Group items tagged

Stable isotope analysis of dermis was used to examine foraging behavior of whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. Values of δ13C and δ15N in dermis were compared to those obtained from likely species of local prey. The δ13C values of zooplankton and nektonic taxa at Ningaloo ranged from −18.9‰ to −16.5‰ reflecting the different carbon sources (from pelagic to more inshore and benthic) entering the food web. Isotopic values also varied depending on the diet-to-tissue discrimination factor applied in the analysis. When data was corrected using factors derived from slow turnover, structural cartilage in fins, whale sharks showed a greater reliance on pelagic food webs, whereas analyses using raw data suggested a greater dietary component from benthic and inshore habitats. Variability in δ15N values (6.9‰ to 10.8‰) implied different patterns of foraging among whale sharks, likely indicating movement among foraging localities that occur at Ningaloo Reef and along the Western Australian coast. There was evidence of enrichment in 15N occurring with increasing size in males and females, a pattern that could have been due to changes in growth rate and trophic level with age and/or an ontogenetic shift in feeding grounds. Given the variability potentially induced in stable isotope values by differences in rates of turnover of tissues and the use of diet-to-tissue discrimination factors, future studies would benefit from a multi-technique approach using different tissues to identify the diet of whale sharks.

The relatively pristine coral populations of WA's inshore Kimberley region are better equipped to survive ocean warming than the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park, according to a new CURTIN University study.

At 300 kilometres long, Ningaloo Reef is Australia's largest fringing coral reef. It's home to some amazing marine life like frisky whale sharks, nesting turtles and deep-sea fish.

A new study of the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park has found that further protection may be needed to shield the reef against the impacts of climate change.

A new study of the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park has found that further protection may be needed to shield the reef against the impacts of climate change.

Researchers are planning to tag two of Ningaloo Reef's most famous whale sharks - Stumpy and Zorro - in a bid to discover where the ocean giants go to mate.

In a world first, researchers at The University of Western Australia have quantified the number of shark bite-offs of recreationally caught fish in the Ningaloo region.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea but much of their behaviour is still unknown. In a world-first, we'll be attempting to hit the marine jackpot and determine how old whale sharks are using DNA samples. We're also placing trackers on them to discover where in the ocean they travel and how deep below the surface they go from one of their favourite hangouts - Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.

Exmouth split over pipeline factory proposed for gulf that supports Ningaloo Reef.

Sharp increase in Ningaloo whale shark injuries might be due to boat encounters.

Baitfishes may aggregate around megafauna such as whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) to gain protection from larger predatory fishes. Here, we used videos from deployments of animal-borne cameras on whale sharks and provided by tourism operators at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia to document large schools of trevally (Carangidae spp.) consuming entire schools of baitfishes (Carangidae spp.) swimming with whale sharks within 2-45 s. These videos showed that small baitfishes are still very vulnerable to predatory fishes when accompanying whale sharks, refuting the hypothesis that whale sharks provide baitfishes shelter from predators. It thus seems more likely that the association between whale sharks and baitfishes may confer other advantages such as reduced costs of locomotion and/or enhanced feeding opportunities for baitfishes rather than protection from predation.

Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine systems. They are however, threatened by global change and we can only predict how it will impact these reef systems if we first understand how they work.

Coral reefs are the most diverse of all marine systems. They are however, threatened by global change and we can only predict how it will impact these reef systems if we first understand how they work.

Refreshed and salty from its travels along the Ningaloo Reef, our favourite underwater robot Starbug X has been shining a light on some of the secrets beneath the world-heritage waters.

What do turtle nail clippings, diving whale sharks, and 12 million mushroom corals have in common?

Coral reefs are biodiversity hotspots, places of high endemicity and provide essential services to billions of people globally. With increasing threats to these reefs worldwide, there is a need to implement faster, more efficient ways to monitor spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding offers a promising tool to address this issue, as it has revolutionized our ability to monitor biodiversity from complex environmental samples such as seawater. However, the capacity for eDNA to resolve fine scale shifts in community composition across habitats in seascapes is yet to be fully explored. Here, we applied eDNA metabarcoding using the rRNA 18S Universal eukaryote assay to explore differences in community profiles between samples collected from the lagoon and reef slope habitats across more than 170 km of the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area in Western Australia. We recovered 2061 amplicon sequence variants that comprised of 401 taxa spanning 14 different metazoan phyla such as cnidarians, poriferans, molluscs, algae, worms, and echinoderms. Our results revealed strong clustering of samples by habitat type across the length of the reef. Community dissimilarity (beta diversity) between samples collected from the reef slope and lagoon habitats was high and was driven largely by a strong rate of spatial turnover, indicating a distinct set of taxa representing each reef zone community. We also detected a strong pattern of isolation by distance within our slope samples, suggesting that communities are spatially stratified across the length of the reef. Despite high connectivity due to regular flushing of the lagoon environment, our results demonstrate that metabarcoding of seawater eDNA from different habitats can resolve fine scale community structure. By generating multi-trophic biodiversity data, our study also provided baseline data for Ningaloo from which future changes can be assessed.

The third global bleaching event took its toll on Western Australia's super-corals.

Flinders researchers have confirmed the importance of the remote Ningaloo Reef as a conservation site of significance for the rare and secretive Australian humpback dolphin.

Giant manta ray 'begs snorkeler to help save her life in incredible encounter'.

Un requin s'approche d'une "boule" de poissons.

Sea sponge study sheds light on coral reefs.