Author: Andrew Baird

A team from Project Phoenix visited the coastal town of Hervey Bay as guests of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service & Partnerships to assess the biodiversity of the corals of the Great Sandy Marine Park (GSMP) in October 2023. Given the proximity to the coast and its high latitude, it might surprise some that the GSMP has much in the way of corals, however, at some sites coral cover was reasonably high even if species richness was predictably low. Indeed, there are many sites in the GSMP with easy shore access that offer excellent snorkelling. The sites we visited off Bundaberg were particularly good and, while the weather prevented us from checking it out, Point Vernon in Hervey Bay has also been reported to have high coral cover close to the shore.

Despite the often-challenging weather, we managed to visit seven sites within the GSMP. We estimate the species richness at somewhere between 45 and 50 although, as per usual, we can only confidently name between 3 to 5 of these species without further work. The coral fauna of the GSMP is dominated by taxa typical of turbid inshore reefs on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), in particular Turbinaria spp., Goniopora spp. and merulinids. The Acropora fauna is a mix of species common on inshore reefs along the length of the GBR plus species that occur as far south as the Solitary Islands. Most of these Acropora species are undescribed. The corals were generally in excellent health, however, there was evidence of recent damage, in particular, large stands of a branching Acropora that dominated the reef crest in front of Woody Island appear to have been mostly destroyed following flooding in early 2022.

Another interesting finding was mature eggs in colonies of at least nine species, suggesting coral spawning occurred at some point following the October 2023 full moon (Fig. 1b).

We thank the staff of Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service & Partnerships, in particular, Amanda Delaforce for a great few days at sea in the Great Sandy Marine Park.