Figure 1.
Map of the NSW coastline showing the regional coverage of the surveys.
The table indicates the number of sites in each broad habitat category for each region: E = estuary; B = bay; C = coastal; N = nearshore reef; M = mid-shelf reef; O = offshore reef.
Figure 2.
Mean (±SE) debris loads (filled bars) and diversity (unfilled bars) of debris items per transect averaged over all sites within each habitat category.
Table 1.
Summary of pairwise contrasts (PERMANOVA) amongst habitats for the multivariate tests of differences in debris structure, and for the univariate tests for abundance (Nd) and diversity (Sd). P(perm) values are shown with significant terms in bold font. E = estuary; B = bay; C = coastal; N = nearshore reef; M = mid-shelf reef; O = offshore reef.
Figure 3.
Non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination of debris items recorded from 120 sites.
Data points represent averages of transects deployed at each site. Vectors are displayed for debris items that were consistently ranked highly in SIMPER analyses of differences among habitats. The vector line indicates the plane of increasing abundance, and the length relative to the circle indicates the strength of the correlation (Spearman).
Figure 4.
Direct impact of fishing activities on a colony of the geographically restricted soft coral Dendronephthya australis at the Pipeline, Port Stephens.