Welcome to Reef Life Survey

Reef Life Survey (RLS) aims to improve biodiversity conservation and the sustainable management of marine resources through the production of high-quality survey information at spatial and temporal scales beyond those possible by scientific dive teams (which have to work with increasingly limited resources). It does this through the skills of experienced and motivated recreational SCUBA divers, as well as through partnerships with management agencies and a steering committee comprising managers, scientists and recreational divers (see RLS Steering Committee). RLS thus represents a dynamic cooperation between scientists, marine managers and recreational SCUBA divers, such that the skills and resources available for collecting, analysing, interpreting and effectively using broad-scale, sub-tidal biodiversity information are maximised.

RLS Tropical Survey Expedition Part II (East Coast)

Three months later and the RLS tropical survey trip has come to an end. A long and successful trip which has generated a huge wad of data and filled many survey gaps around the tropical coast of Australia. Read the story »

RLS Tropical Australia Expedition Part I (West Coast)

In mid May, following the annual RLS Rottnest Is survey weekend, a small team departed Perth heading north to start a monumental effort to fill in spatial gaps in the ever growing RLS Australian database. The expedition is now half way through, with surveys already completed at places such as Port Gregory, South Passage (Shark Bay), Port Hedland and Cape Leveque, and the team currently driving between Broome and Cairns. The major legs of the journey, however, have involved larger groups of experienced RLS divers for concerted surveys of the Ningaloo Reef area and the Dampier Archipelago…

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RLS Tropical Survey Expedition – Photos from the west

Some pictures from the Western Australia leg of the RLS Lap of Australia survey trip. Read the story »

On a light Note (olabrus)…

The diet of the wrasse – Scoresby Shepherd

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Baseline Biodiversity Survey of the Cod Grounds Commonwealth Marine Reserve

In May 2009, a team of RLS divers undertook special baseline reef surveys of the Cod Grounds Commonwealth Marine Reserve, off Laurieton on the NSW central coast. The Commonwealth Government commissioned a report of these surveys, which is available at the following link:
www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mpa/publications/cod-grounds-biodiversity.html

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Exploited reefs protected from fishing transform over decades into conservation features otherwise absent from seascapes

The second paper incorporating RLS data in a continental analysis of Marine Protected Areas recently featured in Ecological Applications.

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