9 results
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-506
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Ralf Yorque Symposium and Ecopath with Ecosim Training Course

This report summarises the outcome of a Ralf Yorque symposium – a small fairly informal series of workshops aimed at providing the big picture thinking space needed to underpin multi-year, multi-project research programs that incrementally piece together the necessary components of a...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2003-019
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

National Strategy for the Survival of Released Line Caught Fish: investigating survival of fish released in Australia’s tropical and subtropical line fisheries

Experiments were conducted in northern, central and southern Queensland to investigate the effects of hook design and size on the incidence of hooking injury, and the effects of a number of factors, including barotrauma-treatment method, on post-release survival rates of a suite of key...
ORGANISATION:
James Cook University (JCU)

Physical oceanographic influences on Queensland reef fish and scallops

Project number: 2013-020
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $170,000.00
Principal Investigator: Tony J. Courtney
Organisation: Department of Primary Industries (QLD)
Project start/end date: 23 Jun 2013 - 29 Mar 2015
Contact:
FRDC

Need

There is a strong need for Queensland fishery managers to obtain a better understanding of key physical oceanographic influences on target species of commercial and recreational fisheries.

Tropical cyclones have been associated with reef fish catch rates. Coral trout (Plectropomus leopardus) catch rates typically fall after a major cyclone, while those of red throat emperor (Lethrinus miniatus) rise (see “Background” above). The effects on catchability can last several years. While the exact causal mechanism is not known, it is thought to be related to water temperature.

Nutrient-rich cold water eddies, which break from the East Australian Current and move westward onto the Queensland continental shelf are likely to affect the spat settlement, growth, abundance and catch rates of saucer scallop (Amusium balloti). Understanding these relationships may lead to improved management, assessment and forecasting of catch in these fisheries, and it may also lead to improved acceptance of quantitative stock assessment results by industry.

This proposal differs from previous abiotic studies because it focuses more on offshore, oceanic influences, rather than coastal rainfall and flow data.

Objectives

1. Review recent advances in the study of physical oceanographic influences on fisheries catch data, and describe the major physical oceanographic features that are likely to influence Queensland reef fish and saucer scallops.
2. Collate Queensland’s physical oceanographic data and fisheries (i.e., reef fish and saucer scallops) data.
3. Develop stochastic population models for reef fish and saucer scallops, which can link physical oceanographic features (e.g., sea surface temperature anomalies ) to catch rates, biological parameters (e.g., growth, reproduction, natural mortality) and ecological aspects (e.g. spatial distribution).
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