By Jaci Brown, Madeleine Cahill, Ming Feng and Xuebin Zhang, CSIRO The Conversation. While eastern Australia trembles at the impending El Niño this year, potentially increasing heat waves and bushfires, the coastal waters of Western Australia (WA) would find El Niño a welcome relief from the heat. In the summer of 2010-11 WA’s oceans were […]
By Emily Piesse (ABC) A school of box jellyfish found off the Kimberley coast in Western Australia may be the first of the species to be recorded in deep water. Scientists discovered the jellyfish in March during a biodiversity survey in Camden Sound, about 200 kilometres north of Derby. “We did a 1,500-metre video tow […]
Written by Natasha Prokop (SNWA) Using cutting-edge genomic analyses researchers are investigating how the Kimberley marine environment’s unique conditions affect organism movement in the region. CSIRO researcher Dr Oliver Berry says the Kimberley’s massive 10m-plus tidal ranges and complex geography are likely to produce unique dispersal patterns. These movement patterns influence the inter-dependence (connectivity) between […]
Report from the National Estuaries Network Science Forum on Barrier Estuaries The Department of Water, Water Science Branch and Busselton office together with Geocatch, hosted the National Estuaries Network Science Forum on Barrier Estuaries with special focus on the Vasse Wonnerup System (VWWS) – a wetland of international significance (Ramsar, 1990). Around 60 estuary managers, […]
Written by Cristy Burne THE waters of the Bardi Jawi Indigenous Protection Area (IPA), 160km north of Broome, are paradise for seagrass: warm water, lots of light and a pristine, protected environment means these seagrasses grow fast, so why are they so short? The answer, according to CSIRO marine ecologist Dr Mat Vanderklift, could change […]
Murdoch University is gathering information on what local residents value about the Kimberley coast and waters and what preferences you have for its management. The WAMSI research project aims to assist Government to make informed decisions about coastal management, now and into the future. We want to hear from as many different people as possible […]
The first of several legal research agreements between the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) and Traditional Owners of the Kimberley has been signed paving the way for a consistent and respectful partnership approach to conducting marine science in the region. The opportunity to develop a standard for conducting research projects within the Kimberley was […]
By KLC The Bardi Jawi Rangers have been tagging turtles with satellite transmitters to discover more about their genetics, life cycle, travel and feeding patterns. During the four-day research expedition, data was collected from more than 30 green turtles within the One Arm Point area on the Dampier Peninsula. CSIRO scientist Mat Vanderklift prepares to […]
Written by SNWA AS PART of Big Data Week (April 20-26), ScienceNetwork WA invited the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre to share some of its insights on big data through a five-part series. Today, read about how the Western Australian Marine Science Institute (WAMSI) is meeting big data needs across all forms of marine research in WA. […]
Professor Lynnath Beckley from Murdoch University has led a team who spent two years using low altitude aerial surveys to monitor human activity along the Kimberley coast and adjacent waters. “People always talk about the remoteness and the emptiness of the Kimberley but this is the first time anyone has actually quantified human presence along […]