parks victoria technical series marine natural values study vol 2 ...

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Parks Victoria Technical Series No. 79 Flinders and Twofold Shelf Bioregions Marine Natural Values Study The Victorian Embayment bioregion is a discontinuous region that contains the major embayments, inlets and some of the major estuaries along the Victorian coast (Figure 1, IMCRA 2006). Within the bioregion, there are five MNPs, Port Phillip Heads in Port Phillip Bay, Yaringa, French Island, Churchill Island in Western Port, and Corner Inlet. Port Phillip Heads MNP is discontinuous and consists of six sites in the southern region of Port Phillip Bay. Three MSs, Point Cooke, Jawbone and Ricketts Point in Port Phillip Bay, also occur in the bioregion. The climate is moist temperate, with a pronounced west to east variation in catchment run off and seasonality. Variations in salinity and temperature are much higher than on the open coast (Parks Victoria 2003). The embayments have a variety of forms from drowned river valleys to impounded drainage behind dune barrier systems, their maximum depth is generally less than 20 m, but reaches depths of approximately 50 m in Port Phillip Heads. They have low energy coastlines with large tides, influencing the extensive areas of subtidal and intertidal sediments. Rock outcrops are limited mainly to the margins (IMCRA 2006). Some shallow reef areas are present in Port Phillip and Western Port (Parks Victoria 2003). The biota of the Victorian embayments include a diverse range of biotic assemblages found in estuarine and open coast environments depending on their morphological and hydrological characteristics (Parks Victoria 2003; IMCRA 2006). Port Phillip Bay is a marine embayment fringed by seagrass beds, rocky reefs and sandy beaches. The benthic assemblages in the muddy central region are distinct from those in the sand to the west and east. Western Port Bay and Corner Inlet are large muddy estuaries with extensive mudflats, mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrass beds (IMCRA 2006). Figure 4. A common species in the park: butterfly perch Caesioperca lepidoptera at Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park. 7
Parks Victoria Technical Series No. 79 Flinders and Twofold Shelf Bioregions Marine Natural Values Study 2 Marine National Parks 2.1 Wilsons Promontory MNP – Flinders Bioregion Wilsons Promontory MNP is the only Marine National Park in the Flinders bioregion, which also contains Wilsons Promontory Marine Park and Marine Reserve. Wilsons Promontory MNP is approximately 220 km south-east of Melbourne and surrounds the southernmost tip of Wilsons Promontory National Park. It extends offshore from high water mark along 44.6 km of coastline from the southern end of Norman Bay to Cape Wellington, and offshore to within 300 m of the Glennie Group of islands (Figure 6). The MNP surrounds the Anser Group of islands (Anser, Wattle and Kanowna Islands and Anderson Islets, part of Wilsons Promontory National Park) to the mean high water mark along 13.3 km of island coastline (Parks Victoria 2006g). The MNP adjoins Wilsons Promontory Marine Park which extends north along the west coast of Wilsons Promontory from Norman Bay. The Glennie Group of islands is surrounded by the Wilsons Promontory Marine Reserve and adjoins the MNP. The coastal water north of Cape Wellington along the east coast of Wilsons Promontory is also part of the Wilsons Promontory Marine Reserve and adjoins the MNP. Aboriginal tradition indicates that the Wilsons Promontory MNP is part of the sacred Country known as Yiruk for the Gunai/Kurnai people and Wamoom for the Boon Wurrung people (Parks Victoria 2006f). Important natural values of Wilsons Promontory MNP are its biological communities with distinct biogeographic patterns, including shallow subtidal reefs, deep subtidal reefs, intertidal rocky shores, sandy beaches, seagrass, subtidal soft substrates and expansive areas of open water (Parks Victoria 2006g). It has a wide range of habitat types, from low to high wave exposure. It has unusual granite habitats, with extensive heavy reefs with smooth surfaces, boulders and rubble and low profile reefs (Carey et al. 2007b). Its deep heavy reefs have a dense cover of epifauna, especially sponges, stalked ascidians and sea whips, and abundant fish life (Edmunds et al. 2009). Its soft sediment has diverse biotic assemblages. In some sheltered bays there are significant seagrass beds (e.g. Amphibolis and Halophila in Waterloo Bay, Heterozostera in Oberon Bay). Two important macroalgal communities have been identified, a Phyllospora-Ecklonia dominated macroalgal community, with fleshy red algae and some other brown species abundant, and a Phyllospora dominated macroalgal community, with Ecklonia and encrusting corallines abundant (Edmunds et al. 2007). The invertebrate communities generally have very abundant urchins Heliocidaris erythrogramma, blacklip abalone Haliotis rubra and feather stars Cenolia trichoptera. Two distinct invertebrate communities have been recognised, the south east invertebrate community typically has the seastar Nectria macrobranchia (Edmunds et al. 2007). The north west invertebrate community typically has the seastars Patiriella brevispina and P. vernicina (Edmunds et al. 2007). Wilsons Promontory MNP is considered to have relatively high species richness and high diversity indices along with higher than average abundances for most fish species compared to other areas in central Victoria (Edmunds et al. 2000). The fish communities are usually dominated by four species, the barber perch Casioperca rasor, blue-throated wrasse Notolabrus tetricus, purple wrasse N. fucicola, long-finned pike Dinolestes lewini and herring cale Odax cyanomelax. Fish communities include a western and eastern fish community, distinguished by the dominance of herring cale in the former (Edmunds et al. 2007). Wilsons Promontory MNP is a nationally significant area for recovery of great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, populations (Carey et al. 2007b). Wilsons Promontory MNP and the islands surrounded by the MNP provide important feeding and roosting habitat for several threatened bird species such as the hooded plover Thinornis rubricollis, whitebellied sea-eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster and Caspian tern Hydroprogne caspia which are listed 8
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Figure 30. Location map of Cape How
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Figure 33. Biota mapping of Cape Ho
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4 Appendix 1 Compilation of species
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Biotic group Family Species Common
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Parks Victoria is responsible for m
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