Status and recovery of deep-sea coral communities on seamounts in iconic Australian marine reserves - Image Data

Australia has gazetted an ambitious national network of Commonwealth Marine Reserves that includes the iconic Huon and Tasman Fracture reserves off Tasmania where seamounts (‘undersea mountains’) support unique deep-water coral reefs. These reefs rank among the most bio-diverse globally.
Protection of deep-water coral reefs is a high-priority conservation concern nationally and internationally because deep-water corals are very fragile, easily impacted by human activities including bottom trawling, and are believed to recover very slowly. These corals may also be highly vulnerable to climate change because projected changes in water chemistry could limit the ability of corals to build calcareous skeletons.
Despite these concerns, and Australia’s significant investment in marine conservation, several fundamental ecological issues remain to be evaluated. These include defining the spatial extent of deep-sea coral communities inside and outside the Tasmanian reserves, and evaluating the resilience of the communities to bottom trawling. This information is important to understanding the dynamics of deep-sea communities globally, and for developing and implementing conservation management plans.
The survey aboard RV Investigator set out to determine the spatial extents of deep-sea coral communities in and adjacent to the Huon and Tasman Fracture reserves, and quantify changes in the communities by comparing samples taken in 2018 to samples taken, using similar methods, in 2007 and 1997. There was supplementary sampling on the heavily trawled St. Helens Seamount which was surveyed in 2008.

This metadata record refers to the image data collected during the survey.
The imagery collected for this project have been registered to the 2018 incidence of the CSIRO VARS database, where annotations have been added.
The annotations collected for this project have also been linked to the Oracle data base BHIMAGE and the associated videos and still images have been archived as described in MarLIN record 14436 'Benthic Habitats Video Image Archive'.

澳大利亚已正式公布一项雄心勃勃的国家联邦海洋保护区（Commonwealth Marine Reserves）网络，其中涵盖塔斯马尼亚州沿岸极具标志性的霍顿（Huon）与塔斯曼断裂带（Tasman Fracture）保护区。该区域的海山（undersea mountains）孕育着独特的深水珊瑚礁，这些珊瑚礁跻身全球生物多样性最为丰富的生态系统之列。

保护深水珊瑚礁是国内外高度优先的保育议题，原因在于深水珊瑚极为脆弱，极易受到底拖网捕捞（bottom trawling）等人类活动的影响，且据信恢复速度极慢。此外，由于预计的海水化学变化可能会限制珊瑚形成钙质骨骼的能力，这类珊瑚可能还极易受到气候变化的影响。

尽管存在上述担忧，且澳大利亚已在海洋保育领域投入大量资源，但仍有若干核心生态问题有待评估，包括明确塔斯马尼亚保护区内外深海珊瑚群落的空间分布范围，以及评估这些群落对底拖网捕捞的恢复力。此类信息对于理解全球深海群落的动态变化，以及制定和实施保育管理计划均具有重要意义。

“探索者”号（RV Investigator）科考船开展的本次调查，旨在明确霍顿与塔斯曼断裂带保护区及其邻近海域的深海珊瑚群落空间分布范围，并通过对比2018年采集的样本与采用相似方法于2007年、1997年采集的样本，量化群落的变化情况。此外，本次调查还对2008年曾开展过勘测、遭受高强度拖网捕捞的圣海伦斯海山（St. Helens Seamount）进行了补充采样。

本元数据记录对应本次调查期间采集的图像数据。

本项目采集的影像已完成配准，归入澳大利亚联邦科学与工业研究组织（Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO）VARS数据库2018年条目，并已添加注释信息。

本项目采集的注释信息还已关联至Oracle数据库BHIMAGE，相关视频与静态图像已按照MarLIN记录14436《底栖生境视频图像档案》（Benthic Habitats Video Image Archive）的要求完成归档。