University of Queensland researchers survey population of endangered White's Seahorse
Researchers hope a survey of endangered seahorse populations in Queensland waters will lead to a better understanding of a fish "very little" is known about.
White's Seahorse is found in seagrass beds along Australia's east coast, and scientists say their presence can illustrate the health of marine ecosystems.
The species grows to between 10 and 15 centimetres, and is considered endangered in New South Wales and Queensland, as well as at a federal level.
Lead researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Queensland (UQ), Rowan Carew, said most of research on the the seahorse has been done in NSW.
"In Queensland we really don't know how many there are, how they live, what kind of habitats they're on and what kind of threats they're facing," Ms Carew said.
Associate Professor Karen Cheney from UQ's school of environment said research would mostly take place in Moreton Bay, where the Brisbane River met the sea, as well as on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.
"We keep seeing them, we know that they're here, we just don't know anything about their population structure, what type of habitat they like to live on, and we just don't know how many we've got," she said.
Recorded sightings by citizen scientists have given researchers an understanding of where solid populations might be, but Ms Carew said it was difficult to establish how many seahorses there were because there was no "baseline".
"In terms of future conservation, we are trying to figure out what areas are going to be the most important," she said.
Ms Carew said seahorses were "really awesome, charismatic little fish" that were considered an "indicator species" for ecosystem health.
White's Seahorse can alter their colour, both long-term for camouflage and in short fast patterns, which are part of their mating rituals.
The seahorses are "relatively monogamous" and do a replication of their mating ritual every morning to "learn each other's movements", Ms Carew said.
"They colour match and flash different colours when they do their mating dance in the morning," she said.
Dr Cheney said the species — sometimes called the Sydney Seahorse — was listed as endangered in NSW in 2020 after research showed some populations declined by 90 per cent over six years.
That research led to conservation projects aimed at seahorse habitat, as well as breed and release programs in Port Stephens and Sydney.
She said "very little" was known of the fish in Queensland, and researchers needed more data before similar efforts could be replicated in the state.
Ms Carew said it was not even known if the Queensland seahorses were "genetically the same as the seahorses in Sydney".
She said genetic testing would be a part of the project she hoped would lead to more studies in Queensland.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
The 'enduring' mystery of how birds know when Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is filling with water
The most arid corner of Australia is about to burst with life, as Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre braces to reach capacity for just the fourth time in the past 160 years. While the usually-barren salt flats rapidly fill with floodwater from south western Queensland, migratory waterbirds like seagulls, swans, ducks and pelicans will begin descending to the inland oasis in the hundreds of thousands. So — with the lake expected to become entirely full in the coming months — how do birds know that this once-in-a-generation event is happening? The question is one University of New South Wales Professor Richard Kingsford has been striving to answer for the majority of his career. He's spent the past four decades monitoring water birds through aerial surveys. "Birds can go incredible distances," Professor Kingsford said. "Unlike water birds in other parts of the world, that sort of regularly migrate between spring and winter — we don't see any of that. Professor Kingsford said while the majority of the waterbirds found at Kati Thunda-Lake Eyre are native to Australia, some species will travel from as far as China, Russia and Antarctica. He said the birds will capitalise on the opportunities to breed at varying times based on the availability of vegetation, invertebrates and fish. "There's that huge smorgasbord of food," Professor Kingsford said. "It sort of triggers that cascade of different types of species coming in at different points. "You get these wonderful sort of pulses of productivity depending on which waterbird you're talking about." Professor Kingsford said — while still complex — tracking waterbirds had become somewhat easier in recent years with the arrival of satellite tracking technology. "And it it is one of the great mysteries for Australia is how do these birds know where the water is and head off? "We are starting to get some ideas of how they probably do it though." Ecologist Reece Pedler became fascinated by the movements of waterbirds while living in the remote South Australian town of Roxby Downs for a decade. "I now live up in the Strzelecki Desert … so I see this stuff first-hand in my life in the outback that birds are flying around and doing these amazing things," Mr Pedler said. "Birds can arrive really rapidly and their ecology is geared to these unpredictable events. "But we don't know exactly how they know." Mr Pedler, who is the coordinator of the Wild Deserts Project in Sturt National Park, previously studied the breeding behaviour of the banded stilt using solar-powered trackers as part of his PhD. The threatened bird species is most commonly found in Australia's saline coastal wetlands, such as the Coroong or at St Kilda Beach, north of Adelaide. "Those banded stilts might be there for months and months on end or live there year round, " Mr Pedler said. "Then suddenly they disappear when places like Lake Eyre or other lakes in the Western Australian desert fill. Mr Pedler said the abundance of brine shrimp at Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre creates a rare breeding-ground for the threatened species. "They don't breed anywhere else around the coast … so they have to wait years or decades for those opportunities," he said. "And when they breed, they breed in real style, they have thousands of pairs. Mr Pedler said while it was once thought the birds only flew after significant wet events, minimal rainfall was enough to trigger the stilts to leave the coast and head inland. "There's some really complex triggers too because this water that's flowing into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre now fell in western Queensland in the last week of March," he said. "So the stilts and other water birds that would be turning up at Lake Eyre now are not responding to rainfall or atmospheric queues that have happened in the days prior. "There's potentially lots of different mechanisms occurring and it may be that some different groups of birds have different ways of sensing these things." Several theories of how birds know when Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is filling exist, including them having the ability to detect infrasound, barometric pressure or smell the flooded salt flats on the breeze. "There's been theories like scouts … if pelicans send up observers to go and recce inland sites and come back and tell their mates that there's food on offer," Mr Pedler said. "I guess there's some rationale for that because pelicans can fairly easily fly long distances, they get up to high altitude on thermals and then they can cruise and go for a look. "It's still an open case and there's a lot more work to understand this really fascinating behaviour." Professor Kingsford said as more technology emerges and becomes cheaper, the more scientists like himself will be able to shed light on how birds are able to do what they do. "What's most important about that is working out when are the critical times that we need to protect particular habitats in their life cycle," he said. "I'd love to try and work out what's going on and others are too.
9 News
14 hours ago
- 9 News
These seahorses started vanishing from Aussie waters. Here's why that's a problem
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here Measuring about 15cm from top to tail, the endangered White's Seahorse is the kind of unique marine creature you have to look hard to find. Not just because they're tiny but because about 15 years ago, they started vanishing from Australian waters at alarming rates. A 2015 study revealed that some New South Wales populations were decimated by about 90 per cent in just five years. The White's Seahorse was declared endangered in 2020, yet there's still hardly any research on their populations in Queensland. (Supplied) And the same could be happening in Queensland, but scientists would never know it. There's currently no broad research about White's Seahorse populations in the sunshine state, meaning scientists have no baseline to measure current numbers against. That makes it difficult to track if these endangered seahorses are inching closer to extinction in Queensland waters, and limits the opportunity to introduce conservation measures that could save them. University of Queensland PhD candidate Rowan Carew intends to change that. Because if the White's Seahorse goes extinct, Australia's oceans will be in a dire state indeed. "Seahorses are what we call indicator species," Carew told Rowan Carew is on a mission to ensure the survival of the White's Seahorse in Queensland. (Supplied) "So if we lost our seahorse species in Queensland, that would indicate that the ecosystem or environment that they're in is unhealthy. "And that has a trickle down effect for all sorts of animals in these ecosystems ... so we definitely don't want to lose them." Research has shown that habitat loss and flood events had a devastating impact on NSW populations of White's Seahorse between 2009 and 2015. Carew fears the same may be happening to populations in Queensland, especially after years of floods and Cyclone Alfred at the start of 2025. "The main threat that we're looking at potentially is habitat loss," she said. "Things such as weather events like the recent cyclone, things such as dredging, things such as coastal development, that all impacts their habitat." But their habitat also makes White's Seahorses difficult to study in Queensland. Finding a White's Seahorse in Queensland can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. (Supplied) In New South Wales, these seahorses tend to live around swim nets and soft coral colonies, making it easy for researchers to locate them in specific areas. Up north, they prefer to hang around in sea grass beds that can stretch for kilometers underwater, making these tiny critters much harder to find. "It's a little bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, which I think is why no one's really gone to a significant effort to do any research on them in Queensland," Carew said. The "only reason" her team is able to attempt it now is because they have the support of the Queensland Government and millions of potential citizen scientists. Researchers are calling on everyday Australians who spot a White's Seahorse in South-East Queensland while snorkelling or scuba diving to snap a photo and send it to them. Carew shows off a White's Seahorse she collected from a bed of sea grass. (Supplied) Not only will it allow them to collect additional data on individual seahorses, information sent in by citizen scientists may help them discover populations in unexpected locations. "Our team is very small, we can't get out into the whole of Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast," Carew said. "So it's really important to have the citizen science, because that basically informs where we're going to do our surveys." There's something in it for the citizen scientists too. If your sighting leads the research team to a location where they find and tag a White's Seahorse, they'll name it after you and update you on its progress. Carew hopes that her research will help establish key information about White's Seahorse populations in Queensland and facilitate conservation efforts that could help get them taken off the endangered list. Citizen scientists who help researchers find and study these seahorses can get one named after them. (Supplied) Breed and release programs and installing artificial habitats have already boosted numbers in NSW, which is a promising start. "That's the main reason for this research and trying to push for conservation in Queensland," Carew said. "Because we just don't have any of those kind of measures in place to keep numbers stable if something does go wrong." national queensland nature ocean animals science CONTACT US
ABC News
16 hours ago
- ABC News
Thanks to AI, Paul can see the culprit of his dog's cancer
When available treatments weren't working on Paul's dog Rosie, he decided to take matters into his own hands. As the owner of an AI company he was able to use software that enabled him to pinpoint a mutation that might be key to Rosie's cancer. He hopes it will lead to treatment that extends her life, but while experts in the field are impressed, they say the story is much more complex. Guest/s Paul Conyngham, dog owner Paul Conyngham, dog owner Dr Kate Michie, a structural biologist at the University of New South Wales Dr Kate Michie, a structural biologist at the University of New South Wales Associate Professor Peter Bennett, veterinary oncology at the University of Melbourne References
