Habitat by Habitat - Estuaries

AMSA Wrap up - Marine Bio-complexity

Anth and Bron are back in the studio together and Anth commented on how the weather was so much warmer when he was in Brisbane during the week.

After much fanfare, Bron did the weather (including boating forecast).

Collective nouns for salmon: shoal, run, leap, draught and a bind. No one could work out the last two.

The news was about planting mangroves on coastal reaches to fight poverty. Unfortunately, they would destroy the ecology that the community already depends on - great thinking retired Cell Biologist (NOT an Ecologist)

A semi enclosed waterbody that is periodically flushed by the tides - is the typical definition. They are very varied because of the freshwater input at one end and the salt at the other, not to mention the changes in oxygen and temperature - the the ability for this to change so quickly.

The animals vary from polychete worms and crabs to molluscs. The flora varies from microscopic algae to the salt water marsh plants.

There are a range of animals that exhibit avoidance behavior - they move around the estuary to where the salt levels are optimum for them - up river if they are freshwater and out to sea if they are marine creatures.

One of the natural phenomena that is common is the closure of the mouth of the estuary. It really annoys people who have build their houses or businesses on the flood plain.

Bio-complexity and Bio-diversity are not the same - biocomplexity is about the interactions that make up the ecosystem and biodiversity is about the number and type of organisms that are out there.

Bioprospecting is really getting a fair amount of coverage, especially in the area of who owns what. It was commented that if the current legislation that is in the Qld parliament was in place in the Amazon, the local people would be a bit better off !

The final plenary speaker was Hugh Possingham - who talked about the placement of marine parks, using a hugely complex computer program for the politicians to ignore.

The Great Barrier Reef is the only organism visible from space - it is bigger than the UK, longer than the west coast of the US, and has around 3000 individual reefs.

The GBR is in a much better state than the other large reefs. If you look at what is happening there, the threats to the reef are being well identified and actions are being proposed. The fact that the protection is being proposed when the reef is still considered to be OK is seen by some as an overreaction. The analogy was salinity work - where the warnings were issued 30 years ago and ignored, with the forecast outcomes coming true before the preventative actions could take place.

There is a full map of the GBR divided into the uses that are acceptable. The green zones are the cool bits for environmental protection. These have changed recently so for the latest versions head to the GBRMPA website

" Reds no More"

" Teach Me tonight"

" He wants you"

Peter Hicks

Paul Kelly with Uncle Bill

Nick Cave

Brett was off last week - due to his phone being worse for wear. Today the sun is out, but so it the wind. The northerlies are the problem but once you get you head under the water is is fantastic - the ocean side is 10 - 20 m.

The temp is about 13 C on the Ocean side and about 12 at Rye - no icecream headaches on diving.