Predator populations and food web dynamics are influenced by the nutritional quality of prey, not just prey availability. Temperate estuaries and lagoons are productive, dynamic environments, and evaluating prey nutritional quality is vital to understanding food webs in these ecosystems. This study tested whether the nutritional quality of macroinvertebrates and fishes in the Coorong—a large temperate estuary and lagoon system...

Extensive bivalve aggregations, including shellfish reefs and beds, influence the structure and functions of coastal environments. In soft-bottom habitats, bivalves contribute consolidated structures which can influence species distributions, often long after bivalve death. Understanding this process is essential to inform habitat management and conservation efforts. Here, we describe how intertidal razor clams Pinna bicolor (...

Deep-sea squids are presumably vital components of largely undescribed marine ecosystems, yet limited access to specimens has hampered efforts to detail their ecological roles as predators and preys. Biochemical techniques such as stable isotope analyses, fatty acid analyses, and bomb calorimetry are increasingly recognized for their ability to infer trophic ecology and dietary information from small quantities of tissue. This...

Marine ecosystem restoration is fast becoming the primary tool for repairing the socio-ecological functions and economic benefits of coastal ecosystems. Healthy seascapes are characterized by many interacting species and intermingled habitats (e.g., seagrass, kelp, shellfish, sedimentary) that co-create ecological functions of substantial socio-economic value. These co-created functions not only build stability and resilience...

Coastal ecosystems are vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances which can cause loss of benthic macrofauna and their ecosystem functioning. Despite the importance of functional assessments for conservation and management, knowledge gaps persist on the generality of how the diversity and functional traits of benthic communities influence ecosystem functioning. We investigated eight sites in three different habitats across ~1,26...

Assessments of species distributions are crucial for informing conservation and management action. In this study, we used ensemble modelling to explain the distribution of Near Threatened Indo-Pacific (IP) bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops aduncus ) in coastal waters at the North West Cape (NWC), Western Australia (WA), an area encompassing a marine protected area (MPA) and adjacent unprotected coastal waters. Analyses used dolph...