Cyprien Bosserelle

Challenges in transferring knowledge between scales in coastal sediment dynamics

‘Packaging’ coastal sediment transport into discrete temporal and spatial scale bands is necessary for measurement programs, modelling, and design. However, determining how to best measure and parameterize information, to transfer between scales, is not trivial. An overview is provided of the major complexities in transferring information on coastal sediment transport between scales. Key considerations that recur in the literature include: interaction between sediment transport and morphology; the influence of biota; episodic sediment transport; and recovery time-scales. The influence of bedforms and landforms, as well as sediment-biota interactions, varies with spatio-temporal scale. In some situations, episodic sediment dynamics is the main contributor to long-term sediment transport. Such events can also significantly alter biogeochemical and ecological processes, which interact with sediments. The impact of such episodic events is fundamentally influenced by recovery time-scales, which vary spatially. For the various approaches to scaling (e.g., bottom-up, aggregation, spatial hierarchies), there is a need for fundamental research on the assumptions inherent in each approach.

Keeping It Local: Dispersal Limitations of Coral Larvae to the High Latitude Coral Reefs of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands

In 2011 the first recorded bleaching event for the high latitude Houtman Abrolhos Islands (HAI) coral communities was documented. This bleaching event highlighted the question of whether a supply of ‘heat tolerant’ coral recruits from the tropical north would be sufficient to provide a level of resistance for these reefs to future warming events. Using Lagrangian modelling we showed that due to its regional isolation, large-scale larval input from potential tropical northern source populations to the HAI is unlikely, despite the southward flowing Leeuwin current. Successful recruitment to artificial substrates was recorded following the bleaching event. However, this was negligible (0.4 ± 0.1 recruits per tile) compared to 2013 post impact recruitment (128.8 ± 15.8 recruits per tile). Our data therefore provides preliminary evidence suggesting that the connectivity of the HAI with coral communities in the north is limited, and population maintenance and recovery is likely driven primarily by self-recruitment. Given the low thermal tolerance of the HAI coral communities, the dominance of Acropora, and the apparent reliance on self-recruitment, an increased frequency of thermally anomalous conditions at the HAI (such as experienced in 2011) has the potential to reduce the long-term stability of the HAI coral populations and species that depend upon them.

A Parallel Population Genomic and Hydrodynamic Approach to Fishery Management of Highly-Dispersive Marine Invertebrates: The Case of the Fijian Black-Lip Pearl Oyster Pinctada margaritifera.

Fishery management and conservation of marine species increasingly relies on genetic data to delineate biologically relevant stock boundaries. Unfortunately for high gene flow species which may display low, but statistically significant population structure, there is no clear consensus on the level of differentiation required to resolve distinct stocks. The use of fine-scale neutral and adaptive variation, considered together with environmental data can offer additional insights to this problem. Genome-wide genetic data (4,123 SNPs), together with an independent hydrodynamic particle dispersal model were used to inform farm and fishery management in the Fijian black-lip pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera, where comprehensive fishery management is lacking, and the sustainability of exploitation uncertain. Weak fine-scale patterns of population structure were detected, indicative of broad-scale panmixia among wild oysters, while a hatchery-sourced farmed population exhibited a higher degree of genetic divergence (Fst = 0.0850–0.102). This hatchery-produced population had also experienced a bottleneck (NeLD = 5.1; 95% C.I. = [5.1–5.3]); compared to infinite NeLD estimates for all wild oysters. Simulation of larval transport pathways confirmed the existence of broad-scale mixture by surface ocean currents, correlating well with fine-scale patterns of population structuring. Fst outlier tests failed to detect large numbers of loci supportive of selection, with 2–5 directional outlier SNPs identified (average Fst = 0.116). The lack of biologically significant population genetic structure, absence of evidence for local adaptation and larval dispersal simulation, all indicate the existence of a single genetic stock of P. margaritifera in the Fiji Islands. This approach using independent genomic and oceanographic tools has allowed fundamental insights into stock structure in this species, with transferability to other highly-dispersive marine taxa for their conservation and management.

A preliminary exploration of the physical properties of seagrass wrack that affect its offshore transport, deposition, and retention on a beach

The transport, deposition, and decomposition of seagrass wrack facilitate significant marine subsidies of material, energy, and organisms to the terrestrial environment. Over the past decade we have improved our understanding of the on-beach decomposition of seagrass wrack and its impact on beach and island communities; however, there is a paucity of research on the transport processes that supply wrack to the beaches. The physical properties of wrack affect its buoyancy and therefore transport, but these properties vary with species, the condition of the wrack when it was formed, the time since the wrack was generated and its ambient environment in the sediment, the water column, at the water surface or on the beach. Understanding how wrack physical properties vary under a range of conditions is needed to predict wrack transport, yet these properties have not previously been reported. We modified classical parameterizations of particle transport to identify knowledge and data gaps for wrack transport processes. We present a preliminary exploration, for Posidonia sinuosa leaves and Amphibolis antarctica stems and leaves, of settling velocities of wrack fragments, critical shear stresses required for their resuspension, bulk physical characteristics of wrack accumulations on beaches (e.g., bulk density, porosity), and physical properties of key wrack components (e.g., tissue density, tensile strength). We also determined how these properties change with drying, aging, and subsequent rewetting.