Deakin Marine Mapping uses Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUVs) to analyse our oceans. BRUVs are set up with two high definition video cameras positioned on every BRUV frame, with the cameras pointed at specific angles that allow for stereo imaging, which can be used to calculate the length of fishes and their distance from the cameras. Once the cameras are set up, bait bags full of pilchards are attached to the frame, about 1.2 metres above the cameras. The bait is what draws fish towards the cameras and allows them to be observed so closely. BRUVs are used to detect changes in species richness (number of different species counted in an area or sample) in different oceanic habitats and also to view fish communities in deeper algal dominated reefs. Using the data collected by BRUVs, species distribution models (SDMs) were able to be created  to develop full coverage maps of components of the fish assemblage. 

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Deakin Marine Mapping uses Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to create maps of the ocean floor and analyse aquatic species in Victorian aquatic ecosystems. AUVs are unmanned robots which are remote controlled, with no physical tethers to the scientists controlling them. This means AUVs can be used at very shallow or very deep oceanic depths.

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Towed video and Downward Facing Imagery is a method of marine mapping using synchronized technologies, that is facing the seafloor, in order to document the surface of the habitat as well as identifying taxa of the study location. It is used to obtain transect data on benthic habitats that are beyond the diving depths of the MNP as well as documenting the taxa with detailed and high resolution images. 

Two surveys from 2017 and 2018 were conducted to prioritise survey locations as well as to assess the temporal changes of habitat groups. This method uses a VideoRay remotely operated vehicle (ROV), that is inserted into a stainless steel frame with a micro-wing attachment for drifting, allowing the device to function as a drift camera.

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Drones- Intertidal Reefs

Aerial drones that patrol wide areas of coastal intertidal reefs. They record high resolution images of the environments topographical features with minimal cost and high efficiency.

The technology of drone aerial imagery can be effectively utilized to monitor and observe intertidal environments, its surface and the taxa involved on a large scale. It is a much more efficient and low cost method of topographic data collection with high resolution images. 

It captures a highly detailed analysis of the variations of taxa of different intertidal reefs. This technology is crucial to monitoring for coastal management and development of ways intertidal reefs will change with climate change. (Murfitt S.L et al, 31st August 2017, Applications of unmanned aerial vehicles in intertidal reef monitoring, Scientific Reports, retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-10818-9)

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Rock-lobster surveys- Southern Rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) have been used to recognise the health of subtidal reefs and indicate the effect of poaching.This study used standardized fishery trapping methods to obtain the Southern Rock Lobster’s (SRL) population within and adjacent to Point Addis Marine National Park.1 kg of bait were used for baiting in a lobster pot while closing off the escape gaps of the pot. The sampling design was created with the knowledge of a local fisherman. In total of 240 pots were used, 120 being in the park; 120 used outside of the park. All SRL were counted and sexed, females were evaluated for reproduction condition, and all lobsters were measured for carapace length (CL). The results collected were eventually used and calculated from a length-weight relationship equation. The catches were recorded for each pot location before returning to the water. The objective of this survey is to compare the population of SRL within and outside of the marine protected area.

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Diving RLS - In the study of the reef life survey collected,it showed observed at total of 888 mobile fish and 313 macroinvertebrates from a total of 91 taxa. Across 16 different site, thirty-two 50m transects were used that totals up to 1.6 hectares for sampling fishes and 0.16 hectares for sampling macroinvertebrates and cryptic fish species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Control charts - The charts contain 3 areas of the colour green, yellow and red. It indicates the fish species is healthy when it's in the green zone which is the ‘good’ zone. The control charts suggests that the fish species and macroinvertebrates were all in good health.

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