Kimberley corals offer hope for reefs

Flip Prior, The West AustralianNovember 21, 2012, 5:30 am
Marine scientist Ali McCarthy popped out of the turquoise water at Shell Island, grinning around her snorkel and holding a purple-tipped staghorn coral - one of many colourful reef specimens turning the shallows near Cygnet Bay into an underwater wonderland.

Despite being bombarded daily by the biggest tides of any tropical reef system in the world, early studies suggest the Kimberley corals survive big fluctuations in temperature, water flow and light intensity to grow at a phenomenal rate.

"The ranges in parameters that they cope with on a daily basis are beyond the thresholds for most other coral reefs throughout the world," Ms McCarthy said.

"Learning what's different and what makes these corals able to adapt and cope with the environment up here may well hold part of the key to helping other reefs elsewhere to be able to survive in a changing climate."

The corals are one reason scientists are flocking to the Kimberley Marine Research Station, on the tip of the Dampier Peninsula at Cygnet Bay, to dive into its pristine waters.

James Brown, a third-generation pearler and marine biologist, established KMRS in 2009 to give students low-cost and easy access to three marine bioregions - King Sound, Canning Basin and the Kimberley.

The area is highly biodiverse and scientists suspect many species are yet to be discovered or understood.

Mr Brown said now that the State Government's investment of millions of dollars into the Kimberley Science and Conservation Strategy was starting to hit the ground, interest in the region was growing.

In the past year, more than 20 teams of scientists have visited to begin projects - some of which will last years.

As research officer, Ms McCarthy co-ordinates a busy schedule of scientists studying everything from cetacean distribution and abundance to coral bleaching and sedimentation in what she says is a "remarkable environment"."Because it is so isolated, there is a huge amount of diversity up here and relatively very little human impact," she said.

Rowley Shoals exploration leases spark fears

AAP, The West Australian

April 11, 2012, 11:46 am

UPDATE 12.20pm: One of the world’s healthiest marine environments will be threatened by a major oil and gas drilling program just 10km off WA’s pristine Rowley Shoals, conservationists say.

Woodside Petroleum and Shell will start a combined $350 million exploration program next year.

The work will include seismic surveys and test drilling just outside state and federal marine parks protecting the three atolls that make up the Rowley Shoals, 300km off the Kimberley coast.

Woodside was awarded three exploration leases by the Federal Government in November, covering more than 10,000 square kilometres of ocean just west of the Rowley Shoals.

However, three more leases are up for tender that will totally enclose the reef system, leaving a buffer zone of just three nautical miles (about 5.5km) around each atoll.

Woodside would not say whether it was bidding for the new leases, which close on Thursday, but confirmed drilling operations for its existing offshore permits.

“Each well we drill is subject to rigorous environmental risk assessments and planning,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Well-integrity and safety is our highest priority.”

However, WWF WA director Paul Gamblin said even a modest spill or blowout so close to the reef system would be disastrous.

“It’s not so long since we had the Montara oil spill which is not too far away,” he said.

“Even something much smaller than the Montara spill right next to a coral reef would be devastating.”

Mr Gamblin said the atolls were among the healthiest in the world due to their remote location and rich biodiversity.

While the northern Mermaid Reef is protected by the Commonwealth, the southern Clerke and Imperieuse reefs are state marine parks.

“Lying on the very edge of Australia’s continental shelf, they are regarded as the most perfect examples of shelf-edge atolls in Australian waters,” WA’s Department of Environment and Conservation describes them on its website.

WA Environment Minister Bill Marmion told ABC Radio on Wednesday that Canberra’s decision to open the area up to oil and gas was “outside our control”.

“The Commonwealth have made the call on this and I would hope that because they’ve made the call they’d analyse the situation properly and make sure there’s no chance of oil spills,” he said.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said his office had provided advice to the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism highlighting “key ecological features, such as the Rowley Shoals”.

“All proposals referred to the department are assessed on a case-by-case basis, and are subject to a rigorous and transparent assessment process, including an opportunity for public comment,“ Mr Burke said in a statement.

Mr Gamblin said the decision to release more oil and gas acreage was at odds with the federal government’s pledge to establish a network of marine sanctuaries around the nation.

“The Rowley Shoals, Kimberly coast, Ningaloo, Margaret River, the areas off the Great Australian Bight - all of these areas are coming under increasing pressure from the oil and gas industry at a time when the federal government is supposed to be creating marine parks,” he said.

“At a time when most of the world’s coral reefs are under enormous threat or been significantly damaged, the Rowley Shoals stand out there as one of the last hopes the world has for protecting an outstanding, diverse and pristine coral reef system.”

Secret Life of Kimberley Corals

GRAHAM LLOYD 

From:

The Australian 

March 24, 2012 12:00AM

THE remote Kimberley coast, widely considered to be the planet's last great tropical marine frontier, is slowly beginning to yield its secrets.

At the height of tropical cyclone Lua, which this week hammered the region with winds of up to 160km/h, marine scientist Ali McCarthy, 24, became the first person to witness the spawning of Kimberley onshore corals.

The event took place nine days after the full moon and after two wet, windy nights of monitoring aquariums at Cygnet Bay, about 200km north of Broome.

The captive spawning mirrored exactly what was happening on reefs a few hundred metres away, where the waters were awash with slicks of bright blue and pink secretions as corals released their gametes into the water for fertilisation.

The event, which can be accurately predicted, is remarkable for more than the way in which it will help explain the lifecycle of one of the world's least understood coral regions. The Kimberley coast is recognised as the most coral diverse area in Western Australia and may rival the Red Sea with 280 species of hard coral from 55 genera, many new to science. The research will help unlock the secrets of why Kimberley corals are thriving where contemporary marine science says they should not even exist.

"The environment in which the corals exist is almost beyond the normal parameters for coral survival, let alone growth," said Ms McCarthy.The onshore reefs of Cygnet Bay experience water temperatures of up to 40C without bleaching. They also withstand 12m tides, extreme turbidity and ocean acidification that would be devastating to other coral systems.

Recovery of corals at Ashmore Reef

Written by Geoff Vivian Thursday, 22 December 2011 12:00

Science Network, Western Australia

RESEARCHERS at Ashmore Reef found shifts in coral diversity after recovery from bleaching events of 1998 and 2003.

Marine ecology consultant Dr Daniela Ceccarelli says, “The scientific consensus is that the causes of severe coral bleaching at Ashmore Reef and on other coral reefs in the region were caused by abnormally high sea surface temperatures associated with an El Nino event”.

Surveys commissioned by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities found the percent cover of hard corals tripled and the percent cover of soft corals doubled over a four-year period from 2005 to 2009.

Dr Ceccarelli, who participated in one of the surveys, attributes the rapid regeneration to two factors: the reef’s relative freedom from human activity, and the success of fast-growing coral species.

“The corals that became dominant over the recovery period were a combination of species that can colonise the reef and grow quickly and species that weren't as heavily affected in the first place, whereas species that were less abundant included slow-growing species that suffered high mortality from the bleaching.

“The fast-growing corals that became abundant in the shallow zone were from the genera Acropora and Pocillopora, and the slower-growing corals that did well in the deep reef zones were from the family Faviidae.”

She said the overall composition of the reef had changed.

“There didn't seem to be any biodiversity loss, and certainly no extinctions, just a shift in species dominance,” she said.

The researchers expect the success of branching corals to promote future biodiversity of other reef species.

“Habitat complexity is a measure of how convoluted the structure of the reef is - corals with branches provide greater habitat complexity than, say, encrusting coral species which grow flat against the substrate.”

Ashmore Reef is a nature reserve with an area of 583 square kilometres on Australia’s Northwest Shelf.

It is located 610km north of Broome and 110km south of Roti in Indonesia, and includes three small islands, sand cays, lagoons and a large flat reef.

Dr Ceccarelli said the last coral survey at Ashore Reef was conducted in 2009.

“Theoretically the monitoring should be repeated every two to three years, but it depends on how much funding is available,” she said.

Dr Ceccarelli is first author of the CSIRO article Ceccarelli et al Rapid increase in coral cover on an isolated coral reef, the Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve, north-western Australia Marine and Freshwater Research, 2011, 62, 1214–1220

50+ species of hard coral identified on one reef walk at Cygnet Bay

Kimberley corals defy conventional scientific understanding in Talbot Bay

Talbot Bay coral discovery defies conventional belief

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Written by Geoff Vivian Tuesday, 08 November 2011 09:00

The clarity of the water is affected by this large inter-tidal flow thus the discovery of corals in this environment is a surprise. Flickr: Waltzing Van

KIMBERLEY coral reefs are thriving in turbid inter-tidal conditions and defying conventional scientific understandings that corals need clear oceanic waters to survive.

Marine biologist Dr Barry Wilson last year spent time at Turtle Reef in Talbot Bay, on advice from One Arm Point’s Bardi-Jawi people.

Dr Wilson says there is greater diversity of coral species in Kimberley reefs than in oceanic atolls or the Great Barrier Reef.

“There have been 318 species of corals recorded now on the Kimberley coast,” he says.

Researchers in the late 1940s said the Kimberley had “a profusion of ordinary fringing reefs”.

Dr Wilson says they were right about the profusion of Kimberley reefs, but not about them being ordinary.

Known to survive at a depth of 60 metres in clear oceanic waters, Dr Wilson has found Talbot Bay corals as deep as 20 metres in turbid, muddy conditions.

Dr Wilson says non-Indigenous scientists would not normally look for corals in locations such as Turtle Reef.

“The water is very far from clear and oceanic—it’s turbid and the light doesn’t penetrate far. It’s not the sort of environment [conventional] corals require, yet we’ve got this prolific growth of corals,” he says

“This is in a land-locked gulf, you’ve really got to navigate your way in and you will have [difficulty] getting out if you don’t know your way.

“[The environment] is macro-tidal, [it has] eleven metres of tidal flow twice a day.

“As a consequence … the current flows away and you get whirlpools in the ocean,” he says.

The clarity of the water is affected by this large inter-tidal flow thus the discovery of corals in this environment is a surprise.

About 70 per cent of the Talbot Bay corals appear to be common to Queensland’s Barrier Reef.

Dr Wilson suspects the remaining 30 per cent will be found in Indonesia’s Maluku province, because of its proximity to Australia. He says the discovery turns conventional thought about coral on its head.

“This is the sort of information which some people will find difficult to believe because they have all been taught that corals all need clear oceanic water and it’s not true,” he says.

The original article 'Reconnaissance of species-rich coral reefs in a muddy, macro-tidal, enclosed embayment, – Talbot Bay, Kimberley, Western Australia' has been published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia issue 94.

http://www.sciencewa.net.au/3712-talbot-bay-coral-discovery-defies-conventional-belief.html