Southern Surveyor Voyage SS 05/2007 - Voyage of discovery - benthic biodiversity of the deep continental shelf and slope in Australia's "North West Region"

The overall aims were to provide data on the distribution of deep seabed habitats and fauna that are amenable to scientific hypothesis testing, can be immediately applied to marine resource management processes, and that enable strategic development of tools and techniques for understanding the processes that maintain deep sea biodiversity. This work was to support the process of NWR Estate inventory and management performance assessment by providing interpreted benthic habitat maps, faunal inventories, distribution maps and conservation values. Data will be collected at scientific reference sites from potential MPA areas that can be re-visited for monitoring purposes in the future. Sampling along environmental gradients (geographic range and depth) in this section of Australia's coast will also provide the opportunity to evaluate biogeographic hypotheses. Further refinement of predictive methods for identifying seabed habitat types, initially developed in temperate and cool-temperate environments, will be enabled by data collection from this tropical location in Australia. We intended to highlight the importance of this underlying science as a modern "Voyage of Discovery" given the likely significance of the findings in terms of Australia's biodiversity and its biogeography and evolution. (From Voyage Plan)This record describes the biological samples taken during the survey. Fishes were lodges in the CSIRO Fish collection, invertebrate specimens were photographed and distributed to Australian museums for identification by taxonomists, focusing on sponges, corals, echinoderms, ascidians, molluscs and crustaceans. To date (as per Dec 2016) we are aware of 27 manuscripts of taxonomic revisions and/or descriptions that have used material collected from this survey.

本项目的总体目标为，提供可支撑科学假说验证的深海海底生境与动物群落分布数据；此类数据可直接应用于海洋资源管理流程，同时可为开发解析深海生物多样性维持机制的工具与技术提供战略支撑。本研究将通过提供解译后的底栖生境地图、动物区系名录、分布地图及保护价值数据，支撑西北海域（North West Region, NWR）资产清单编制与管理绩效评估工作。数据将采集自潜在海洋保护区（Marine Protected Area, MPA）内的科学参照站点，此类站点未来可重新用于监测工作。沿澳大利亚该段海岸的环境梯度（涵盖地理范围与水深）开展采样，还可用于验证生物地理学假说。此前在温带与寒温带环境中开发的海底生境类型预测方法，可通过本次澳大利亚热带海域的采样数据得到进一步优化完善。鉴于本项目研究成果对澳大利亚生物多样性、生物地理学及演化研究具有重要意义，我们旨在将此项基础科研工作打造为现代版的“探索之旅”。（节选自《航次计划》）

本记录描述了本次航次采集的生物样本。鱼类样本存放于澳大利亚联邦科学与工业研究组织（Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO）鱼类标本馆；无脊椎动物标本完成拍摄后，将移交至澳大利亚各博物馆，由分类学家开展物种鉴定工作，鉴定类群涵盖海绵、珊瑚、棘皮动物、被囊动物、软体动物及甲壳动物。截至2016年12月，我们已知共有27篇分类学修订或物种描述类学术论文使用了本次航次采集的样本材料。