The first Australian workshop addressing climate concerns for fisheries was held in 1991. The nine workshop recommendations are still relevant today, and while monitoring efforts have been significant and knowledge has accumulated rapidly, implementation of management and policy responses have lagged. To successfully respond to the climate change challenges to Australian fisheries over the next decade increased support for climate-ready fishery policies and programs is needed.

Macroinvertebrates are widely used for monitoring freshwater ecosystems. The use of DNA barcodes to identify macroinvertebrates has the potential to change how routine biomonitoring is conducted. Herein we discuss the need for DNA barcodes of freshwater macroinvertebrates and compare barcoding efforts within Australia with those globally. Further, we present an initial effort towards a national DNA barcode library of Australian macroinvertebrates.

The study describes the first reported instance of severe, sudden and widespread dieback of mangrove vegetation associated with an extreme weather event. Although moisture stress is largely considered the cause, the combination of relevant likely stress factors, each linked to the same extreme fluctuation in the Southern Oscillation Index, elude to a plausible connection with global climate change.

In southern New Zealand, in-stream nitrogen (N) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations increased with increasing agricultural development in high-country grassland watersheds. Weather and soil conditions mediated the amount of DOC transferred from soils into streams, but did not influence the relationship between land use and N or phosphorus (P) when stream flow rates were low to moderate.

We sought to determine whether a montane freshwater crayfish limited to a southern Queensland (Australian) catchment experiences thermal stress under natural conditions. Laboratory-conditioned crayfish exhibited evidence of thermal stress at higher temperatures. When applied to field populations, crayfish at the lowest altitude of sampling exhibited evidence of a thermal stressor. It appears those crayfish at the lower altitude experience higher levels of environmental stress than those populating cooler, higher habitat.

Nitrogen and carbon isotope compositions in biological tissues are effective tracers of the source and fate of nutrients in coastal ecosystems. This study traced the time-integrated dispersion and biological uptake of sewage-derived nutrients along a tropical macro-tidal creek by measuring the isotope compositions in mangrove leaves and gastropod snail tissues.

Here, we show the effect of invasive species across whole ecological communities and the important functions they perform. By investigating sites with and without the invasive fish species Gambusia holbrooki, we found significant differences in pelagic and benthic community composition, and size distribution of zooplankton. Reductions in leaf-litter breakdown, an energy source for lake ecosystems, in invaded sites were also found.

We investigated phytoplankton community structure and environmental factors of Lake Nansihu, the largest freshwater lake in north China. Seasonal fluctuations in phytoplankton community composition were recorded and their driving environmental factors were identified based canonical correspondence analysis. The results of this study will be useful in guaranteeing the water quality and ecological security of lakes in temperate regions.

The spatial distribution of phytoplankton was investigated in Pacific western boundary currents. Traditional approaches (size-fractionated chlorophyll-a and microscopic analyses) combined with single-cell analysis (using a flow cytometer) were used to analyse the whole range of phytoplankton community in the Pacific western boundary currents.

The present study evaluated the population genetic structure of sandfish (Holothuria scabra) within Papua New Guinea (PNG) and more broadly northern Australia. Microsatellite-based population genetic analyses were used to determine partitioning of genetic diversity within and among subpopulations. The level of genetic substructuring among all populations sampled was low, although significant. Most of these differences were driven by distinctness of the Australian populations from those in PNG, whereby results indicated that PNG populations exhibited a panmictic stock structure.

Carp is the most common cyprinid species in Turkey and accounts for approximately one-fifth of total inland water aquaculture production. Carp production in Turkey has decreased in recent years. This article identifies population structure, growth and reproduction characteristics of carp in Hirfanli Dam. Changes in the carp population in this area are compared with those reported in previous studies worldwide.

Tropical seagrass meadows are commonly recognised as important habitats for juvenile fish, whereas tropical seaweed beds have rarely been investigated. The present study illustrates that the abundance of juvenile fish in seaweed beds can surpass that in seagrass meadows, also when it comes to coral reef-associated species and species used by fisheries, which underscores the need to widen the view of the tropical seascape.

Analysis of nitrate and ammonium concentrations at different spatiotemporal scales is important because these represent the main nutrient loadings to aquatic ecosystems in agricultural basins. Herein we provide a framework for evaluating the variation in nitrate and ammonium concentrations and their relationships with environmental and anthropogenic variables. At the landscape level, the agricultural area affected nitrate and urban affected area ammonium, whereas at the basin level road density affected both.

A lionfish invasion could be dramatic for the Mediterranean Sea. Investigating sea users’ knowledge showed that the species is widely distributed along Lebanese coasts and allowed evaluating the potential of local communities to respond to this threat. Results stress the importance of civil awareness to face an issue of environmental concern in a complex socio-ecological system, such as the eastern Mediterranean.

We modelled the distribution of a fish assemblage around a large artificial reef, using a rapid drop-camera survey method. We found that the reef greatly influenced fish abundance, but the effect was very localised, such that reef bottom type was a more powerful predictor than distance to reef. The drop-camera method showed promise for quantifying the fine-scale distribution of fish assemblages.

Deep sections of river channels present challenges for surveying riverine fish assemblages based on conventional techniques. Herein we demonstrate an application of underwater video for detecting multiple species of fish in shallow and deep sections of two tropical rivers and conclude that where water clarity is favourable, video provides one means by which assemblages can be investigated across the entire depth profile.