Quantifying the biodiversity value of restricted access marine areas with combined eDNA metabarcoding and stereo-video methods

Mr Samuel Thompson¹

¹University Of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Abstract:

Active offshore petrochemical infrastructure is typically surrounded by a restricted access marine area (RAMA), which can exist for decades, potentially protecting associated fish and epifauna from fishing and other disturbances, creating a similar biodiversity value to that found in marine parks.

Contemporary research on The North West Shelf (NWS) has described high abundance and species diversity of fish and epifauna around pipelines on  compared to adjacent natural environments and a high species diversity around wellhead structures. However, it is unclear whether pipelines and structures are enhancing fish stocks (increasing production), or simply acting as fish aggregation devices, which could lead to a reduction in fish stocks by increasing vulnerability to capture if restrictions were lifted.

Furthermore, basic biological knowledge of some  key species is also lacking, particularly for deep-water Lutjanid species, posing additional challenges for fisheries management. As the petrochemical industry moves into deeper-waters in search of resources, it is imperative that ontogenetic, dietary and habitat requirements of these species are understood, as well as their interactions with subsurface infrastructure.  Understanding these factors will help facilitate a ‘whole of ecosystem’ view of how these species coexist within the wider trophic network, which is integral to ecosystem-based management approaches that seek to move beyond single species resource utilization concerns.

I am developing novel eDNA collection methods and metabarcoding primer sets to assess the effects of RAMAs on snapper and shark/ray populations across a variety of environmental gradients, collect oceanographic covariates, and compare resultant datasets with stereo-video surveys.

Biography:

Sam Thompson currently studies at the University of Western Australia as a PhD student in the Marine Ecology Fisheries Research Group. Sam’s research has focused on developing combined eDNA, oceanographic and video survey methods to enhance detection capabilities of naturally occurring ecological patterns and the effect of anthropogenic disturbance in benthopelagic ecosystems, particularly in the context of offshore petrochemical infrastructure and deep-sea mining.

Sam’s background includes a BSc and Honours in Biochemistry from the University of Kent in the UK, followed by a few years working as an analytical chemist in Pharmaceutical R&D. He then completed an MSc in Biological Oceanography at the University of Southampton, UK and worked as an Oceanographer for RPS MetOcean in Perth, Australia before commencing a PhD at The University of Western Australia.