The BRUVs workshop - an Australia-wide synthesis of baited remote underwater video data to answer broad-scale ecological questions about fish, sharks and rays

• Published in: Marine Policy
• Main Authors: Harvey, ES, McLean, DL, Goetze, JS, Saunders, BJ, Langlois, TJ, Monk, J, Barrett, N, Wilson, SK, Holmes, TH, Ierodiaconou, D, Jordan, AR, Meekan, MG, Malcolm, HA, Heupel, MR, Harasti, D, Huveneers, C, Knott, NA, Fairclough, DV, Currey-Randall, LM, Travers, MJ, Radford, BT, Rees, MJ, Speed, CW, Wakefield, CB, Cappo, M, Newman, SJ
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Sci Ltd 2021
• Subjects: Agricultural; Veterinary and Food Sciences; Fisheries sciences; Fisheries management; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104430; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/142914

Many marine fish populations have declined due to the individual or cumulative impacts of increasing watertemperatures, ocean acidification, overfishing and other human-induced impacts such as land run-off, dredgingand habitat alteration. Some solutions may be offered by ecosystem-based fisheries and conservation management.However, understanding their effectiveness relies on the availability of good quality data on the sizedistributions and abundance of fish populations and assemblages, collected at appropriate temporal and spatialscales. Since the early 2000s, baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVs) have become a popular tool forcollecting data on fish assemblages across a range of depths and habitats. In Australia, this technique has beenadopted by many different agencies and institutions, creating a unique opportunity to compile a continental-scalesynthesis of fish data using a standardised sampling technique. Key Australian researchers and managers wereinvited to contribute to a synthesis workshop on baited underwater video in Albany, Western Australia betweenthe 4th and 8th of February 2018. Data from 19,939 BRUVs deployments, collected between 2000 and 2017around Australia, were compiled using GlobalArchive (globalarchive.org). The workshop identified and prioritisedseveral key research themes that would contribute to the conservation and sustainable management of focalspecies and broad assemblages. Our goal is to describe where and when the data were collected, the type ofequipment used and how the imagery was analysed. We also discuss the types of questions that can be addressedby analysing these standardised datasets and the potential benefits to conservation and fisheries management.