Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Annual Review 2012

AEBAR 2012: Marine Biodiversity
ecosystem-based approach to management (Thrush et al. 1997, 2000), with potential benefits for
marine conservation and management. Ecosystem modelling of species distribution (and habitats)
with respect to known and projected environmental parameters will improve predictability for both
broad and fine-scale biodiversity distribution. This has already resulted in improved definition of
environmental classifications addressing biodiversity assessment. It is also important to make
progress in establishing the links between biodiversity and the long-term viability of fish stocks under
various harvesting strategies. It is also important that modellers consider processes from all ecosystem
function perspectives i.e., top-down effects such as predation (e.g. trophic modelling), bottom-up
effects such as the environment (e.g., habitat classification based on environmental variable), and
wasp-waisted systems where there are major effects in both directions.
Projects
ZBD2002-06A: Impacts of terrestrial run-off on the biodiversity of rocky reefs Completed.
(Schwarz et al. 2006).
ZBD2004-02: Ecosystem scale trophic relationships of fish on the Chatham Rise. Completed.
(Connell et al. 2010, Dunn 2009, Dunn et al. in press, Dunn et al. 2010a, b, c, Eakin et al.
2009, Forman and Dunn 2010, Horn et al. 2010, Stevens and Dunn 2010. Follow-up research
on isotope signatures to improve the trophic data from ZBD2004-02 has been incorporated
into the NIWA’s Coast and Ocean programme and trophic modelling is underway in this
programme.
ZBD2004-08 Sea-grass meadows as biodiversity and connectivity hotspots.
This contract links closely with the MBIE project Coastal Conservation Management
(CO1X0907). National scale sampling across North and South Island seagrass meadows in a
range of estuarine and coastal settings has shown that seagrass meadows overall consistently
supported higher species richness, biomass, and productivity of invertebrates (infaunal and
epifaunal). Associated sampling of small fish assemblages found that while seagrass meadows
provided a nursery function to a number of species, this function was most pronounced in
northern New Zealand systems, where relatively high numbers of juvenile snapper, trevally,
spotties, parore, and garfish/piper were caught. However, there was strongly spatial variation
across different estuary and coast settings (MBIE91B).
ZBD2004-19 Ecological function and critical trophic linkages in New Zealand softsediment
habitats. Project completed. (see Lohrer et al. 2010.)
ZBD2005-05 Effects of climate variation and human impacts on the structure and functioning of
New Zealand shelf ecosystems.
The project is a multidisciplinary study to utilise archeological, paleoecological, and historical
data to retrospectively model ecosystem states during different historical and prehistoric time
periods. The project is collaborating with the international History of Marine Animal
Populations (HMAP) project, itself a part of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) programme.
The data have been used as inputs to a mass balance model of the shelf ecosystem starting
with the present day Hauraki Gulf. A short video about the NZ Taking Stock project was
made by HMAP staff and is currently available on the HMAP website
http://hmapcoml.org/projects/nz/. Several presentations have been made at NZ and
international conferences as results have emerged.
ZBD2008-01 Inshore biogenic habitats.
Existing knowledge on biogenic habitat-formers in the