Reef camera offers coral bleaching snapshot

Natalie Poyhonen -

Marine scientists are hoping the installation of a permanent underwater camera on the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland will give them an insight into the daily life of coral and other sea creatures.

Researchers plan to use snapshots of life underwater to answer questions about the real time effects of rising temperatures and coral bleaching.

The pictures are not just for science, as anyone can view them online.

At Davies Reef in the waters off Townsville in north Queensland, a cluster of coral and the fish that swim past it are set to become famous.

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have set up an unmanned webcam to study what is happening beneath the surface.

AIMS spokesman Dr Ray Berkelmans says it is a technological first.

"It's trained on a coral bommie with some lovely plate corals and really the idea for this camera is to give us real time feedback as to what the conditions of the corals are," he said.

"We've been very good at and very sophisticated at predicting coral bleaching but what we don't have is real time feedback of what the corals are actually doing so this is kind of closing the loop for us."

The area is photographed every 15 minutes and the images are then made available online.

Dr Berkelmans says those photos will help scientists to verify the direct effects of coral bleaching.

"You can have warm temperatures but very cloudy days and it won't bleach nearly as quickly as when there is no cloud and lots of sunlight coming in," he said.

"There's a multitude of factors and this will help us improve our predictions."

He says it is not just the coral which are under the lens, as tropical fish are sharing the limelight too.

"There is a certain colony and individuals of fish that seem to hang around that bommie a lot," he said.

"Pretty much those fish are in the picture all the time so I think we'd be able to build up a good database about fish behaviour.

"It's the sort of thing that's very hard to do on scuba."

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