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International scholarship shores up coral reefs' future
18 July 2007: A new scholarship initiative at the University of Queensland's Australasian Centre of Excellence will help protect coral reefs around South-East Asia and the Pacific for future generations.
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Healthy reefs hit hardest by warmer temperatures
07 May 2007: CORAL disease outbreaks hit hardest in the healthiest sections of the Great Barrier Reef, where close living quarters among coral may make it easy for infection to spread, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found.
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Coral reefs down, but not out
06 April 2007: THE findings for coral reefs in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report may be bleak, but Australian researchers argue adaptive management options for reefs at risk are still in sight.
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Order your copy of the Reef Restoration Guidelines
01 March 2007 - COASTAL and coral reef managers can now order a copy of the CRTR Program's Reef Restoration - Concepts and Guidelines: Making Sensible Management Choices in the Face of Uncertainty technical manual.
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What is Connectivity? |
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Marine populations are interconnected, exchanging individuals mainly through larval dispersal and thereby influencing the dynamics of each population.
Most reef species have pelagic larval stages. The dispersal during larval life means that neighbouring populations are connected by the exchange of larvae. This connection is termed “connectivity”.
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How is it measured? |
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Measuring connectivity is technically difficult for several reasons including:
- Long larval lines
- Larvae is too small to be tagged
- Its dispersal – a complex product of passive transport and active movement
Many species are larval for many days or weeks and potentially able to travel large distances during this time. Their dispersal is strongly influenced by patterns of water movement, but larvae can sense their surroundings, respond to them and swim, sometimes surprisingly well. Larval behaviour also changes as the larvae develop and grow.
The movement of water around complex coral reef topography is itself far from simple.
Measuring connectivity requires field observations that are:
- Over large regions to encompass the potential extent of larval movement;
- Timed to coincide with critical biological events such as spawning pulses; and
- By people with a broad range of skills – physical oceanographers, ecologists, behavioural scientists and others.
It also benefits from use of sophisticated laboratory-based sciences including molecular genetics, trace element chemistry and advanced computer modelling. This is not routine monitoring.
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Why is it important? |
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Management of coral reefs, for conservation and/or for sustainable fisheries requires that we manage human impact to a level that is sustainable by the populations of reef organisms. This depends on the ability of the local (impacted) population to grow and population growth depends upon connectivity as well as on local reproductive potential. In particular, design and management of Marine Protected Areas depend on knowledge of the connectivity relationships of the local populations of targeted species.
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