Monitoring for human impacts and introduced species in marine communities at Australia's subantarctic islands

Project aim

To effectively monitor human imapcts on subantarctic ecosystems, in particular the introduction of new ‘pest’ species, long-term monitoring programs must be set in place. Although a long-term data set has been established for the shores of Macquarie Island, very little is known about similar marine invertebrate communities of Heard Island. Many of the species present in these communities are cosmopolitan across the subantarctic and it has been proposed that drifting kelp rafts may provide the mechanism by which they are transported between isalnds. This project will continue data collection from Heard Island and Macquarie Island in order to allow monitoring of changes in community structure over medium (3 years) and longer (10 years or more) time scales. The project will also continue to explore the relationships between subantarctic populations of marine invertebrates and the role of kelp rafts in this process.