In three-year joint project fisheries researchers and CSIRO scientists will study climate change effects on Western Australia’s marine environment. The project costs $450,000 and it is funded by the Australian Government’s Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), the Department of Fisheries WA and CSIRO. The project is said to utilise oceanographic modelling and an understanding of environmental effects on fisheries using some case studies.
Supervising Scientist Dr Nick Caputi, who is the department’s principal investigator on the project, said this was one of a number of FRDC-funded projects across Australia on ‘Climate Change Adaption – Marine Biodiversity and Fisheries’. According to Dr Caputi in WA the project will study to assess the vulnerability to climate change of fish stocks; such as western rock lobster, blue swimmer crabs, tailor and dhufish.
Dr Caputi said the new work continued the research already undertaken on climate change through Western Australian Marine Science Institution projects. Some key environmental trends affecting WA include:
the increasing frequency and magnitude of ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) events;
increasing variability of the Leeuwin Current superimposed on its weakening trend;
an increase in water temperature and salinity;
change in the frequency of storms affecting the lower west coast; and
a change in the frequency of cyclones affecting the north-west.
Dr Caputi said that climate change affects life cycles of fish stocks by altering seasonal cycles and long term trends of the physical environment. He added that this trend can have a significant effect on biological parameters that are used in population dynamic models.
