyll concentrations (marine target) to end-of-river nitrate loads, a second connects the end-of-river nitrate loads to fertiliser management targets in the catchment, whereas a third model links fertiliser application to nitrate loss at the farm scale. The difficulties of applying these linked models to derive credible and practical management targets are great, given the high degree of uncertainty in each model. Our understanding of the generation of suspended sediments, nutrients and pesticides in catchments and the relationship to on-farm management, the transport of these materials to the ocean, their transport in coastal waters and their effects on marine ecosystems is incomplete. The challenge is to produce estimates from the models, with known levels of uncertainty, but robust enough for management purposes. Case studies from the Tully–Murray basin and the Burdekin basin in north Queensland are discussed.
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Guest, James. "The Great Barrier Reef: How repeated marine heat waves are reshaping an iconic marine ecosystem." Current Biology 31, no. 23 (December 2021): R1530—R1532. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.10.066.
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Stoeckl, Natalie, Christina C. Hicks, Morena Mills, Katharina Fabricius, Michelle Esparon, Frederieke Kroon, Kamaljit Kaur, and Robert Costanza. "The economic value of ecosystem services in the Great Barrier Reef: our state of knowledge." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1219, no. 1 (February 2011): 113–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05892.x.
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Brodie, Jon, and Richard G. Pearson. "Ecosystem health of the Great Barrier Reef: Time for effective management action based on evidence." Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 183 (December 2016): 438–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2016.05.008.
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Hamylton, Sarah M. "Mapping coral reef environments." Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment 41, no. 6 (December 2017): 803–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309133317744998.
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Coral reef environments support high levels of marine biodiversity, they are important sites for coastal habitation and they provide a range of goods and ecosystem services such as nearshore fisheries, economic revenue from tourism and breeding sites for seabirds and turtles. Mapping is a fundamental activity that underpins our understanding of coral reef environments and helps to shape policies in resource management and conservation. This is particularly the case for quantifying the area of landcover types associated with reef environments, including coral patches, seagrasses and mangroves, but also for monitoring how these change over time and modelling how spatial patterns apparent on reefs are related to environmental drivers. Field techniques and aerial photography have historically played a crucial role in mapping coral reef environments, which has recently seen a transition toward the processing of satellite remote sensing images. This paper examines a series of maps produced of Low Isles, the most mapped island on the Great Barrier Reef, to review historical methods for mapping coral reefs because of the critical importance of understanding how past maps were made, which determines appropriate uses to which they can be put. Recent advances and future opportunities for the application of mapping technologies to coral reefs are also evaluated, including the use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms for airborne surveys, delivery of information through web-based platforms and improvements in the quality of information for making and presenting maps. Maps have transformed the way we have responded to both historic and contemporary coral reef problems. This timely review communicates how maps, and the fast growing technologies that are employed to produce them, are central to our understanding of coral reef environments. Recent advances that may drive exciting new environmental management tools are identified.
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Zapalski, Mikołaj K., Andrew H. Baird, Tom Bridge, Michał Jakubowicz, and James Daniell. "Unusual shallow water Devonian coral community from Queensland and its recent analogues from the inshore Great Barrier Reef." Coral Reefs 40, no. 2 (February 4, 2021): 417–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00338-020-02048-9.
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AbstractPalaeozoic coral communities were dominated by two extinct coral groups: Tabulata and Rugosa. Whilst they are not closely related to modern Scleractinia, they are morphologically convergent, displaying many morphological characters that allow comparisons between recent and ancient coral reef communities. The extensive shallow-water reef communities of the Devonian were generally dominated by stromatoporoid sponges, with corals occupying deeper environments. Here, we describe an unusual, shallow water coral reef community from the Middle Devonian (Givetian, approx. 385 Ma) of the Fanning River area, Queensland, Australia. The coral community is dominated by tabulate corals, but also includes solitary and occasionally colonial rugose corals. Tabulate corals most commonly exhibit foliose and massive morphologies, but encrusting and branching growth forms also occur. The depositional environment was characterized by a shallow water depth, moderate hydrodynamic energy, high sedimentation rate, and high turbidity. Since these environmental factors influence the morphological composition of modern coral communities, we hypothesize that similar environments may result in morphologically equivalent coral assemblages throughout the Phanerozoic. To test this idea, we qualitatively compare the Fanning River reefs with modern scleractinian coral assemblages in a similar environmental setting at Magnetic Island. Both reefs are located in a shallow water less than 10 m deep, with high sediment flux, moderate wave energy, and generally high turbidity. Like Fanning River, Magnetic Island coral communities are dominated by foliose morphologies, with contributions from massive and branching forms. The Fanning River reef, together with previously identified Silurian and Devonian mesophotic coral ecosystems, suggest that Palaeozoic coral assemblages may share many functional characteristics with modern scleractinian reefs in similar environments. Therefore, the geological record of inshore, high turbidity-adapted coral communities can be traced back as far as 385 Ma.
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Herr, A., and P. M. Kuhnert. "Assessment of uncertainty in Great Barrier Reef catchment models." Water Science and Technology 56, no. 1 (July 1, 2007): 181–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.2007.450.
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This paper addresses uncertainty in socio-economic and sediment-nutrient models that are being developed for the assessment of change in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) area. The catchments draining into the GBR lagoon are sources of pollutants. The Reef Water Quality Management Plan of the Queensland Government identified sediments and nutrients transported to the GBR lagoon as the major long-term threats to the reef and inshore ecosystems and the wellbeing of the human communities. The plan clearly indicates that changes in land management are required by 2013 to reduce pollutant inputs and, at the same time, maintain or enhance the benefits from using the inland waters. Science that provides decision tools for natural resource management and improves socio-economic and biophysical understanding is required to enable managers to make better decisions. A major research activity (the Water for a Healthy Country Flagship) aims to address social, economic and biophysical outcomes of land management change in the GBR. It contains research activities that provide information for integrated model development. Currently, however, these models lack the ability to estimate the uncertainty associated with prediction. This project aims to provide statistical methods for assessing uncertainty in models of sediment transportation to the GBR. Furthermore, it provides a link between the models and the decision-making process that allows assessment of uncertainty, a step pertinent to the risk analysis of policy options. This paper describes current and ongoing approaches for assessing uncertainty using a sediment modelling example and provides a way forward for the integration of applied socio-economic and biophysical models used in the decision-making process.
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Haynes, David, Jon Brodie, Jane Waterhouse, Zoe Bainbridge, Deb Bass, and Barry Hart. "Assessment of the Water Quality and Ecosystem Health of the Great Barrier Reef (Australia): Conceptual Models." Environmental Management 40, no. 6 (September 5, 2007): 993–1003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-007-9009-y.
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Pabel, Anja, and Alexandra Coghlan. "Dive Market Segments and Destination Competitiveness: A Case Study of the Great Barrier Reef in View of Changing Reef Ecosystem Health." Tourism in Marine Environments 7, no. 2 (July 1, 2011): 55–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.3727/154427311x13038402065785.
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BIGGS, D., N. C. BAN, and C. M. HALL. "Lifestyle values, resilience, and nature-based tourism's contribution to conservation on Australia's Great Barrier Reef." Environmental Conservation 39, no. 4 (August 16, 2012): 370–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0376892912000239.
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SUMMARYInnovative partnerships for conservation are required to stem the tide of continued ecosystem degradation. Nature-based tourism is one such partnership. Yet the natural attractions that nature-based tourism depends on are under increasing anthropogenic threat. Because of their dependence on international visitors, nature-based tourism enterprises are under additional pressure from socioeconomic and political crises in a globalized world. Recent research shows that lifestyle values, the motives that entice owners and staff of tourism enterprises to live and work in a chosen natural attraction, strengthen the resilience of enterprises to crises. This paper empirically explores the relationship between the lifestyle values of nature-based tourism enterprises, their resilience, and their support of and contribution to conservation of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Semi-structured interviews with the owners and senior managers of 48 reef tourism enterprises showed that those that reported high lifestyle values had higher levels of conservation ethic and participated more extensively in conservation actions. The relationship between resilience and conservation ethic was not statistically significant. Bureaucratic, regulatory and cost constraints, and a lack of knowledge, limit enterprise participation in conservation. Conservation agencies can work to reduce some of these constraints to ensure that conservation benefits from nature-based tourism enterprises are maximized.
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Quigley, Killian. "Caring for colour: Multispecies aesthetics at the Great Barrier Reef." Queensland Review 28, no. 2 (December 2021): 82–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/qre.2022.4.
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AbstractThe Great Barrier Reef has been bleaching yet again. If the Anthropocene had a colour table, bleached coral would hold an especially recognizable place within it. By some lights, chromatic behaviour — and chromatic disaster — are best apprehended as secondary qualities, as spectacles that offer to point the discerning observer beyond the tokens of human sense and toward an object’s (or ecosystem’s) essential properties. This article asks whether it is possible, and ethically viable, to recognise corallian colour practice as having meaning in and of itself. I argue that we should recognise coral colourism as the irreducibly relational comportment of species, sunlight, salt water, sediment and so on. Contrary to some influential views, the Reef’s performances are not simply constructed by the fantasies of human spectators, but by stimulating human sensoria, they do hail us as participants in the chromatic field. Reckoning the loss of hue as a discrete catastrophe might therefore generate tools for articulating value in a manner that is not strictly constructivist, naively scientistic or reactionarily idealistic. Caring for the Reef may be, not first of all but not least of all, a caring for colour — a caring against chromatic disappearance and a caring towards chromatic repair.
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Graham, N. A. J., R. D. Evans, and G. R. Russ. "The effects of marine reserve protection on the trophic relationships of reef fishes on the Great Barrier Reef." Environmental Conservation 30, no. 2 (June 2003): 200–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0376892903000195.
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What are the effects of no-take marine reserves on trophic relationships of coral reef fish? Previous studies often have lacked detailed dietary information on major predators, and have often been confounded by differences in habitat complexity between reserve and fished sites. This study investigates the effects of marine reserve protection on predator-prey interactions of coral reef fish on the inshore islands of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The abundance of species of prey fish of Plectropomus leopardus (Serranidae), a piscivore and the major target of the hook and line fisheries on the GBR, were estimated in protected and fished zones. These prey species were identified from previous detailed studies of the diet of P. leopardus. Fish populations and habitat characteristics were surveyed by underwater visual census. Previous studies had determined that the biomass of P. leopardus was 3–4 times higher in protected than fished zones in the Whitsunday and Palm Islands, central GBR, after 14 years of protection. Eight of the nine prey species had a higher density within fished zones than protected zones, six significantly so. The density of all prey fish was twice that in the fished than the protected zone (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in availability of different sized refuge holes, structural complexity or live coral cover between zones. Thus, important attributes of habitat complexity did not confound the comparisons between reserve and fished zones. Finally, a significant negative correlation (r = 0.46) between coral trout biomass and summed prey fish biomass suggested that predation may be an important structuring process in this system. The results have implications for the conservation of fishery targets and their prey. The study highlights the potential ecosystem implications of the use of no-take marine reserves as conservation and fisheries management tools.
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Navaratna, D., L. Shu, K. Baskaran, and V. Jegatheesan. "Treatment of ametryn in wastewater by a hybrid MBR system: a lab-scale study." Water Science and Technology 66, no. 6 (September 1, 2012): 1317–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.2166/wst.2012.318.
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Agricultural discharge of herbicides to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) poses significant threat to the marine ecosystem. This study evaluates the performance of a hybrid treatment system consists of a membrane bioreactor (MBR), UV disinfection unit and a granular activated carbon (GAC) column in treating ametryn which is one of the major herbicides in agricultural discharges. While the MBR alone removes only 40% of ametryn at a hydraulic retention time of 7.8 h, the hybrid system removed ametryn to below detection levels.
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McKenzie, Len J., Lucas A. Langlois, and Chris M. Roelfsema. "Improving Approaches to Mapping Seagrass within the Great Barrier Reef: From Field to Spaceborne Earth Observation." Remote Sensing 14, no. 11 (May 29, 2022): 2604. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs14112604.
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Seagrass meadows are a key ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, providing one of the natural heritage attributes underpinning the reef’s outstanding universal value. We reviewed approaches employed to date to create maps of seagrass meadows in the optically complex waters of the Great Barrier Reef and explored enhanced mapping approaches with a focus on emerging technologies, and key considerations for future mapping. Our review showed that field-based mapping of seagrass has traditionally been the most common approach in the GBRWHA, with few attempts to adopt remote sensing approaches and emerging technologies. Using a series of case studies to harness the power of machine- and deep-learning, we mapped seagrass cover with PlanetScope and UAV-captured imagery in a variety of settings. Using a machine-learning pixel-based classification coupled with a bootstrapping process, we were able to significantly improve maps of seagrass, particularly in low cover, fragmented and complex habitats. We also used deep-learning models to derive enhanced maps from UAV imagery. Combined, these lessons and emerging technologies show that more accurate and efficient seagrass mapping approaches are possible, producing maps of higher confidence for users and enabling the upscaling of seagrass mapping into the future.
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Raharinirina, Nomenjanahary Alexia, Esteban Acevedo-Trejos, and Agostino Merico. "Modelling the acclimation capacity of coral reefs to a warming ocean." PLOS Computational Biology 18, no. 5 (May 9, 2022): e1010099. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010099.
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The symbiotic relationship between corals and photosynthetic algae is the foundation of coral reef ecosystems. This relationship breaks down, leading to coral death, when sea temperature exceeds the thermal tolerance of the coral-algae complex. While acclimation via phenotypic plasticity at the organismal level is an important mechanism for corals to cope with global warming, community-based shifts in response to acclimating capacities may give valuable indications about the future of corals at a regional scale. Reliable regional-scale predictions, however, are hampered by uncertainties on the speed with which coral communities will be able to acclimate. Here we present a trait-based, acclimation dynamics model, which we use in combination with observational data, to provide a first, crude estimate of the speed of coral acclimation at the community level and to investigate the effects of different global warming scenarios on three iconic reef ecosystems of the tropics: Great Barrier Reef, South East Asia, and Caribbean. The model predicts that coral acclimation may confer some level of protection by delaying the decline of some reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef. However, the current rates of acclimation will not be sufficient to rescue corals from global warming. Based on our estimates of coral acclimation capacities, the model results suggest substantial declines in coral abundances in all three regions, ranging from 12% to 55%, depending on the region and on the climate change scenario considered. Our results highlight the importance and urgency of precise assessments and quantitative estimates, for example through laboratory experiments, of the natural acclimation capacity of corals and of the speed with which corals may be able to acclimate to global warming.
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Coles, Robert G., Michael A. Rasheed, Len J. McKenzie, Alana Grech, Paul H. York, Marcus Sheaves, Skye McKenna, and Catherine Bryant. "The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area seagrasses: Managing this iconic Australian ecosystem resource for the future." Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 153 (February 2015): A1—A12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2014.07.020.
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Davis, Aaron M., Richard G. Pearson, Jon E. Brodie, and Barry Butler. "Review and conceptual models of agricultural impacts and water quality in waterways of the Great Barrier Reef catchment area." Marine and Freshwater Research 68, no. 1 (2017): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/mf15301.
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Adequate conceptual frameworks that link land use to water quality and ecosystem health are lacking for tropical and subtropical freshwater systems, so we review here extensive water-quality research undertaken in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area (GBRCA) and present conceptual models synthesising the dynamics of agricultural pollutants and their ecological effects. The seasonal flow regime defines the following key periods of water-quality risk over the annual hydrological cycle for diverse GBRCA ecosystems: initial ‘pre-flush’ flows during the transition from the dry to the wet season; early wet-season ‘first flush’ flows; peak wet-season flood flows; and sustained base flow or periods of disconnection during the dry season. The level of seasonal contrast varies from the perennial systems of the wet tropics to the intermittent systems of the dry tropics. Major water-quality stressors may be catchment scale (e.g. in streams draining broad-scale agriculture) or more localised (e.g. cattle access, irrigation tail water). Water-quality stressors such as ammonia toxicity and hypoxia (due to organic or nutrient run-off and enhanced plant productivity) are of low relevance to downstream GBR ecosystems but are major threats to fresh waters. Similarly, whereas high contaminant loads in wet-season floods present the highest water-quality risk to marine ecosystems, the greatest risk in fresh waters is often from acute contamination during early wet-season ‘pre-flush’ flows into lentic waters, or continuous input of contaminants over long periods of base flow. Because of differences in the nature of risk periods, water-quality threats and pollutant-delivery mechanisms, the benefits of different management options to improve water quality can also differ among freshwater habitats and between freshwater and marine environments.
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Chamberlain, Debbie A., Stuart R. Phinn, and Hugh P. Possingham. "Mangrove Forest Cover and Phenology with Landsat Dense Time Series in Central Queensland, Australia." Remote Sensing 13, no. 15 (August 2, 2021): 3032. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13153032.
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Wetlands are one of the most biologically productive ecosystems. Wetland ecosystem services, ranging from provision of food security to climate change mitigation, are enormous, far outweighing those of dryland ecosystems per hectare. However, land use change and water regulation infrastructure have reduced connectivity in many river systems and with floodplain and estuarine wetlands. Mangrove forests are critical communities for carbon uptake and storage, pollution control and detoxification, and regulation of natural hazards. Although the clearing of mangroves in Australia is strictly regulated, Great Barrier Reef catchments have suffered landscape modifications and hydrological alterations that can kill mangroves. We used remote sensing datasets to investigate land cover change and both intra- and inter-annual seasonality in mangrove forests in a large estuarine region of Central Queensland, Australia, which encompasses a national park and Ramsar Wetland, and is adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage site. We built a time series using spectral, auxiliary, and phenology variables with Landsat surface reflectance products, accessed in Google Earth Engine. Two land cover classes were generated (mangrove versus non-mangrove) in a Random Forest classification. Mangroves decreased by 1480 hectares (−2.31%) from 2009 to 2019. The overall classification accuracies and Kappa coefficient for 2008–2010 and 2018–2020 land cover maps were 95% and 95%, respectively. Using an NDVI-based time series we examined intra- and inter-annual seasonality with linear and harmonic regression models, and second with TIMESAT metrics of mangrove forests in three sections of our study region. Our findings suggest a relationship between mangrove growth phenology along with precipitation anomalies and severe tropical cyclone occurrence over the time series. The detection of responses to extreme events is important to improve understanding of the connections between climate, extreme weather events, and biodiversity in estuarine and mangrove ecosystems.