Citizen science at MOUA, John Brewer Reef's Journal

We are planning for an intensive citizen science field opportunities for the first week of June to link with ReefBlitz 2024 and World Oceans Day. Please see more information on websites and social media of Museum of Underwater Art events and Reef Ecologic events. There will be limited spaces

A new tool for fish enthusiasts is a guide book of over 300 species observed at John Brewer Reef - https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/guides/19333

Please contact us if you are interested in participating in field trips, education or reef conversations or if you wish to support in other ways

362 observations on 30 October 2023 by the staff and guests participating in the Citizen science of the Great Barrier Reef expedition. Is this the biggest day of citizen science observations in the history of the Citizen science at MOUA?

There are now 3,438 observations of 488 species by 36 observers and 147 identifiers. The most observed species is the Sixband Parrotfish (Scarus frenatus) and ray finned fish comprise 61% of observations. A high 72.6% of observations are research grade.

The top observers are Adam Smith, Matthew Wilke and Rachelle Brown (all Reef Ecologic staff) and the top identifiers are @maractwin, @adam_smith3 and @francoislibert. Many of the observers on 30 October are new to iNaturalist and were trained in the methods by guest lecturers Adam, Joseph, Toni, Samantha, Jo and Paul. Several of the participants took their first ever underwater photograph and the Sealife underwater phone housing was a great piece of equipment to make this easy.

We acknowledge support from Coral Expeditions, Australian Geographic and Reef Ecologic for the expedition and acknowledge there are significant opportunities for communication in the future and welcome any support of time or finance to assist with future data entry, analysis, writing and publication

Congratulations to the 68 people who traveled to the Museum of Underwater Art, John Brewer Reef on 9 May to participate in training with MOUA and Reef Ecologic. These included staff from Sealink, Adrenalin Dive, Yongala Dive, Townsville Enterprise and local artists to SCUBA and snorkel. One of the skills discussed was citizen science and there were several new observers to this project including three new MOUA Board members.
A noteworthy observation was an Ornate Wobbegong.

Interestingly the Sealink vessel had starlink wifi and guests were able to upload their observation on the reef. Congratulations to Tobbias who was the first to add a species at the reef. It was also very interesting for other guests to see and learn about the diversity of species in real time.

Congratulations to the observers and identifiers associated with the iNaturalist project at John Brewer Reef. We have reached a milestone of over 1000 observations including 333 species. The three most observed species are Blackaxil puller, Yellow damsel and Headband humbug.

The main group observed and photographed is fish with 68% of observations followed by other animals (60 species). 77% are research grade observations so far. Community favourites are Stars and Stripes puffier and Broadclub cuttlefish.https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/coral-greenhouse-john-brewer-reef?tab=stats

There have been 17 observers and 82 identifiers involving 99 people

If you are interested in a laminated A1 poster to commemorate this milestone please contact @adam_smith3

A new scientific paper about "Engineering, Ecologic and Social Monitoring of the Largest Underwater Sculpture in the World at John Brewer Reef, Australia" was published today in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.

The paper mentions iNaturalist project in the Discussion- thank you for all contributions to knowledge

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/10/11/1617

Abstract: The largest underwater sculpture in the world, the ‘Coral Greenhouse’ by artist Jason deCaires Taylor, was commissioned by the Museum of Underwater Art and installed at John Brewer Reef, Australia, in December 2019. The planning process required certified engineering design drawings associated with design life, durability and suitability of materials, and baseline ecological surveys. Following approval, the operational phase required annual monitoring of substrate, ecology, social values, and marine debris. We geo-referenced three permanent transects and designed a before/after rapid monitoring assessment of substrate, fish, and invertebrates. Substrate surveys indicated 11% concrete and 89% sand. Fish surveys indicated significant increases of diversity and abundance, with 12 species and 65 individuals recorded in 2018 compared to 46 species and 365 individuals recorded in 2022. Macroinvertebrate species maintained no significant trends in abundance, species richness, and diversity with respect to time between 2018 and 2022. We monitored coral restoration and natural recruitment at the site, measuring aesthetics, survivorship of planted corals, and coral recruitment. Of 131 corals transplanted in March 2020, survivorship was 100% at 1 month, 92% at 6 months, and 91.6% at 12 months. Hard and soft corals were recruited to the structure at a density of 8.35 hard corals/m2 and 10.9 soft corals/m2 over 26 months.