Spatio-temporal dynamics of coral reef fish assemblages on inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef

This research monitored inshore island fringing reef communities, including fish and benthos, for over 20 years in the Palm, Magnetic, Whitsunday and Keppel Island groups, to better understand the effects of marine park zoning on these reefs. It is the only large-scale, long-term dataset on the inshore Great Barrier Reef that includes fish assemblages as well as benthic communities. The data were initially collected to inform the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority about the effects of no-take (green) zones on fisheries target species, along with other fish species and benthic assemblages. The monitoring began in 1999 in the Whitsundays, subsequent years in other island groups, and ended in 2019. Elements were added as the surveys progressed, and the entire fish assemblage captured in this analysis was surveyed from 2007 onwards. The surveys were conducted by SCUBA divers using underwater visual survey for fish and point intercept transects for benthos, with five 50m transects at each site. We are analysing this dataset using boosted regression tree models that test the influence of different predictor variables on the fish assemblage.