June 1995 Newsletter

MASTER REEF MONITORING DIRECTORY

Ever wondered how to find out who's been monitoring animals and plants on the Great Barrier Reef among the maze of marine research programs? A consolidated directory of biological monitoring programs is nearing completion to help Reef researchers and managers better access various scientific databases developed since 1975.

James Cook University postgraduate student Ab Rahim Gor Yaman has completed a six month project developing the database structure. Over 100 major Reef monitoring programs and `time series' work about fishes, benthos, marine mammals, sea turtles, water quality and oceanographic studies have been compiled.

The directory is the first of its kind to collate 20 years of scientific monitoring work. It will become the first door to open by people wanting to check out the Reef's existing sources of information banks on these issues.

The database should also become a useful tool to help GBRMPA and Queensland Environment and Heritage managers determine their research and monitoring priorities and needs for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

A listing of all known programs also shows clear patterns in the distribution of past and present monitoring effort in the Marine Park. For example, 30% of all reefs off-shore Cairns have had various monitoring studies done on them compared to only 4-5% of reefs in the far northern and southern Capricorn sectors.

The directory's already providing a reference for other scientists to source 700 published papers and unpublished reports about significant monitoring projects done in the Marine Park that had a duration of more than three years. This is particularly helpful for Australian and overseas researchers who want to find detailed long term data on an issue such as water quality, by contacting program leaders listed in the directory.

The final report, submitted to the CRC Reef Research Centre Ltd, describes who undertook and sponsored each monitoring program, where they were done, categories of research and publishing formats. The next stage is to install and maintain the database on a computer network.

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