Characterization of Shallow Inshore Coastal Reefs on the Tasman Peninsula, Southeastern Tasmania, Australia

Multibeam data of coastal bedrock reefs and associated sediments on the southeastern coast of Tasmania, Australia, were recently collected as part of the Commonwealth Environmental Research Facilities Marine Biodiversity Hub. The main aim of the surveys was to test a range of physical environmental parameters of nearshore reefs in southeast Tasmania as surrogates to predict patterns of benthic biodiversity. Two data sets were collected: (1) high-resolution bathymetry and seabed acoustic reflectance (backscatter) from a multibeam system and (2) high-resolution spatially rectified stereo still photographs of the seafloor collected by an autonomous underwater vehicle. In this analysis, the degrees of change of the slope of the seabed over a distance of 6 m and the seabed morphology are examined as surrogates for classifying seabed substrate. The distribution of the biological communities over different seabed morphologies is examined as a first step in the process of linking biological data to seabed substrate.