ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5336-4612
Current Organisations
CSIRO
,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
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Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 11-11-2020
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0241066
Abstract: One of the most remarkable groups of deep-sea squids is the Magnapinnidae, known for their large fins and strikingly long arm and tentacle filaments. Little is known of their biology and ecology as most specimens are damaged and juvenile, and in-situ sightings are sparse, numbering around a dozen globally. As part of a recent large-scale research programme in the Great Australian Bight, Remotely Operated Vehicles and a towed camera system were deployed in depths of 946–3258 m resulting in five Magnapinna sp. sightings. These represent the first records of Bigfin Squid in Australian waters, and more than double the known records from the southern hemisphere, bolstering a hypothesis of cosmopolitan distribution. As most previous observations have been of single Magnapinna squid these multiple sightings have been quite revealing, being found in close spatial and temporal proximity of each other. Morphological differences indicate each sighting is of an in idual rather than multiple sightings of the same squid. In terms of morphology, previous in-situ measurements have been roughly based on nearby objects of known size, but this study used paired lasers visible on the body of a Magnapinna squid, providing a more accurate scaling of size. Squid of a juvenile size were also recorded and are confirmed to possess the long distal filaments which have thus far been mostly missing from specimens due to damage. We have described fine-scale habitat, in-situ colouration, and behavioural components including a horizontal ex le of the ‘elbow’ pose, and coiling of distal filaments: a behaviour not previously seen in squid. These sightings add to our knowledge of this elusive and intriguing genus, and reinforce the value of imagery as a tool in deep-sea squid research.
Publisher: CSIRO
Date: 2017
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 08-10-2018
Abstract: We conducted a systematic, high-resolution analysis of bottom trawl fishing footprints for 24 regions on continental shelves and slopes of five continents and New Zealand. The proportion of seabed trawled varied -fold among regions (from 0.4 to 80.7% of area to a depth of 1,000 m). Within 18 regions, more than two-thirds of seabed area remained untrawled during study periods of 2–6 years. Relationships between metrics of total trawling activity and footprint were strong and positive, providing a method to estimate trawling footprints for regions where high-resolution data are not available. Trawling footprints were generally smaller in regions where fisheries met targets for exploitation rates, implying collateral environmental benefits of effective fisheries management.
Publisher: CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Date: 2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-09-2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-03-2013
DOI: 10.1111/MAEC.12016
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-10-2015
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 25-09-2020
Publisher: PeerJ
Date: 12-10-2023
DOI: 10.7717/PEERJ.16024
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Australian Ocean Data Network
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.26198/Q0XT-VQ70
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 22-01-2014
Publisher: CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere
Date: 2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-04-2023
Abstract: Protecting deep‐sea coral‐based vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) from human impacts, particularly bottom trawling, is a major conservation challenge in world oceans. Management processes for these ecosystems are weakened by key uncertainties that could be substantially addressed by having much greater volumes of quantitative image‐derived data that detail the distribution and abundance of coral reefs and the nature of impacts upon them. Considerably greater volumes of data could be available if the resource costs of image annotation are reduced. In this paper we propose a solution: a deep learning system capable of automatically identifying reef‐building stony corals amongst other seabed substrata in much larger volumes of seabed imagery than was previously possible. Using a previously annotated dataset, we trained a convolutional neural network on approximately 70,000 classified images (‘snips’) comprising six benthic substrate classes, including reef‐building stony coral—‘coral matrix’. Model performance improvements, chiefly by dataset cleaning, transfer learning and hyperparameter optimisation, resulted in the final trained model achieving validation accuracy of 98.19%. The classification was robust: benthic substrate types were accurately differentiated, and in some cases more consistently than was achieved by human annotators. Synthesis and applications . The availability of much larger volumes of automatically annotated image‐derived data will improve spatial management of impacts on coral‐based VMEs in the deep sea by (1) improved cross‐validation and performance of spatial models required to predict coral distribution and abundance over the large scales of managed areas, and (2) establishing empirical relationships between coral abundance on the seabed and coral bycatch landed during fishing operations.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2018
Publisher: Magnolia Press
Date: 20-05-2014
DOI: 10.11646/ZOOTAXA.3796.3.2
Abstract: The number of deep-water ( m) octocoral species recorded from Australian waters has more than tripled from 135 to 457 following six surveys undertaken between 1997 and 2008 on the deep continental margin of south-eastern, western and north-western Australia and the Tasman Sea. This rapid increase in knowledge follows a slow accumulation of records since the earliest collections were made by vessels such as the Géographe and the Naturaliste in the early years of the 19 century. Consistent identification and alpha-labelling of the octocoral fauna between surveys has permitted a multi-region description and comparison. We detail the identities, distributions and regional affinities of 457 octocoral species in 131 genera and 28 families from the orders Alcyonacea and Pennatulacea, including 69 new species, 17 new genera and 43 first records for Australia. Five of the more common genera were widely distributed (present at 35 and 66 s ling stations spanning all of the 4 survey regions), but two were restricted to south-eastern Australia-Pleurogorgia Versluys, 1902 and Tokoprymno Bayer, 1996-and were only s led from depths below 700 m. The great majority of species (81%) and nearly half of all genera (47%) were only s led once or twice. The highest average number of species per s ling station (3.2) was reported from the outer shelf. The proportion of new species was highest (22%) on the upper and lower slope bathomes, intermediate (13-15%) on the mid-slope bathome and lowest (8%) on the outer shelf bathome. Species overlap between bathomes was low, but all families were shared across bathomes. Most described species (55 of 69) have an Indo-West Pacific affinity, 20 have an Indian Ocean affinity, while three were previously recorded from the Atlantic Ocean only 20 appear to be Australian endemics. Octocorals can now be added to an emerging set of taxon-specific data sets-including fishes, ophiuroids and galatheids-that permit regional-scale analysis of bio ersity distributions to support Australia's efforts in marine conservation management. However, because so much of the world octocoral literature is inadequate for accurate identifications to species level, there is a pressing need for taxonomic revisions using modern morphological and molecular techniques to fine-tune the current use of octocorals as indicators of vulnerable marine ecosystems in many national and high seas conservation initiatives.
Publisher: CRC Press
Date: 06-12-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2018
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-07-2010
Publisher: CSIRO
Date: 2011
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 11-05-2012
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-11-2018
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 28-10-2015
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 03-04-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2009
DOI: 10.1002/ENV.952
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-08-2011
Publisher: CSIRO
Date: 2013
Publisher: CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Date: 2013
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 13-07-2011
Abstract: Przeslawski, R., Currie, D. R., Sorokin, S. J., Ward. T. M., Althaus, F., and Williams, A. 2011. Utility of a spatial habitat classification system as a surrogate of marine benthic community structure for the Australian margin. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1954–1962. This study tests whether a continental-scale classification of Australian benthic habitats (termed “seascapes”) and the interpolated environmental data from which they are derived are useful as abiotic surrogates of bio ersity at a local [tens of kilometres, Great Australian Bight (GAB)] and regional scale [hundreds of kilometres, Western Australian (WA) margin]. Benthic invertebrate community structure is moderately associated with specific seascapes in both the GAB (R = 0.418) and WA margin (excluding hard substrata, R = 0.375 all substrata, R = 0.313). Mud content, seafloor slope, and seafloor temperature are significantly correlated with invertebrate communities at both scales, with disturbance and primary production correlated with GAB communities. Seascapes are not consistently useful surrogates because the strength and significance of relationships between seascapes and community structure differs among seascapes, regions, and spatial scales. Nevertheless, a national system of seascapes is an appropriate surrogate for broad-scale benthic invertebrate community patterns when biological data are limited, provided the uncertainty is acknowledged and, where possible, an assessment made of each seascape's ability to differentiate biological communities. Further refinement of seascape derivations may include updated and additional environmental data (particularly for hard vs. soft substrata) and validation among biological datasets from a range of habitats and scales.
Publisher: Australian Ocean Data Network
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.26198/3JKY-J341
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2018
Publisher: CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Date: 2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2018
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-11-2018
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.4565
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 30-06-2021
DOI: 10.3390/JMSE9070723
Abstract: Multiple lines of evidence substantiate the existence of a very large aggregation of the basketwork eel, Diastobranchus capensis, on the small (3 km2) Patience Seamount off southeast Australia. The aggregation appears to be present year-round, but largest in the austral autumn when composed of spawning eels. Twenty eels caught in April 2015 (14 female, 6 male) were all in advanced stages of spawning condition. The eel’s abundance in the aggregation was very high as measured at seamount, local and regional scales. Hydroacoustic measurement of the spawning aggregation’s dimensions (~100 × 1000 m) and conservative counts of 100 s of eels along camera transects of ~1000–2000 m length indicate 10,000 s in idual eels may have been present. The absence of other known spawning locations indicates the Patience Seamount is a regional-scale spatial anchor for spawning. The aggregation was protected in a marine park in 2007 following a decades-long impact from bottom trawling, indicating that the population can be expected to stabilise and recover. Monitoring the aggregation’s status, and validating seasonal spawning, provide important opportunities to examine conservation-led recovery in the deep sea as part of Australia’s new national strategy of Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement (MERI) for conservation values within marine parks.
Publisher: Australian Ocean Data Network
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.26198/9JCD-KJ81
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-10-2011
DOI: 10.1038/SREP00119
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 22-02-2010
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2018
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 16-11-2021
DOI: 10.3389/FMARS.2021.722839
Abstract: An increased reliance on imagery as the source of bio ersity data from the deep sea has stimulated many recent advances in image annotation and data management. The form of image-derived data is determined by the way faunal units are classified and should align with the needs of the ecological study to which it is applied. Some applications may require only low-resolution bio ersity data, which is easier and cheaper to generate, whereas others will require well-resolved bio ersity measures, which require a larger investment in annotation methods. We assessed these trade-offs using a dataset of 5 939 images and physical collections of black and octocorals taken during surveys from a seamount area in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Coral ersity was greatly underestimated in images: only 55 black and octocoral ‘phototaxa’ (best-possible identifications) were consistently distinguishable out of a known 210 species in the region (26%). Patterns of assemblage composition were compared between the phototaxa and a standardized Australian classification scheme (“CATAMI”) that uses morphotypes to classify taxa. Results were similar in many respects, but the identities of dominant, and detection of rare but locally abundant, coral entities were achieved only when annotation was at phototaxon resolution, and when faunal densities were recorded. A case study of data from 4 seamounts compared three additional classification schemes. Only the two with highest resolution – phototaxon and a combined phototaxon-morphological scheme – were able to distinguish black and octocoral communities on unimpacted vs. impacted seamounts. We conclude that image annotation schemes need to be fit-for-purpose. Morphological schemes such as CATAMI may perform well and are most easily standardized for cross-study data sharing, but high resolution (and more costly) annotation schemes are likely necessary for some ecological and management-based applications including bio ersity inventory, change detection (monitoring) – and to develop automated annotation using machine learning.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-01-2020
DOI: 10.1111/DDI.13034
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-2015
DOI: 10.1002/LOM3.10007
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-10-2016
DOI: 10.1111/DDI.12501
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-04-2023
DOI: 10.1111/JFB.15376
Abstract: Egg case nurseries of the boreal skate ( Amblyraja hyperborea ) and Richardson's skate ( Bathyraja richardsoni ) were defined and mapped on a bathyal seascape ( c. 500–1900 m depths) south of Tasmania, Australia, using 99 towed‐camera transects (157 linear km N = 50,858 images). In total, 738 skate egg cases were observed (present in 240 images, absent in 50,618) among 113 egg cases examined to identify parent species, 70% were A. hyperborea , 10% B. richardsoni and 20% unidentified Bathyraja species. “Recently laid” egg cases were differentiated from “aged” ones by classifying their colour and condition. The great majority (98%) of egg cases were observed in c. 1100–1400 m depths on seamounts (15 of 36 surveyed), not seamount bases or adjacent continental slope. Egg cases were associated with reefs formed by accumulated skeletal matrix of the stony coral Solenosmilia variabilis, with % egg cases (including most of those recently laid) observed on living S. variabilis that characterises a “coral zone” in c. 950–1350 m depths. Water in the coral zone is warmer (+0.66 to 2.37°C) than at the deep distributional limits of adult A. hyperborea and B. richardsoni (2000 and 3000 m, respectively), potentially providing for accelerated embryonic development. Co‐occurrence with living coral infers an energetically favourable local‐scale hydrodynamic environment for egg cases, particularly on seamount peaks, where increased water flow over egg cases would avert smothering by suspended sediment, and compensate for lower oxygen concentration compared to deeper depths occupied by adult skates. Criteria identifying egg case nurseries are strongly met for A. hyperborea at Seamount Z110 (468 egg cases of varied ages, maximum density of 5.47 m −2 ) and to a lesser extent on five others (Seamounts K1, Z16, Hill U, Z5 and Hill V). An abundance (density) criterion for defining nurseries needs to be flexible because it is a spatially scale‐dependent measure that differs between surveys according to the tools and design employed. Off Australia, coral reef egg case nursery habitat is restricted to a narrow depth range in temperate latitudes where it is scarce and impacted by historical bottom trawl fishing in many locations. There has been effective conservation of nursery habitat, however, because four of the six nursery sites identified here and extensive coral reef areas are protected within marine parks.
Publisher: Australian Ocean Data Network
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.26198/BDBP-J470
Location: Australia
No related grants have been discovered for Franziska Althaus.