The Centre's Fish Ecology Research and Monitoring group provides knowledge and advice on the sustainable management of catchments, freshwater and estuarine water resources, and biodiversity values.

Strategic research and monitoring

The group can provide advice on:

• aquatic resources in rural and urban landscapes
• threatening processes
• habitat assessment and rehabilitation
• threatened species and communities

The group has a comprehensive range of field and laboratory equipment.  We have a fully-equipped laboratory with facilities for processing of samples, microscopy and microphotography.

Our field equipment includes a state of the art electrofishing unit for both bank and boatmounted applications: the only unit in south-west Australia capable of effectively sampling in saline water up to 5.5 mS/m or 1/10th seawater.

The group also has research vessels, a comprehensive range of netting and trapping equipment for sampling fish in a range of estuarine and freshwater habitats, and multi-probe water chemistry analysers.  

Expertise and resources

The group has specific expertise and resources in:

• design of monitoring programs and sampling regimes
• sampling techniques including electrofishing and netting
• taxonomy and systematics
• acoustic telemetry for fish movement studies
• species biology
• population and community ecology
• habitat requirements
• Fishway advice, assessment and monitoring
• environmental water requirements
• larval fish ecology
• GIS and mapping capabilities
• stable isotope tracking of fish food webs

For further information on this research please contact Dr Paul Close.