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Serpent Project Thylacine - Megafaunal ecology

Created 13/03/2025

Updated 13/03/2025

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SERPENT - Scientific and Environmental remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology. During the two days of ROV operations we completed six 50 m video transects for megafaunal abundance, diversity and distribution in the area.
The primary habitat is rock escarpment which serves as substrate for a dense sponge and coral reef. The rock formations are similar to a spur and groove. Grooves are filled with sediment, while spurs have dense communities of sponges, soft corals, bryozoans, and ascidians. Associated with this community are fish assemblages, which include leather jackets, trigger fish, and sea horses. Drill spoil is restricted to a radius of 30-50 m from port aft side, and as in the other sedimentary areas, is settling into the grooves. Ripples in the spoil are indicative of a high energy system. Between the jacket and port leg there is a spoil layer spoil that has covered the escarpment, but the fan, tube and finger sponges rise above the spoil. The sponges all appear healthy with no lesions or bleaching. Fish still inhabit the area of dense spoil sponge communities. There is evidence of worm reworkings in sediment areas 30-50 m from the drilling activity. There are large areas of sediment covered escarpment 45-50 N/NE of the port aft leg that have a much coarser sediment and ripples with a greater wave length indicating that this sedimentary deposition was the result of a past storm.
We deployed baited traps both within and outside of the drill spoil to attract mobile megafauna.
We videoed food choice arrays deployed within drill spoil both day and night to determine the food preference of benthic fauna. Food choice consisted of six agar blocks: a natural and artificial protein source, a natural and artificial carbohydrate source, a natural lipid source, and agar as a control. Fish were immediately attracted to the blocks during the day and feed primarily on the natural and artificial protein and lipid blocks. Crabs were attracted to the blocks at night but ate from all blocks.

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Title Serpent Project Thylacine - Megafaunal ecology
Language eng
Licence notspecified
Landing Page https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/e34098bd-409c-43b3-b54d-d9b0c4bec677
Contact Point
CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere
murray.thomson@sydney.edu.au
Reference Period 22/05/2006 - 26/05/2006
Geospatial Coverage {"type": "Point", "coordinates": [142.965, -39.370833]}
Data Portal data.gov.au

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on data.gov.au "Serpent Project Thylacine - Megafaunal ecology". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/serpent-project-thylacine-megafaunal-ecology

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