About the Aquarium and Outreach Programs....

The National Marine Science Center is not only home to a research facility but also a small aquarium for community outreach and educational purposes.  The aquarium represents what marine life you would expect to find in the Solitary Islands Marine Park, which is composed of 5 main islands totalling about 71,000 hectares.  The marine park is an especially unique environment due to the East Australian Current (EAC) bringing warm water which mixes with colder local waters and creates complex currents and conditions.  See the Marine Parks Authority publication below for a more in depth overview of the marine park. 

http://www.mpa.nsw.gov.au/review/SIMP-natural-values.pdf

Over the next few months I will be spending some time working with the aquarium and outreach program.  This will include leading some aquarium tours and hands on activities as well as field and lab components for local schools.  The educational programs each have a specific focus and topics include: human impacts on river ecosystems, estuarine studies, sea birds, mangroves, fish morphology, marine taxonomy and much more.  I am also encouraged to develop and implement my own outreach lesson and activity to expand the current program.  I think there is a lot of potential to focus my lesson on the geology and geomorphology of the area and how it contributes to marine life, with a possible lab activity being a rock and mineral identification lab in which they can do some scratch testing of local rocks and learn about Mohs Scale of Hardness and apply it to the local ecosystem.  Any thoughts or suggestions anyone has on the topic would be great! 

Pictures of a few of the aquarium critters...

A Few of the Research Projects...

     With so many research projects going on at the center I will try and post brief descriptions of what they each entail over the next few weeks and further elaborate on them as I begin to get more involved in research.

The ocean acidification lab studies the effects of pH and temperature change on marine organisms over several generations to model the future effects of Global Warming. 

The Barcode of Life is an international initiative to create a database of DNA sequences of all living organisms.  Their primary goal is to extend the geographic and taxonomic coverage of the barcode reference library.  This will make the information easily accessible and could be beneficial in biodiversity conservation and identification.  The National Marine Science Center intends to take part in the initiative for the marine creatures of the area. 

For more information on this project see the website below

http://ibol.org/

Mullet Aquaculture:  Mullet fish are native to Australia’s river and ocean ecosystems and beneficial to river health.  They are detritus feeders so they remove waste from riverbeds.  Unfortunately, dams along many of Australia’s rivers do not allow for fish passage so the Mullet cannot access the ocean to spawn therefore they have rapidly declined in most rivers and are nonexistent in others.  Captive breeding of Mullet has no successful instances in New South Wales and few elsewhere.   Success in captive breeding and aquaculture programs would allow for reintroduction into river systems to improve water quality and also has great potential to be farmed as a food source.  Because mullet are detritus feeders they can not only sustain but healthily grow and reach full maturity on just about any organic matter such as yard clippings.  In terms of food security, this has potential to be a widely produced low cost protein source.  

The Seawater Pump

The first week of work has been amazing thus far; I can’t imagine a more beautiful place or inspiring research facility to spend the next 6 months at.  The center is located on Charlesworth Bay, with a secluded beach directly out the back door. Being so close to the beach allows for a unique system in which the building has fresh, local and sterilized sea water on tap in all the labs, aquaculture areas and the aquarium, opposed to trucking it in or creating it like other facilities.  The system has a main pipe running several meters into the ocean where the initial filtering take places as the water flows through gravel and fine sediment before entering the pipe, the force of the changing tides channels the water through the pipe into an underground well where the level is determined by the tide.  The water is then additionally filtered and pumped to storage tanks at a higher elevation than the center, so gravity can be utilized to channel it into the building where it runs through a UV light for sterilization before coming out of taps in the building.  The local sterilized sea water is the only way to accurately replicate the pH, salinity and natural conditions for the organisms in the labs, aquarium and aquaculture facilities.  Additionally is prevents the spread of disease which can be a result of foreign sea water being trucked in or poor sterilization.  This water is a key aspect in sustaining the health of the aquarium, aquaculture and research tanks.         

A few pictures from the Botanic Garden

Anadromous fish?

To answer the much debated question.... Are there anadromous fish in Australia?

      Australia does not natively have any truly anadromous fish.  Although some species such as mullet, particular bass species and eels will travel between the ocean, estuary, and freshwater river systems they spawn in the ocean and do not exhibit the migration patterns of anadromous species.   Such fish can be classified as amphidromous species because there migration to fresh water is not for the purpose of breeding but occurs regularly in specific stages of the life cycle. 

     Note that Australia does have Australian Salmon but they are in no way related to salmon species in the northern hemisphere (salmonidae family) nor are they anadromous.  They are a marine species that belong to the arripidae family and was named the Australian Salmon by European settlers due to their superficial resemblance to the salmonidae family.  

The Australian Salmon... Bag limit of 5 

Coff's Harbour

     Welcome to (Fish) Tails from Down Under....  I am just getting settled in Coff's Harbour and wanted to start with a few pictures.  I will begin work at the National Marine Science Center on Monday January 16th, so more to come after that!

 Coff's Creek before it flows into the harbour.

Walking on the jetty...  Lots of fishermen fishing directly off of this jetty.  Looking into the water you could see schools of little fish just off the rocks and watch them take the fishermen's bait.  I talked to a few of the fishermen and they said they were fishing for mullet fish and were using some type of white fish for bait.  Most of the mullet fish they caught were about 6 to 8 inches in length and they were catching a lot of them!  Before I left they threw a few pieces of white bread in the water so I could watch the schools of fish go crazy for the bread!

Gummy rattle snakes instead of gummy worms!

Bird hanging out at the Solitary Islands Marine Park.