Marine Natural Values Study Summary - Parks Victoria

Marine Natural Values Study SummaryPoint DangerMarine SanctuaryAustralia’s southern waters areunique. Ninety per cent of ourmarine plants and animals arefound nowhere else on earth.The system of Marine NationalParks and Sanctuaries hasbeen established to representthe diversity of Victoria’smarine environment, itshabitats and associatedflora and fauna.Victoria’s marine environmenthas been classified into fivebioregions according toa nationally agreed schemebased on physical andbiological attributes.Point Danger MarineSanctuary is one of five marinesanctuaries and two marinenational parks in the CentralVictoria bioregion.Image left:Egg urchin Holopneustes sp. in an intertidal rock pool.Photo by Mark Rodrigue, Parks Victoria.Image right:Intertidal reef and rock pool. Photo by Mark Rodrigue,Parks Victoria.DescriptionThe sanctuary covers 21.7 hectaresand extends from the high watermark around the prominent limestoneheadland of Point Danger betweenthe townships of Torquay andJan Juc. It extends offshore forabout 600 metres to the east and400 metres to the south.The sanctuary is accessible from thecar park or adjacent beaches.Parks Victoria acknowledges theAboriginal Traditional Owners ofVictoria – including its parks andreserves. Indigenous tradition indicatesthat the sanctuary is part of Countryof Wadda wurrung.Physical Parameters and ProcessesThe coastline is exposed to strongwinds and large swell (mostly fromthe south and south west), andcurrents that are typical of opencoastal locations. The seafloor ispredominantly less than sevenmetres deep.Surface water temperatures varybetween an average 17.5 °C in thesummer and 13.5 °C in the winter.Tidal variation is 2.1 metres for springtides and 0.7 metres for neap tides.Spring Creek discharges one kilometreto the west of the sanctuary andBarwon River discharges 20 kilometresto the east.The geology of the sanctuaryis limestone.Marine Habitat Distributionand Ecological CommunitiesThe main habitats protected by thesanctuary include intertidal andsubtidal soft sediment, intertidal andsubtidal reefs, and the water column.Drift has been observed on theintertidal soft sediments, while manyshorebirds have also been recorded inor near the sanctuary, a number ofwhich are of conservation significance.The intertidal limestone platform ishome to twenty six species of marineplants. The brown algae Neptune’snecklace Hormosira banksii is a keyhabitat forming algae on thelimestone intertidal reef. Other brownalgae (e.g. Cystophora moniliformis,C. subfarcinata, Sargassum spp.) arepredominantly found in rock pools.Patches of small red corallines,filamentous algae and the greensea lettuce Ulva spp. are commonon the intertidal platform.The sanctuary is home to more thanforty four species of intertidalinvertebrates which are mostlyfound underneath rocks on theintertidal reef.The most abundant mobileinvertebrates include the pulmonatelimpets Siphonaria spp., striped25