Chatham/Challenger Biodiversity & Sea-bed Habitats Project

20 July 2006

Areas being studied:
Chatham Rise, Challenger Plateau

Lead agency:
Ministry of Fisheries

Other agencies:
Department of Conservation, Land Information New Zealand, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

Purpose of Project

The prime purpose of this project is to map and compare the sea-bed habitats and the biological diversity of the sea-bed at several locations across the Chatham Rise and the Challenger Plateau.

Reason for Project

Very little is known about the diversity of animal communities that live on the sea-bed, particularly in offshore sediment habitats which cover much of our economic zone. More importantly, we know little about how crucial these communities are to the health of the marine environment and their role in sustaining our fish resources. Mapping and characterising the types of communities living there is the first step.

Zoning the ocean into areas that reflect biodiversity for management purposes is a complex task. To date, progress has been made using physical oceanic data, but information about sea-bed ecology is largely missing. The Chatham Rise and Challenger Plateau areas have been chosen for this project because they provide a strong contrast in terms of plankton productivity. Sea-bed biodiversity is likely to mirror this.

What Will Be Achieved

This project will provide significant new information about the biodiversity of the sea-bed. Once combined with the physical ocean data that already exists, the government will be much better placed to make decisions about the protection of biodiversity and developing standards for maintaining aquatic health.

The Plan

The first step is to work out how much of these two very large areas of ocean can realistically be surveyed in the time allotted. Three voyages from R.V. Tangaroa will then follow. The first, in August 2006 will acoustically map the sea-bed habitats in locations that will be later be explored with deep-sea cameras and sampled by sea-bed sleds during two voyages between April and June 2007. Preliminary maps of biodiversity and the habitat types from these three surveys will be available by mid-2008.