CSIRO - Great Barrier Reef seabed biodiversity study 2003-2006

The benthic invertebrate, plant, mobile invertebrate and fish biodiversity of the 200,000 km2 area of the Great Barrier Reef shelf seabed was sampled by a 200 m tow of a 1.5 m epibenthic sled at 1191 sites, and a 1 km tow of a 8 fthm otter trawl (single high-flying Florida Flyer) at 458 sites, representing a full range of known physical environments, during six 1-month-long voyages on the AIMS vessel Lady Basten and four 1-month-long voyages on the QDPIF vessel Gwendoline May, over the period September 2003-March 2006. More than 7,000 species/species-equivalent OTUs (operational taxonomic units) were identified. The dataset comprises 121,986 site-by-species records, of which approximately 38,000 are identified at least to species level and this subset is supplied to OBIS, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System. The full dataset is maintained at CSIRO National Collections and Marine Infrastructure Data Centre in Australia. The full report document is available here: http://www.frdc.com.au/Archived-Reports/FRDC%20Projects/2003-021-DLD.pdf
For additional information refer to the following CSIRO Marlin metadata records (https://marlin.csiro.au).

Seabed Biodiversity on the Continental Shelf of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (Prawn Trawl) https://marlin.csiro.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/577b2025-cf45-4574-bf5c-a11d1fd5964c

Seabed Biodiversity on the Continental Shelf of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (Epibenthic Sled) https://marlin.csiro.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/8453621c-c978-4d19-a5a8-1beee037dbe5

Seabed Biodiversity on the Continental Shelf of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (Towed Video) https://marlin.csiro.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/fb9e778d-fb5f-4d88-b4b4-a4826c49fa93