Effective management and conservation strategies for our oceans require a massive increase in the amount of information on marine wildlife. Minderoo Foundation’s OceanOmics program aims to support and scale ocean conservation efforts by generating high-quality reference genomic information and developing and applying comprehensive genomic tools that together allow for rapid and accurate characterisation of marine biodiversity.
An initial focus of the program was the transformation of the research vessel, Pangaea Ocean Explorer, into an end-to-end platform for marine genomics research. Over the last 2 years this vessel was deployed in different locations across Australia, including remote sites such as the north and southwest coast. The northwest coast was of particular interest because this region has been exposed to several marine heatwave events due to La Niña weather patterns, which cause devastating impacts on marine wildlife.
In anticipation of the 2021 La Niña event, we surveyed the coral reef systems of the Rowley Shoals and Montebello Islands to investigate how coral reef fish assemblages change with fluctuations in seawater temperature. Using a multi-gene eDNA metabarcoding approach, we characterised the fish community composition when the seawater temperature was at its highest and lowest annual points. Access to historical samples from the Rowley Shoals and continued sampling in the upcoming years will allow a temporal eDNA-based biomonitoring assessment for these highly diverse, threatened environments.
Our marine genomics platform represents a powerful asset for the establishment of biodiversity baselines and long-term biomonitoring programs to protect marine wildlife and ecosystem health in the face of increasing human pressure and environmental changes.