Centre for Marine Futures

Sessile invertebrates and macroalgae communities.

Rottnest Island is located 19km from the Western Australian mainland, and is a popular family holiday location.

One of the main drawcards of the island is the diverse marine life inhabiting the surounding waters, which Western Australian locals and tourists can experience by snorkelling, diving, boating and fishing.

The marine environment around Rottnest includes seagrass meadows, kelp-covered reef tops, coral patches, and sponge gardens in deeper water. As a result of the warm, southward flowing Leeuwin Current, the island represents the southern limit of the distributions of many tropical corals and fish. Marine life around Rottnest therefore represents a unique mix of tropical and temperate species and habitats.

Macroalgal communities, including brown, red and encrusting algae.

The Marine Futures project will sample waters surrounding the island and to the west of the island, between approximately 15 and 120m depth.

Just over 250 square kilometres of hydro-acoustic mapping has now been completed at the Rottnest site. In addition, over 35 hours of towed video has also been completed and analysed, uncovering the mysteries of the deeper waters on our back doorstep - including uncharted shipwrecks! Using the above two datasets, the habitat mapping team have now developed full coverage habitat maps for the site. The maps outline the areas covered by some key biotic 'groups' of organisms such as sessile invertebrates, macroalgae, rhodoliths (see example clip right) and seagrasses.

Following on from the development of the habitat maps, the team have now completed over 200 baited camera drops and collected over 1500 images of the seafloor!

Habitat mapping

Google habitat maps of detailed and basic biota and substratum.

• Rottnest Island Major Biota [KMZ; 1.04 MB]
  Rottnest Island Major Biota Coverage (KMZ generalised to 50m)
• Rottnest Island Major Substratum [KMZ; 1.78 MB]
  Rottnest Island Major Substratum Coverage (KMZ generalised to 50m)
• Rottnest Island Detailed Biota [KMZ; 557 KB]
  Rottnest Island Detailed Biota Coverage (KMZ generalised to 100 m)
• Rottnest Island Detailed Substratum [KMZ; 677 KB]
  Rottnest Island Detailed Substratum Coverage (KMZ generalised to 100 m)

Biodiversity

The interactive excels, which are an easy to use platform which link the infromation from the drop camera and baited fish cameras to the maps are found here. In addition we have a collection of some underwater footage which can be used for educational purposes on the types of marine habitats and fish in our big blue backyard.

Underwater Fish (sBRUVS) Videos

These baited videos illustrate the fish diversity over an array of habitats found throughout the Rottnest study location.

• Rottnest Habitat Compilation [AVI; 178 MB]
  This video contains a number of sample video clips from within the Rottnest study site, illustrating the various habitats and associated fish for this area.
• Rottnest Highlights [AVI; 90 MB]
  Throughout the Marine Futures project, the video analysis saw many weird and wonderful creatures and behaviours. This video is a collation of some of these weird and wonderful highlights from the Rottnest study site.

Interactive Excel Charts

The interactive Microsoft Excel charts combine the biodiversity and mapping products to give the user an interactive and visual display of which organisms are found in what habitats.

• READ ME [DOC; 212 KB]
  Please read these short instructions to provide a context to the use of the interactive excels.
• Marine Futures ROTTNEST fish assemblages [XLS; 1.88 MB]
  The interactive excel which allows you to examine the fish sampled at the rottnest study location in detail.
• Marine Futures ICONIC fish_all sites [XLS; 2.87 MB]
  This interactive excel lets you examine the iconic fish statistics in detail, across all of the study locations.
• Marine Futures_fish assemblage indicators ALL SITES [XLS; 223 KB]
  This interactive excel lets you examine a number of assemblage level metrics, standardised by habitats across all the study locations
• Marine Futures fish assemblages ACROSS HABITATS all sites [XLS; 223 KB}
  This interactive excel lets you examine a range of assemblage level indicators at a selected study location across a range of habitats.
• Rottnest Benthic Assemblages Chart [XLS; 12.1 MB]
  This chart allows you to examine the distribution of the benthic organisms, sampled using the drop camera system, in the Rottnest study location

Human uses

• Human Use Report: Rottnest Appendix [PDF; 1.4 MB]
  Appendix for the Rottnest study location.