The population of southern right whales in the Southern Hemisphere has been recovering slowly from near extinction due to its decimation from whaling before its ban in 1935 and cessation in the mid-1970’s. As the species recovers, there is increasing evidence of expansion of aggregation areas, including breeding grounds off the coast of Australia. Consequently, there is a need to update known southern right whale established aggregation areas recognised nationally as Biologically Important Areas (BIAs), as well as the national Southern Right Whale Conservation Management and Recovery Plan, which are both used in decision-making using new evidence. This project collated over 2,000 images collected entirely opportunistically by researchers, volunteer citizen scientists, and whale watch operators, and completed matching of individually identifiable whales in photos (i.e., Photo-ID) between 1991 to 2021 in the southwest corner of Australia to evaluate abundance, residency, site fidelity and connectivity in this historically data limited region. The results are reported in the NESP report for Project 1.22 ("A photo-identification study of southern right whales to update aggregation area classification in the southwest of Australia"). A goal of this project was also to upload unique individual southern right whale Photo-IDs into the Australasian Right Whale Photo-Identification Catalogue (ARWPIC; AMMC 2021). The process for these Photo-IDs are briefly described here.

This data is a national compilation of video clips predominantly derived from underwater video sampling techniques (e.g. BRUV, Stereo-BOSS) for quantitative sampling of abundance, body size, and diversity of demersal fishes. The curated collection also includes regional 'compilation' videos highlighting a particular marine protected area or region of interest. Current contributors to this data compilation are IMAS, UWA, Geoscience Australia and the NESP Marine Biodiversity & Marine and Coastal Hubs, with the intention that this collection will grow to encompass collections from other research organisations around Australia. As of August 2024, this dataset includes video in and around Abrolhos, Arafura, Apollo, Beagle, Bremer, Christmas Island, Cod Grounds, Coral Sea, Dampier, Eastern Recherche, Flinders, Franklin, Freycinet, Gascoyne, Geographe, Huon, Lord Howe, Montebello, Murat, Murray, Ningaloo, Oceanic Shoals, Perth Canyon, South Tasman Rise, South-west Corner, Tasman Fracture, Two Rocks, and Zeehan Australian Marine Parks (AMPs), and of Bathurst Channel in the Port Davey Marine Reserve. The dataset allows examination of changes in fish communities over time as part of ongoing monitoring of these regions. This record represents a 'parent' record of multiple collections. See individual 'child' records for more information on specific regional collections.

In this study, 34 fledgling Fairy Prions (Pachyptila turtur) recovered during a wreck event in south-eastern Tasmania in 2022 were examined for ingested plastics (number, mass, type, colour, and particle size) and body condition (e.g., wing chord length).

The imagery provides representative and highlight clips from the quantitative sampling of the abundance, body size and diversity of demersal fishes baited remote underwater stereo video (stereo BRUV) in and around Tasman Fracture, Beagle, Huon and Freycinet Australian Marine Parks (AMPs). The dataset allows examination of changes in fish communities over time as part of ongoing monitoring of these AMPs. There are plans for ongoing surveys as part of Parks Australia's management of the AMPs. The methods and key findings of the work are described in detail in Monk et al. (2016) and Perkins et al. (2022).

Data collected from Southern Ocean phytoplankton laboratory culture experiments to examine the effect of iron limitation on the Chlorophyll fluorescence (F) to chlorophyll (Chl) ratio. Irradiance levels at which cultures were grown are indicated by the photon flux density (PFD). Growth rates of Fe limited cultures (-Fe) relative to Fe replete cultures (+Fe) are referred to as μ / μmax (unitless).

Collection of processed BGC-Argo float profiles, used to calculate phytoplankton phenology from chlorophyll, phytoplankton carbon and nitrate.

1. Seabird species worldwide are integral to both marine and terrestrial environments, connecting the two systems by transporting vast quantities of marine-derived nutrients and pollutants to terrestrial breeding, roosting, and nesting grounds via the deposition of guano and other allochthonous inputs (e.g., eggs, feathers). 2. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis and provide insight into what types of nutrients and pollutants seabirds are transporting, the influence these subsidies are having on recipient environments, with a particular focus on soil, and what may happen if seabird populations decline. 3. The addition of guano to colony soils substantially increased nutrient levels compared to control soils for all seabirds studied, with cascading positive effects observed across a range of habitats. Deposited guano sometimes led to negative impacts, such a guanotrophication, or guano-induced eutrophication, which was often observed where there was an excess of guano or in areas with high seabird densities. 4. While the literature describing nutrients transported by seabirds is extensive, literature regarding pollutant transfer is comparatively limited, with a focus on toxic and bioaccumulative metals. Research on persistent organic pollutants and plastics transported by seabirds is likely to increase in coming years. 5. Studies were limited geographically, with hotspots of research activity in a few locations, but data were lacking from large regions around the world. Studies were also limited to seabird species generally listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. As seabird populations are impacted by multiple threats and steep declines have been observed for many species worldwide, gaps in the literature are particularly concerning. The loss of seabirds will impact nutrient cycling at localised levels and potentially on a global scale as well, yet it is unknown what may truly happen to areas that rely on seabirds if these populations disappear. The information in this record includes three spreadsheets and R code. Descriptions are included below: - The spreadsheets contain all information extracted from the publications that were critically reviewed (n = 181). The first spreadsheet contains information regarding each publication (1 publication per row), such as study location, sampling methods. The second spreadsheet contains information about the seabird species studied in each publication (1 row per seabird species per publication). The third spreadsheet contains data for the meta-analysis (1 row per publication, except if the publication studied multiple species, then it would be 1 row per species per publication). - The R code is for the meta-analyses that were undertaken. Comments are included within the code plus detailed information can be found in the Methods section of the paper.

Invasive mammal eradications are widely used for managing island ecosystems. However, tracking the outcomes of such large-scale, whole ecosystem projects is challenging and costly, and monitoring all components of an ecosystem is near impossible. Instead, indicators of ecosystem change may provide more practical and integrated measures of ecosystem response to eradications. As high-order marine predators, seabirds subsidise island ecosystems with nutrients isotopically enriched in nitrogen. Invasive mammals have caused a global decline of seabirds on islands, reducing this nutrient subsidisation. Following eradications, nitrogen stable isotope analysis may provide a useful and resource-efficient indicator of ecosystem functional change on eradicated islands. However, isotope ratios are affected by a myriad of factors, with potential sources of variation being introduced by spatial and temporal variation in sampling, and within and between different taxa and ecosystem components. To correctly attribute isotopic change to post-eradication ecosystem function change, these confounding variables need to be understood. To address this need, we analysed stable isotopes of nitrogen in soil, plant, spider, and seabird guano samples collected at different distances from seabird colonies and at different stages of the short-tailed shearwater breeding cycle on six island sites around south-eastern Tasmania, Australia. Across these cool, temperate islands we detected no temporal variability in δ15N throughout the breeding season. However, there was notable spatial variability in δ15N values. The effects of seabird-derived nutrient subsidisation were highly localised with high δ15N values found inside seabird colonies and then rapidly decreasing from the colony boundary. Higher δ15N values also occurred in areas of higher burrow density within a colony. Variability in δ15N values also existed both within and between ecosystem components. Our results highlight the importance of context dependency when using ecological indicators and have important implications for the design, implementation and interpretation of studies employing stable isotopes as indicators for ecosystem change. We provide recommendations for designing future stable isotope studies on seabird islands.