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Management of human impacts
Human impacts in the marine environment are extensive and, unfortunately, Australia is home to some of the world's best known examples of large-scale habitat loss, especially of seagrass ecosystems. CMER's research in this theme focuses on a number of pressures such as climate change, reduced water quality (for example, light reduction due to dredging and eutrophication), fishing and invasive species.
Much of our research at CMER attempts to determine the thresholds of human impact beyond which marine ecosystems will show change or may be unable to recover. By establishing how marine habitats will respond to human pressures, our research leads to recommendations for conservation and management strategies to ameliorate human impacts.
Projects
- Ameliorating the impacts of nutrient pollution on seagrass ecosystems: the role of grazers and hydrodynamics
- Beach wrack dynamics
- Seagrass health monitoring
- Drift Algae and invasive species in the Swan River
- Fish biology and ecology in area closure planning
- Trophic implications of light reductions on seagrass macroinvertebrate assemblages
- Do grazers and wave energy offset the effects of nutrient pollution on seagrasses?
Past projects
- Impact and recovery from light reduction in an Amphibolis seagrass ecosystem
- Invasion ecology of Caulerpa species
- Ocean Climate and resilience of kelp beds to disturbances
- Posidonia sinuosa responses to light availability
- Return of ecological function in transplanted seagrass meadows
- The effects of western rock lobster, Panuliris cygnus, on benthic, shallow water assemblages