The use of singlebeam echo-sounder depth data to produce demersal fish distribution models that are comparable to models produced using multibeam echo-sounder depth.

Seafloor characteristics can help in the prediction of fish distribution, which is required for fisheries and conservation management. Despite this, only 5%-10% of the world's seafloor has been mapped at high resolution, as it is a time-consuming and expensive process. Multibeam echo-sounders (MBES) can produce high-resolution bathymetry and a broad swath coverage of the seafloor, but require greater financial and technical resources for operation and data analysis than singlebeam echo-sounders (SBES).

The development of the Western Australian Haemodialysis Vascular Access Complexity instrument.

Background: The Western Australian Haemodialysis Vascular Access Classification instrument was developed to classify the cannulation complexity of the arteriovenous fistula or arteriovenous graft as simple, challenging, or complex. Although the instrument was developed by experts in haemodialysis nursing, the instrument had not undergone formal validity or reliability testing.

Objectives: Evaluate the Western Australian Haemodialysis Vascular Access Classification instrument for content validity, interrater and test-retest reliability.

Effects of vessel traffic and underwater noise on the movement, behaviour and vocalisations of bottlenose dolphins in an urbanised estuary.

The potential disturbance of dolphins from tourism boats has been widely discussed in the literature, in terms of both physical vessel presence and associated underwater noise. However, less attention has been paid to the potential impact of non-tourism vessels, despite these being much more widespread and occurring in greater numbers throughout coastal dolphin habitats. The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (T.

Atypical residency of short-beaked common dolphins () to a shallow, urbanized embayment in south-eastern Australia.

Short-beaked common dolphins () are typically considered highly mobile, offshore delphinids. This study assessed the residency of a small community of short-beaked common dolphins in the shallow, urbanized Port Phillip Bay, south-eastern Australia. The ability to identify common dolphins by their dorsal fin markings and coloration using photo-identification was also investigated.

Whisker spot patterns: a noninvasive method of individual identification of Australian sea lions ().

Reliable methods for identification of individual animals are advantageous for ecological studies of population demographics and movement patterns. Photographic identification, based on distinguishable patterns, unique shapes, or scars, is an effective technique already used for many species. We tested whether photographs of whisker spot patterns could be used to discriminate among individual Australian sea lion ().

An assessment of the effectiveness of high definition cameras as remote monitoring tools for dolphin ecology studies.

Research involving marine mammals often requires costly field programs. This paper assessed whether the benefits of using cameras outweighs the implications of having personnel performing marine mammal detection in the field. The efficacy of video and still cameras to detect Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in the Fremantle Harbour (Western Australia) was evaluated, with consideration on how environmental conditions affect detectability.

Topographic determinants of mobile vertebrate predator hotspots: current knowledge and future directions.

Despite being identified as a driver of mobile predator aggregations (hotspots) in both marine and terrestrial environments, topographic complexity has long remained a challenging concept for scientists to visualise and a difficult parameter to estimate. It is only with the advent of high-speed computers and the recent popularisation of geographical information systems (GIS) that terrain attributes have begun to be quantitatively measured in three-dimensional space and related to wildlife dynamics, making the well-established field of geomorphometry (or 'digital terrain modelling') a discipline of growing appeal to biologists. Although a diverse array of numerical metrics is now available to describe the shape, geometry and physical properties of natural habitats, few of these are known to, or adequately used by, ecologists.

Vocal characteristics of pygmy blue whales and their change over time.

Vocal characteristics of pygmy blue whales of the eastern Indian Ocean population were analyzed using data from a hydroacoustic station deployed off Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia as part of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty monitoring network, from two acoustic observatories of the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System, and from individual sea noise loggers deployed in the Perth Canyon. These data have been collected from 2002 to 2010, inclusively. It is shown that the themes of pygmy blue whale songs consist of ether three or two repeating tonal sounds with harmonics.