parks victoria technical series marine natural values study vol 2 ...
parks victoria technical series marine natural values study vol 2 ...
parks victoria technical series marine natural values study vol 2 ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Parks Victoria Technical Series No. 79<br />
Flinders and Twofold Shelf Bioregions Marine Natural Values Study<br />
The Victorian Embayment bioregion is a discontinuous region that contains the major<br />
embayments, inlets and some of the major estuaries along the Victorian coast (Figure 1,<br />
IMCRA 2006). Within the bioregion, there are five MNPs, Port Phillip Heads in Port Phillip<br />
Bay, Yaringa, French Island, Churchill Island in Western Port, and Corner Inlet. Port Phillip<br />
Heads MNP is discontinuous and consists of six sites in the southern region of Port Phillip<br />
Bay. Three MSs, Point Cooke, Jawbone and Ricketts Point in Port Phillip Bay, also occur in<br />
the bioregion. The climate is moist temperate, with a pronounced west to east variation in<br />
catchment run off and seasonality. Variations in salinity and temperature are much higher<br />
than on the open coast (Parks Victoria 2003). The embayments have a variety of forms from<br />
drowned river valleys to impounded drainage behind dune barrier systems, their maximum<br />
depth is generally less than 20 m, but reaches depths of approximately 50 m in Port Phillip<br />
Heads. They have low energy coastlines with large tides, influencing the extensive areas of<br />
subtidal and intertidal sediments. Rock outcrops are limited mainly to the margins (IMCRA<br />
2006). Some shallow reef areas are present in Port Phillip and Western Port (Parks Victoria<br />
2003). The biota of the Victorian embayments include a diverse range of biotic assemblages<br />
found in estuarine and open coast environments depending on their morphological and<br />
hydrological characteristics (Parks Victoria 2003; IMCRA 2006). Port Phillip Bay is a <strong>marine</strong><br />
embayment fringed by seagrass beds, rocky reefs and sandy beaches. The benthic<br />
assemblages in the muddy central region are distinct from those in the sand to the west and<br />
east. Western Port Bay and Corner Inlet are large muddy estuaries with extensive mudflats,<br />
mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrass beds (IMCRA 2006).<br />
Figure 4. A common species in the park: butterfly perch Caesioperca lepidoptera at Wilsons<br />
Promontory Marine National Park.<br />
7