SPEAKER_01 0:58

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Word on the Reef. I'm your host, diver, and marine conservationist, Tanya Murphy. And with me, as always, is Ken's Aquarium's marine educator and fit whisperer Brett Goodband.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Good morning, everyone. Hope everyone had a great week.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

In this week's Reef News, environmental groups have launched a campaign in Las Vegas, USA, accusing McDonald's of selling beef products linked to deforestation in Queensland, contributing to water pollution on the Great Barrier Reef. The campaign organised by green advocacy network Mighty Earth targeted an award ceremony for McDonald's with electronic billboards featuring the iconic McDonald's M made out of dead coral. Australia's Great Barrier Reef, I'm killing it, opposed to stay.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

That works.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Nathaniel Pell urged Australia to bring forward implementation of its 2030 deforestation target, which would ensure that it only sourced beef from properties verified as being deforestation free. Here's a quote from Nathaniel Pell. Australian beef finds its way into 70% of McDonald's restaurants globally, a lot of it from the Great Barrier Reef catchment. So there is a strong chance there are big max out there that can be linked to deforestation that is damaging the reef, he said. His quote continues. Food for thought?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Food for thought.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

We've talked extensively on this show about the connection between deforestation and reef health. There we go. So if there's anyone out there that would like to learn more about that topic or is scratching their head wondering how cattle grazing could possibly be connected with the health of the Great Barrier Reef, you can learn all about it back in some of our previous episodes about tree clearing and deforestation. Check those ones out at wordonthereef.com. But now, on to today's topic, and it's one that many people have asked us about. Last summer, the coral sea off the coast of Queensland experienced its hottest sea surface temperatures on record. And the summer before that was its second hottest. So, as climate change heats up our oceans, are some marine animals abandoning the tropics and moving away from the equator to find cooler waters? Which species are on the move and how far away from their normal range have they been found? How does this relocation affect them and the ecosystems they're moving into? Is it a helpful survival strategy? Or does it lead to a sea of problems?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Is it bringing jellyfish, sharks, and crocodiles closer to major southern cities? Where will our tropical reef species end up if climate change continues unabated? To help us unpack these questions, our guest today is Jan Strognell, evolutionary molecular biologist, professor and director in the Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture at James Cook University. Good morning, Professor Strognell, and welcome to Word on the Reef.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Good morning. Yeah, it's going to be great chat. It's great to have you on the show. To start off, can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Sure. So I studied as an undergrad at JCU in Townsville in last century in the 1990s, then obtained a scholarship which took me to the UK for my PhD, where I studied more about the evolutionary relationships of octopus and squid and cuttlefish, and worked in the UK for about 10 years. And I then came back to Australia in 2016 when I was based at La Trobe University in Melbourne. And then came back to JCU in Townsville. So I've been here since, and I am a professor. So I'm a researcher and educator of marine science here at JCU in Townsville. And my research group works on using genetics primarily to understand more about both applied questions, so fisheries, aquaculture, and conservation, but also more blue skies questions about a range of marine species. So all the way from tropical regions like corals, jugongs and the like, right down to Antarctica. So from tropics right the way through to polar regions, and part of that includes species redistribution.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Wow, yeah. But that's uh quite a resume.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, not to mention, like you just said, that you've spent some time in Antarctica and I understand you've done some interesting research on the Southern Ocean. Most of us will never cross the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica, so it's a bit of a big blue mystery. What's out there in the Southern Ocean? What did you find was significant out there?

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yeah, so I think that a lot of people probably think when you think about the Southern Ocean, that given the harshness of the conditions, how cold it is, that maybe there isn't much living in the Southern Ocean, apart from, of course, things like whales and penguins and seals. But what I think is really important is that the Southern Ocean contains a really rich diversity of endemic animals that are native to and only found in the Southern Ocean that live on the seafloor. So over 0,000 species, and most of those are benthic invertebrates, so animals that live on the seafloor that don't have a backbone. So there's a really rich diversity of marine life in the Southern Ocean, including things like picnagonas or sea spiders that grow to be about the size of your head. Isops can get to be the size of dinner plates. A lot of my work has been on octopus, some of which grow to about 40 kilograms in size. So there's some really interesting animals that live in Antarctic waters and are, you know, only found in those waters. So it's much more rich and diverse than you might think. And I think what else is important about it is that you think, gosh, the Southern Ocean, it's so far away from Cairns or the Great Barrier Reef, you know, what what relevance is that here? But in fact, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean surrounding it is so central to our climate and also to, you know, to the global climate. And so when we're thinking about climatic change, sea level rise and our ocean currents, these are really driven by Antarctica. So our oceans are are very connected and the Southern Ocean is really central to that story.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

How did you research all those creatures on the floor of the Southern Ocean? You must have a really good warm submarine.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

I'm going submarine with a heater.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

That's right. So a lot of our specimens are also from museum collections as well as animals that we have caught in the Southern Ocean, but that all end up in museum collections, so they can be used right into the future. And then we study their genetic information to tell us more about those processes today, how they're connected, but also right down deep into the past. So we can look at their evolutionary relationships and understand more about their biology, but also about the ice sheet itself, which is really critical to try and predict what's going to happen into the future.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, wow. A lot of us will never get to set foot on Antarctica. What's that like?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

It's an incredible, you know, I realise I'm very lucky and it it's a very beautiful place. I think perhaps surprisingly it's not all white. Ice can be very colourful and sometimes with bright blues and and a range of different colours. Yeah, the life there is incredible as well. So seals and whales and penguins are all extraordinary animals and of course very charismatic, but are also really under threat. So just very recently, Emperor penguins have become listed as endangered because of our climatic change. So there are certainly changes happening in Antarctica as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, that was so sad when I saw that recent news that an entire nesting area had melted away into the sea.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

So it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Those poor old penguins. Were were you involved in any of that research?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

No, I am not directly involved in penguin research, but uh have been involved in reviewing some of that research and highlighting those changes. So Emperor penguins do breed on fast ice, so they require that ice to raise their ticks, and so as that ice is melting, we're losing breeding colonies of those Emperor penguins, and so they're definitely under threat, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah, so sad. That should be something that really hits home to people because everyone that sees an Emperor Penguin either on tally or at a zoo, I mean it they're just spectacular, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

All animals are spectacular, one of the one of the most iconic documentary animals.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Their epic mission to trek to the sea and back again are.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's incredible. Dad sits there with the egg on his foot.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

And so it doesn't land on the ice.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah, while the other one goes off to the shop. Yeah, and Happy Feet, one of the most famous Disney cartoons ever, all about protecting the penguins. And what are we doing in real life? Just watching watching our carbon emissions. But we can obviously be part of the solution as well. Today we're going to be talking about animals in the ocean, marine animals who are becoming climate refugees. They're having to move to different areas to get away from rising sea temperatures from climate change. As climate change heats up our oceans, scientists are investigating whether marine species are moving south seeking cooler waters. So that would be south Europe in the southern hemisphere and potentially in the northern hemisphere they'd be moving in the opposite direction to get to cooler waters. But we're talking about the southern hemisphere today. So a project called Red Map has been set up. Professor Strugnell, can you please tell us about the Red Map project and how it started?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Sure. So Red Map stands for Range Extension Database and Mapping Project. And the project invites Australians to share sightings of marine species that are uncommon to their local oceans. And so this really invites snorkelers or scuba divers or fishers who often like to take photos of their catch and share what they're seeing also to share this information to Redmap, to our website. And we have a team of expert scientists who view those images and verify the sighting to see whether those species are out of range or uncommon in that area. And so over time, Redmap uses this citizen science information to map Australian species that are extending their distribution. So they're moving house in response to changes in the marine environment, such as ocean warming. And this citizen science initiative really takes advantage of people that know their local environment and often return to the same place or are familiar with a particular area. They're often the experts in that area as they recognise when things are new or out of range. And so this information is super crucial because Australia's coastline is really, really large and scientists can't keep track of this all ourselves. And so the information that citizen scientists contribute is super valuable to be able to understand when species are shifting range or things are appearing out of the norm.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Using all of the experts' eyes like the public and scuba divers and snorkelers and everybody.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Absolutely, that's exactly the case. And you asked about how it started. It was started by Professor Greta Petzel in Tasmania. It was initially a Tasmanian initiative where they were noticing species that were turning up in Tassie waters that had never been seen there before. And after uh it ran in Tassier for a few years, then became apparent that this wasn't only a Tasmanian phenomenon, but species were shifting range all around Australia. And so Red Map Australia commenced and so is relevant to the whole of Australia.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, this is something that uh has been coming up at work a fair bit over the past year after I do my shows. And it's it's actually really good because people are thinking about this, the general public as well, that that aren't divers or snorkelers, and they'll say, Well, if temperatures are rising, are there animals leaving that area because they can't handle the heat? And I say, Well, yeah, you're right, they do. But how much does this also there's another side to this, isn't there? If these animals are going outside their normal areas, then there's issues with their feeding cycles and their breeding cycles, and it's just snowballs, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah, that's right. And so species are shifting pole wood in marine environments at a global average of forty to seventy kilometres per decade.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Oh my goodness, likely far. They're not mucking about.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

No, that's right. So that's a huge amount, but there's so little that we understand about it, and that many species are restricted at some point of their life cycle. So nowadays it's not uncommon to find baby tropical fish in Sydney Harbour, which is quite uh an extraordinary thing to see.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

It is.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

At present, many species can't persist throughout the winter in those environments because temperatures drop too low at that particular time or at that point of their life cycle. And so obtaining this information about species that are shifting range can enable scientists to learn more about these different kinds of physiological limits when species will will likely be able to establish in particular areas and really help us get a handle on these processes. So, yeah, it's it's happening now and it's causing, in the order of hundreds actually, of marine species around Australia to be shifting further south.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Wow. And I guess you've got the fish that are hanging out in their little spot, they've minded their own business for a couple of hundred years, and all of a sudden this big dude turns up that hasn't lived there before and starts munching on them that they're not used to as well. Like you've got other animals moving into the areas they're not supposed to be, that's an issue as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well it's almost like a biosecurity issue. Normally it's humans who are introducing species to an area where they don't belong. Yeah. But is that sort of happening naturally now where there's species moving into areas where they're causing problems?

SPEAKER_02 15:49

That's exactly right. And we tend to think of, you know, invasive species being brought in to Australian waters, maybe through ballast water or, you know, on the land through being introduced. But it's a similar kind of process now. And a really good example and somewhat famous example of marine species that have shifted range in Australia is actually the long-spined sea urchin in Tasmania. That actually first turned up in Tazi waters in 1978, so a little while ago now, but it wasn't found there previously at all. And since it's arrived, it has absolutely decimated kelp forests in that region, which has had massive impacts on abalone fisheries, rock lobster fisheries, and caused these urchin barrens because they eat everything there. So the area, you know, the kelps and the environment were not adapted to sharing an environment with these urchins, and they've had a huge impact on those local ecosystems. So that's just one example of how marine redistribution of species can really impact an ecosystem.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah, where did those urchins originally come from? More around the New South Wales and Victoria coast?

SPEAKER_02 17:07

That's right. So they were native uh only to New South Wales waters to start with, and then moved into Taddy Waters. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

We did a whole show on that one, didn't we?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

We have talked about the Great Southern Reef. That's all of the marine species that live along the southern side of Australia, Victoria, South Australia, southern part of the WA. And so we've got people up here who come and say, Well, let's not worry about the corals and animals because they'll just move to the south to get to cooler waters. And I'm like, Well, what's gonna happen to all the animals that live down there? Where are they going to go?

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, well they don't want visitors, they didn't send an invite out. What about our sharks like Great Whites and all the big boys and girls? Are they gonna start to move out of their natural areas and start feeding on poor little fish that didn't see them coming?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

It's a great question. So there are certainly some sharks on our list for Queensland to keep track of. So there's a range of different sharks, mainly reef sharks, like black-tipped reef sharks and white-tipped reef sharks that are currently just found north of Fraser and Stradbroke Island. And so these are on our lists of species that given what we understand about their biology, we ask our citizen science to keep track of those as they shift range further south. And we do have examples that citizens have submitted photos of those. And another example of a species that is on people's minds often is saltwater crocodiles. And I researched these a reasonable amount when we were putting together lists for Queensland because it's such an important species and quite interesting. But what I found in that particular case is that crocodiles there is very early evidence that they actually occur naturally in New South Wales waters. In Lismore, you can find photos of them. So there are historical distributions. This raises one of the questions that's really important when we're thinking about what is the historical distribution of a particular species, and it's really important to establish that so then we can understand what is actually a rain shift. So that one, in a way, is a little bit of a red herring.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Right. It's probably culling that has removed a lot of crocodiles from where they used to range.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

That's exactly right, Tanya. So they were almost hunted to extinction, and so now we're still very interested in where they are and where they're shifting to. But in that particular case, it probably reflects their original distribution.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

So I have utilized Redmap. It was a little while ago now, but I was diving near Mission Beach on Ellison Reef and I looked, what species are red map looking for that are something to look out for at this latitude? And one of them was the spine cheek anemone fish. Some people will call it the maroon anemone fish.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Oh yeah, they're one of my favorites to photo, they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah, so for anyone who's unfamiliar, it's Nemo's cousin. It's a relative of the or it is a type of clownfish in the clownfish family. So I saw two families of those on my dive, and I uploaded them onto Redmap because apparently they're not supposed to be as far south as Mission Beach or as I saw your your submission and your sighting there, Tanya.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Uh good. I'll think and so that was a great submission to Red Map. So the spine cheek clownfish, the distribution was much more around cairns, and it's one of our target species to log if our divers and scuba divers see them south of Cairns. And so your sighting was verified by one of our expert scientists, and it's a really important data point of that species south of its range where it was understood to occur. So, yeah, thank you so much for that submission.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

That's exciting. Well, there's lots of underwater photographers out there taking pictures of beautiful spine cheeks. So if there's anyone else out there who sees one south of Cairns, it's very fast to just quickly upload your photos to Redmap and it could really help us understand how they're migrating. What are some other examples of species which are targeting for gathering data for this app and how have their distributions changed? Professor Strong?

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Yeah, sure. So species that we're particularly interested in our citizen scientists keeping an eye on that are south of Cairns would be the red-tailed parrot fish and also the blue-faced angelfish. And we have some sightings of the blue-faced angel fish that have popped up on our website recently, much further south, down near Bowen and areas around that region. So that's a really important sighting. And also maybe one that your listeners would be familiar with as well, maybe more of fisheries importance would be something like a Barramundi, which does appear to be shifting range and turning up much further south. So that would be an example of a species that is known to occur sort of north of Bundaberg. And so if our keen fishers that are listening find those species south of Bundy, that would be a great sighting that we'd love to hear more about as well. And so on our website at redmap.org.au, you can see target species for all of our states of Australia and in Queensland in particular, we have taxes that we're really keen for citizens to log if they find south of Cairns, Townsville, Rocky, seventeen seventy, Bundaberg and Gladstone, as well as Fraser Islands and Stradbroke Islands. But it's also important to note that we're also very keen for people to log something that they think is unusual. As I said earlier, often it's people that are particularly familiar with their area or patch that know when something looks a little bit unusual or is something that they haven't seen before. And rest assured for fishers out there, we do fuzzy up the location. We're not going to give away the exact location of your place where you go fishing. So we will make that a little bit not super precise so you won't find a whole lot of people in your favourite fishing spot. But we do value those contributions for just things that are also a little bit unusual because that can turn up interesting sightings also.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

We get asked this a lot by by tourists and and people who are asking well isn't this a wonderful thing that we can start to see tropical coral reef fish further south in Sydney even. Or you know it is exciting to see some new fish rocking up in your neighborhood. But Professor Stroggle as species migrate polarwards how will it impact their ecology and survival? Will they be able to survive and thrive in the new areas they're moving into as effectively as they did in their original habitat?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah that's a a great question and in some cases like as we spoke about the urchin earlier clearly they're doing quite well finding this tasty kelp to eat and there are examples like that. But ecosystems are often quite delicately balanced and that's an example of that also. And so when we introduce new species they can impact these new ecosystems they're moving into by becoming predators where they weren't previously or impacting in a lot of different ways. So what is really happening why the species are moving polewards is because the temperature is changing and so the warmer waters are being pushed further south and so those species are really tracking their thermal optimum. So they're moving south because they like to live in waters of that temperature and it's becoming too hot where they are living. So just because you know even though they are required to live in waters of that temperature that doesn't necessarily mean that everything else will be right for them in that area. So maybe their food won't be available or a good example might be for particular coral species maybe there may not be habitat for them to settle on. So big sandy stretches where little baby corals can't settle at all. And also the rate at which we're seeing changes so our warmer waters pushing further south as I said earlier is occurring at a sort of rounded global average about forty to seventy kilometres a decade it's actually happening quite quickly. So for species that don't have very good dispersal mechanisms so they're not travelling long ways in the currents it's happening quite quickly. So all of these things are really important factors.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah it's like more than five kilometres per year. Imagine if you packed up all your things and moved five kilometers south every year, Brett. Well it at least it'd give me time to adjust well not as long on an evolutionary time scale as you might need to adapt. And of course as we discussed earlier it's impacting the ecosystems that they're moving into. What what would the future scenario look like if carbon emissions continue at the current rate if we don't get our act together and slow this global warming where will the corals and tropical fish of the Great Barrier Reef be located say in a hundred years will they all be on the southern coast of Australia? And if that happens where are all those species that are endemic to the southern coast going to go?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yeah it's going to get a bit crowded.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

It's going to be a bottleneck in Tasmania.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

It will be I think sadly the story for our warm water coral reefs isn't a good one and so the changes that are occurring are happening really too rapidly for our warm water coral reefs. So a really good resource is global tipping point report there was one released last year and warm water coral reefs are really the frontline of those ecosystems that really we're already at temperatures that are getting very close to being too warm for them. And so there estimates for thermal tipping points for coral reefs are 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures and we're already sort of getting around 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial conditions and if we keep tracking the way we are we'll be well above that. And so that's reflected in these back-to-back bleaching events that have a huge impact on our coral reefs and so in actual fact the changes that we're seeing are happening too rapidly for our corals to pack up and move to other waters and also as I said about the importance of having areas to settle and habitat on which they can attach is really important. So I think that sadly our warm water coral reefs in particular these ecosystems are in really big trouble and species redistribution isn't going to be the answer for them.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah I really think despite many people's optimism just relocating an entire ecosystem of thousands of species to a different area is not going to be a viable solution.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

It's just not an option.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

It's definitely not an alternative to cutting carbon emissions and actually dealing with the root of the problem which is climate change. That is the the only the real option but you know some species are going to relocate. But we know that corals the reason we have the biggest reef is because we have a big shallow continental shelf that they all live on whereas further south they don't have that big shallow continental shelf. So corals need to be you know in the first thirty metres of water tropical types of corals need to be near the surface. They need that photosynthesize. So there's there's many, many issues with that but I mean are there any positive effects from this climate driven species redistribution?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah that's a good question, Tanya I think there have been examples globally and also in Tasmania of fishery species moving into locations where they weren't previously a good example would be the Sydney octopus or the gloomy octopus was only found in New South Wales waters and then it turned up in Tassie waters in the year around 2000 and then became so prevalent a fishery was established for that species.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

So the fishers are happy the fishermen.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah and in other parts of the world there have been winners and losers for fisheries where fishery species have moved northward in those locations so entire nations have lost fisheries target species and then adjacent countries that are further north have picked up a new fishery species. So you can have human communities who are relying on species can lose that species because it no longer lives there anymore and then will turn up in new locations and so I guess you can sort of see that if you try hard enough as a bit of a positive at least for some of those nations.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Someone's loss is someone else's win at least until the animals move on again.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

That's right that's right so yeah overall it's it's not such a great sign. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah so while we're on that topic of the impact on human communities what other impacts might these animal relocations have on the human communities who rely on these species not only for fisheries but also traditional indigenous culture and also tourism?

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah that's a great question. So tourism of course is so crucial for Queensland and for the Great Barrier Reef and so I don't know the dollar value but a lot of people come to the Great Barrier Reef globally.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Wow huge amounts and people come here to see the beautiful Great Barrier Reef and the diversity of corals and fishes and other animals that live here and so protecting it not only for tourism dollars but also for our fisheries and the protection that the reef provides from you know cyclones and the like is it's so important in so many different ways.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah it's very interesting when people have said to me well I'm not worried because I think all the corals and animals will just move south and they'll be okay and I'm like but what about you? You own a house in Cairns What do you think's going to happen to your property price where when the entire tourism industry packs up and leaves.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Yeah that's right that's like when they say that it's like you just take that big breath and you go where do I start? How long have you got? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

And I think a really important example where that's already occurred is in the Caribbean where I think the coral reefs there are really functionally dead now. So the changes already occurred your listeners could look to that to see really what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

I could fill a whole we'll we have to do a Caribbean episode at some point because I have a very good friend working at a dive centre in Florida who who just says there's nothing left to show the tourists anymore. But the the the tourists still come because they just want to drink cocktails on the beach which they can still do. And they can still go diving there's still you know a few things to see but it's yeah they've got very few species of coral left so they're taking them diving on shipwrecks and yeah other objects that are man-made and there's a few things around. But yeah that's a topic for a whole separate episode. But it definitely it wouldn't be they still have tourism but it wouldn't be the same as what it could be if they still had world class coral reefs like we in Cairns are so lucky to still have.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

That's right absolutely and yeah you also asked about traditional indigenous cultures a a good example of species redistribution but in the terrestrial area that's actually been really well documented and important is actually about reindeer migrations of all places in Finland where native peoples are really dependent upon the reindeer as a food source that migrate and the changing migration patterns of reindeer are due to climate redistribution. So they're not moving in the same locations and have changed in their redistribution means that this traditional hunting is no longer available. So that's an example from the terrestrial environments but species that are important to Australian traditional indigenous communities are also shifting range and this is definitely important to those communities also.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah and I bet they would be the first to notice if they were seeing unusual species in their area or if the usual species are suddenly disappearing. Yeah because they've been hunting them for thousands of years and passing down the knowledge about them which we talked about on a recent show. What about jellyfish? People are a bit worried about whether they'll see more of those tropical jellyfish down in the southern part of Australia where we have more major cities and Bondo beach and all that they'll brine the boxfish turning up down there, that is for sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Yes absolutely I think that jellyfish is a really important one to keep track of obviously for human health reasons I'm not familiar with the It's a bit harder to photograph as a citizen scientist I dare say.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Yeah you don't want to be getting too close to one of them.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah no no I think you know often people will discover those in much more frightening ways.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

So so we're tracking their incidence by hospitalizations more than photographs.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

You know they're they're scared of the blue bottle down there. They've never they don't know nothing yet.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

That's right and I think that some other methods also in the genetic space of using environmental DNA and tools like that to detect signals and signatures of those species that are much harder to see are being developed to try and keep track of their distribution and their limits and also their arrival. So to complement netting strategies in the north using tools like that can be really useful to try and help us identify where those transparent species are occurring.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

I think we also just need to remind our listeners and anyone from overseas that you know when we're talking about people coming up to us and going, oh I'll be right they can all move south you're moving an area bigger than Japan south 2,300 kilometers of reef 3,000 individual reefs 15% of all marine life on planet earth live on the Great Barrier Reef. Do you know what I mean? This is not an option. We have to change what we're doing to allow them to stay in their home.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

It's it's just be it's just not an option.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Yeah the Great Barrier Reef itself is many times bigger than Tasmania.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah. So you can't just switch it into U lot can go and yeah you know two thousand three hundred kilometres of marine life and fish and coral and etc you guys can all move down to Tassie. It's just not an option.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

What can be done to mitigate or solve the issues caused by species redistribution, Professor Strognell Well one thing that of course it's not going to mitigate or solve but it'll help us understand is to submit images to redbat.org so we can keep track of species that are shifting range, understand where to put resources and learn more about what is happening in our local environments but ultimately in order to really solve the issue we really need to reduce our carbon emissions urgently. So this is the only thing that we can do to stop these changes that we're seeing in our marine environments. And so this is really where we need to put our efforts.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yeah exactly right look after their home now.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Yeah we saw that great example in our interview with Stefan from the Great Southern Reef Foundation Citizen Science helps to reveal problems like the urchin invasion of Tasmania and then that science leads to a push for policy change which will be measures to deal with the urchin invasion and trying to help fund fisheries to catch the uh urchins and sell them to people as food and ideas like that. And that's a big project just with one species. But if we get an influx of thousands of species coming down south it's going to be really hard to deal with them all. So um addressing the problem at the root and prevention is always better than a cure, isn't it? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

That's that's exactly right but I think that citizen scientists should know that their data is really important. And so we've mentioned some of those examples from down south and the truth is we know so much less about our local environment here in Queensland because our coast is so large and there's far fewer people and we have such rich and diverse ecosystems and so the information that our citizens do record and submit is really important for gathering that data, for influencing policy, for communicating to our politicians about the changes that are occurring and to show these changes and to show the general public using their own data the changes that are occurring and so it is really important information to document these changes and so your listeners and the citizens should know that the information that they collect does help influence policy and to really raise awareness about these changes and that's super crucial.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Yep well I'll be definitely making sure that the team at the aquarium have that downloaded because they're out there all the time as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah so remind all the listeners again where they can head to learn more and sign up for Redmap it's got an app so you can just search for it in the app store, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:35

That's right. So we have an app and a website we've got a Facebook page we're active on all kinds of social media we have a newsletter and our website is www.redmap.org.au and there you can find loads of information about species that are shifting range our target species that we ask you to keep an eye out of report cards to show the information where citizen scientists have contributed information that has led to real documented information about species that are shifting range so that is over 200 species in the last decade that have shifted range in Australian waters and so it's a really great place to go to to find out more about this information and also we have resources there so species cards and posters you can download all these kinds of things to learn more about species redistribution and also real evidence scientific papers and policy outcomes that have come from the data that citizens have submitted. What gives you hope Professor Strugnell I think the next generation you know something that I'm really fortunate to be able to do is teach students and young people and also do outreach with students in primary schools as well and I think that's just the enthusiasm and knowledge and passion of young people gives me hope for the future that they're aware of the changes and they are so knowledgeable and care so much about the planet and are are keen to make the changes that need to occur because you know this is their future.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Absolutely yesterday I was doing a turtle tour that I do every day. And a cans couple turned up and their little boy I think was only about nine ten months old and they wanted to go on my turtle tour and they said oh because our little boy's first word last week was turtle and I just stood there I'm like okay don't well up it's good and the whole time we were in there little dudes just looking at Tommy the turtle going turtle turtle turtle and they said it was it was the best tour ever but yeah I'm with you on that because I take school groups through and everything and that gives me hope too absolutely what a great first word Turtle it's not the easiest one it's not they're like mama dada not turtle amazing yeah very special.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Well that's a perfect note to finish off on because that's all we have time for today. Jan Strugnell evolutionary molecular biologist professor and director in the Centre for sustainable tropical fisheries and aquaculture at James Cook University. Thanks for all your amazing work and thanks for joining us on Word on the Reef today.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Thanks so much for inviting me it's been a lot of fun and yes thanks again.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Thank you so much. Pleasure to make you have a quick and thanks to you all our listeners for joining us on Word on the Reef with me, Tanya Murphy and co-host Brett Goodband. We'll be back next week with more Marine Science Defenders at 10 a.m Friday on 10 December 89.1 is broadcast live from the 10th of FM studio which is on the land 15.12 by ETC4 with Live Fix