Scott A. Condie

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation | CSIRO · Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research

Abstract Crown‐of‐thorns starfish (CoTS) naturally occur on coral reefs throughout the Indo‐Pacific region. On Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), outbreaks of CoTS populations are responsible for ecologically significant losses of corals, and while they have been documented for decades, they now undermine coral recovery from multiple stressors,...

Polarisation of opinions across communities can lead to social conflict, reputational damage and the disruption of operations and markets. Social influence models have been widely used to better understand processes driving conflict from a theoretical perspective. Using aquaculture as a case study, we demonstrate how such models can be extended to...

In times of rapid change and rising human pressures on marine systems, information about the future state of the ocean can provide decision-makers with time to avoid adverse impacts and maximise opportunities. An ecological forecast predicts changes in ecosystems and its components due to environmental forcing such as climate variability and change...

Coral reefs are extremely vulnerable to climate change and their recent degradation will continue unless we can instigate strong global climate action with effective regional interventions. Many types of intervention have been proposed and some aspects of their deployment are now being tested. However, their long-term efficacy under climate change...

Multiple ocean sectors compete for space and resources, creating conflicts but also opportunities to plan for synergistic outcomes that benefit multiple sectors. Planning and management are increasingly informed by qualitative and quantitative methods for assessing multi-sector interactions to identify trade-offs and synergies among sectors and wit...

Offshore platforms, subsea pipelines, wells and related fixed structures supporting the oil and gas (O&G) industry are prevalent in oceans across the globe, with many approaching the end of their operational life and requiring decommissioning. Although structures can possess high ecological diversity and productivity, information on how they intera...

Abstract. Crown-of-thorns sea stars (Acanthaster sp.) are among the most studied coral reef organisms, owing to their propensity to undergo major population irruptions, which contribute to significant coral loss and reef degradation throughout the Indo-Pacific. However, there are still important knowledge gaps pertaining to the biology, ecology, an...

Cumulative impacts assessments on marine ecosystems have been hindered by the difficulty of collecting environmental data and identifying drivers of community dynamics beyond local scales. On coral reefs, an additional challenge is to disentangle the relative influence of multiple drivers that operate at different stages of coral ontogeny. We integ...

Climate change is impacting numerous natural world heritage sites – the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) being just one. There are calls for interventions to help sustain reef values in the face of climate change and while there are numerous techniques for assessing impacts on non-market values, most struggle to generate robust estimates for large and comp...

On the iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the cumulative impacts of tropical cyclones, marine heatwaves and regular outbreaks of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) have severely depleted coral cover. Climate change will further exacerbate this situation over the coming decades unless effective interventions are implemented. Evaluating the e...

The NESP COTS Regional Scale Modelling work aimed to build on two existing advanced coral-COTS community models (CoCoNet and ReefMod-GBR) which have been widely tested and used on the GBR. The goal of this work was to incorporate descriptions of the management processes implemented in the Expanded COTS Control Program, and to assess the performance...

Understanding the processes underlying development and persistence of polarised opinions has been one of the key challenges in social networks for more than two decades. While plausible mechanisms have been suggested, they assume quite specialised interactions between individuals or groups that may only be relevant in particular contexts. We propos...

Cumulative impacts assessments on marine ecosystems have been hindered by the difficulty of collecting environmental data and identifying drivers of community dynamics beyond local scales. On coral reefs, an additional challenge is to disentangle the relative influence of multiple drivers that operate at different stages of coral ontogeny. We integ...

Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) outbreaks are a globally significant driver of coral mortality in the Indo-Pacific and work synergistically with other disturbances. We argue that our improved understanding of COTS ecology and ability to monitor their populations, combined with new efficiencies in COTS control technologies, provides a sound basis fo...

Piscirickettsiosis is one of the most important diseases affecting farmed salmonid in Chile. Several studies have demonstrated the survival of Piscirickettsia salmonis in seawater and the horizontal transmission from infected to non-infected fish; however, the extent of waterborne transmission between farms has not been quantified. In this study, w...

Many habitat-building corals undergo mass synchronous spawning events. Yet, despite the enormous amounts of larvae produced, larval dispersal from a single spawning event and the reliability of larval supply are highly dependent on vagaries of ocean currents. However, colonies from the same population will occasionally spawn over successive months....

The Integrated Management System for the Aquaculture (SIMA in Spanish) is a comprehensive interoperable information and modelling platform that has been developed to provide the Chilean Aquaculture industry and government agencies with access to improved environmental intelligence allowing them to make better informed strategic and operational deci...

Blooms of the highly toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella (previously referred to as tamarense group 1) were first detected off eastern Tasmania in 2012 and have since been responsible for incidences of human paralytic shellfish poisoning and extended closures (up to 25 weeks) of mussel, oyster, scallop, abalone and rock lobster industries (u...

The first peopling of Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and the Aru Islands joined at lower sea levels) by anatomically modern humans required multiple maritime crossings through Wallacea, with at least one approaching 100 km. Whether these crossings were accidental or intentional is unknown. Using coastal-viewshed analysis and ocean drift modelling com...

Spatial connectivity has long been recognized as a key process for sustaining healthy ecosystems and robust ecosystem services. However, system-level metrics that capture environmentally significant aspects of connectivity at appropriate temporal and spatial scales have not previously been identified. Using a major industrial harbour adjacent to Au...

The decline of coral cover on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has largely been attributed to the cumulative pressures of tropical cyclones, temperature induced coral bleaching, and predation by crown of thorns starfish (CoTS). In such a complex system, the effectiveness of any management intervention will only become apparent over decadal time...

Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs) dispersed rapidly through island southeast Asia (Sunda and Wallacea) and into Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and the Aru Islands), before 50,000 years ago. Multiple routes have been proposed for this dispersal and all involve at least one multi-day maritime voyage approaching 100 km. Here we use new regional-scale ba...

Development, calibration and validation of improved monitoring and management tools to limit the impact of biotoxin outbreaks on the Tasmanian seafood industry

Building on the 2016 report card, the Gladstone Harbour Report Card 2017 has been informed by 99 measures of the four components of harbour health: environmental, social, cultural and economic. This report card is based on data collected during the period from July 2016 to June 2017. As GHHP continues to expand and refine its monitoring programs, a...

During October 2012, a shipment of blue mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) from the poorly monitored east coast of Tasmania, Australia, was tested by Japanese import authorities and found to be contaminated with unacceptable levels of Paralytic Shellfish Toxins (PSTs; 10 mg/kg). Subsequently local oysters, scallops, clams, the viscera of abalone a...

Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR) continues to suffer from repeated impacts of cyclones, coral bleaching, and outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), losing much of its coral cover in the process. This raises the question of the ecosystem’s systemic resilience and its ability to rebound after large-scale population...

Evaluating performance of different larval supply thresholds for predicting adult COTS densities in surveys. The threshold of 30th percentile was found to perform the best as it gives the lowest rate of false negatives (reefs that are classified as low risk due to low supply of larvae but also had adult COTS outbreaks in the surveys). This percenti...

Classification of robust sources with respect to their placement in no-take zones. Black circles represent robust sources located in no-take zones; red circles represent robust sources that are not located in no-take zones. Nearly half (46%) of the robust sources are already located in no-take zones and awarded the highest level of protection under...

Key assumptions and rationales behind the 3 criteria used to identify robust sources. COTS, crown-of-thorns starfish; DHW, degree heating weeks; GBR, Great Barrier Reef. (DOCX)

Results of a general linear model test that tested the effect of connectivity predictors on adult COTS densities observed in field surveys. Dispersion parameter for the fitted Tweedie distribution was 3.384. COTS, crown-of-thorns starfish. (DOCX)

Results of a general linear model that tested the effect of connectivity predictors on adult COTS densities obtained from CPUE during COTS eradication efforts. Model R2 = 20.82. COTS, crown-of-thorns starfish; CPUE, catch-per-unit effort. (DOCX)

Data used to generate the manuscript figures. (XLSX)

Classification of robust sources with respect to local retention of larvae. Black circles represent robust sources that have had consistently high local retention of larvae in dispersal simulations when compared to the GBR-wide average; red circles, well represented in the outer shelf regions, represent robust sources that have had below average lo...

Locations of robust sources and expected annual frequency of category ≥1 cyclones on the GBR. Robust sources tend to be located outside of the regions with high expected cyclone frequency (coloured background; adapted from data presented in Wolff et al. [28]). GBR, Great Barrier Reef. (TIF)

Parameters used for constructing survival-competency curves. All scale parameters were equal to 1. Mortality rate was constant and equal to 0.1 per day in all analyses shown in the text. (DOCX)

The 2016 Gladstone Harbour Report Card reports on the environmental health of 13 reporting zones in and around Gladstone Harbour and the overall environmental, social, cultural and economic health of the harbour. This report card covers monitoring undertaken in the period 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016. The report can be downloaded using the following...

Mesoscale ocean eddies (closed circular currents typically 100–300 km in diameter) are ubiquitous features of the world's oceans. They form partially isolated environments with distinct physical and chemical conditions capable of supporting and transporting whole plankton communities. The productivity and biodiversity of these communities is ultima...

Controlling the spread of invasive species, pests and pathogens is often logistically limited to interventions that target specific locations at specific points in time. However, in complex, highly-connected systems, such as marine environments connected by ocean currents, populations spread dynamically in both space and time via transient connecti...

Our understanding of the physical factors driving fine-scale structuring of marine biodiversity remains incomplete. Recent studies have hypothesised that oceanography and coastal geometry interact to influence marine biogeographic structure on small spatial scales. The coastal waters of eastern Tasmania, located at the oceanographic interface betwe...

The potentially fatal Irukandji syndrome is relatively common in tropical waters throughout the world. It is caused by the sting of the Irukandji jellyfish, a family of box jellyfish that are almost impossible to detect in the water owing to their small size and transparency. Using collated medical records of stings and local weather conditions, we...

Many ecosystems suffer systemwide outbreaks of damaging species propagating from primary outbreak sites. Connectivity patterns can identify parts of the ecosystem that help turn local outbreaks into a systemwide contagion through a series of transmission events. Here, we show that patterns of larval connectivity among reefs can help explain periodi...

Food webs often include substructures that occur in much higher numbers than would be expected in random networks. These are referred to in the literature as network motifs. Here we explore how feedbacks within the most common food web motifs influence their responses to external factors such as environmental change or harvesting of species. We hav...

Irukandji stings are a leading occupational health and safety issue for marine industries in tropical Australia and an emerging problem elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean. Their mild initial sting frequently results in debilitating illness, involving signs of sympathetic excess including excruciating pain, sweating, nausea and vomiting, hy...

The New South Wales Offshore Trawl Fishery began to expand in 1976, following a large exploratory trawl survey carried out on the fishing grounds of the upper continental slope. This survey was repeated 20 years later with the same vessel and using similar protocols. Comparison of the survey results suggested that the overall fish biomass in the su...

We have used an end-to-end ecosystem model to explore responses over 30 years to coastal no-take reserves covering up to 6% of the fifty thousand square kilometres of continental shelf and slope off the coast of New South Wales (Australia). The model is based on the Atlantis framework, which includes a deterministic, spatially resolved three-dimens...

Whole of ecosystem models that incorporate a broad range of physical, chemical and biological processes are well suited to exploring the dynamics of the complex issues related to multiple human uses in coastal regions, including cumulative effects. Over the last decade there has been strong growth in these kinds of models and they are now sufficien...

The Clarence River Estuary is the largest estuary in southeast Australia, with an extensive floodplain encompassing multiple river channels and a large coastal lagoon. It is the focus of major commercial and recreational fisheries and there is pressure to divert its freshwater inputs for agricultural and domestic uses. We used a spatial biogeochemi...

The 2009 Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea released an estimated 400 barrels of oil per day into the Timor Sea for approximately 10 weeks. The oil, and dispersant used on the spill, potentially affected marine flora and fauna over an approximately 100,000 km2 area (with >0.01% oil occurrence), mainly northeast of the well head. Potential direct an...

The extensive shallow tropical seas off northern Australia, encompassing the Arafura and Timor Seas, have been identified as one of the most pristine marine environments on the planet. However, the remoteness and the absence of major industrial development that has contributed to this status have the additional consequence that relatively little is...

Australia’s east coast subtropical estuaries have experienced and are still experiencing increasing pressures over the past half-century associated with rising human populations: increased demands on resources such as freshwater, fish stocks, shoreline and aquatic habitat from the cumulative effects of agriculture and forestry, commercial and recre...

This paper reports on a workshop conducted in Australia in 2010, entitled ‘Management, Conservation, and Scientific Challenges on Subtropical Reefs under Climate Change’. The workshop brought together 26 experts actively involved in the science and management of subtropical reefs. Its primary aim was to identify the areas of research that need to b...

Summary This paper reports on a workshop conducted in Australia in 2010, entitled ‘Management, Conservation, and Scientific Challenges on Subtropical Reefs under Climate Change’. The workshop brought together 26 experts actively involved in the science and management of subtropical reefs. Its primary aim was to identify the areas of research that n...

The poleward flowing East Australian Current (EAC) is characterised by its separation from the coast, 100–200 nautical miles north of Sydney, to form the eastward flowing Tasman Front and a southward flowing eddy field. The separation zone greatly influences coastal ecosystems for the relatively narrow continental shelf (only 15–50 km wide), partic...

Transport between shelf and offshore environments supports a significant proportion of ocean primary productivity and is critical to the life cycle of many marine species. While fundamental differences in the underlying dynamics of eastern and western boundary currents have been recognized and studied for more than half a century, the implications...

We describe the first use of a fully integrated biogeochemical model to explore the response of a marine shelf system to a tropical cyclone. Ocean currents, nutrients, sediments and plankton dynamics were simulated under conditions representative of Tropical Cyclone Bobby, which traversed the Australian North West Shelf in February 1995. Results sh...

This report describes results from a modelling study of the NSW marine ecosystem and its associated resources. It forms part of a broader collaborative study between CSIRO and the NSW Department of Primary Industries on ecologically sustainable development of the regional marine and estuarine resources of NSW. This component of the study aimed to...

Silver-lip pearl oyster (Pinctada maxima) spat surveyed in the Eighty Mile Beach section of the North West Shelf have been used in conjunction with outputs from a particle dispersion model to identify likely spawning grounds. The dispersion model consisted of a 3-dimensional regional circulation model in which large numbers of individual particles...

One-dimensional vertical and three-dimensional fine-resolution numerical models of sediment transport have been developed and applied to the Torres Strait region of northern Australia. The one-dimensional model, driven by measured waves and currents, was calibrated against measured suspended sediment concentrations using a sequential data assimilat...

Australia's North West Shelf supports a diverse range of tropical habitats and marine communities, as well as being Australia's most economically significant marine region. This study is the first attempt to describe the ocean circulation across the North West Shelf on time-scales from hours to years, and space scales from 10 km over the entire she...

Identification of conservation values for Commonwealth marine areas is central to the development of Marine Bioregional Plans under section 176 of Australia's Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). While conservation values associated with listed threatened species, migratory species, cetaceans, marine species a...

Resuspension, transport, and deposition of sediments over the continental shelf and slope are complex processes and there is still a need to understand the underlying spatial and temporal dynamical scales. As a step towards this goal, a two-dimensional slice model (zero gradients in the alongshore direction) based on the primitive flow equations an...

The seasonal cycle of physical, chemical, and biological properties of the surface ocean mixed layer in the Australasian region (0 to 50°S, 90 to 180°E) were described on the basis of a range of data products, some of which are described for the first time. They include seasonal fields of temperature, salinity, mixed layer depth, nitrate, phosphate...

Australia is an island continent extending from tropical to midlatitude waters with an Exclusive Economic Zone of some 8.6 million square kilometres. Its regional seas are exposed to climatological conditions ranging from the westerly Roaring Forties winds in the south, to monsoon and tropical cyclone conditions in the north. It also encompasses re...

The Australian Connectivity Interface or Aus-ConnIe has been developed as a web-tool for marine scientists and managers to investigate the large-scale patterns of spatial connectivity around Australia associated with ocean currents. Specifically, it provides an estimate of the probability that any two regions of the upper water column are connected...