Julia Sobol1
1University of Tasmania, Australia
Temperate ecosystems worldwide are approaching tipping-points as mounting cumulative impacts threaten habitat quality and biodiversity. One such accelerating impact is ocean warming, which has facilitated the range extension of species into regions where they did not previously exist, disrupting ecological balances and causing catastrophic shifts in ecosystem composition. In southeast Australia, the longspined sea urchin, Centrostephanus rodgersii, has undergone a poleward range extension from native subtropical waters of New South Wales to the cooler Tasmanian waters, simplifying rocky reef habitats to ‘barrens’ habitat. This shift ultimately devastates kelp ecosystems, threatening the viability of commercial fisheries and recreational industries. However, management interventions for C.rodgersii currently vary across states, and the lack of coordinated management effort creates difficulties in combating barren formation over larger ecological scales. Here, I present the recreation of the historical range extension of C.rodgersii along the eastern Great Southern Reef through modelling metapopulation dynamics and larval connectivity pathways. This model demonstrates its utility for evaluating cross-jurisdictional management strategies towards optimising control of this problematic species.
Biography
Julia Sobol is a PhD student at the University of Tasmania, where she specialises in marine ecological modelling. Her research focuses on using agent-based modelling to create metacommunity models aimed at investigating how cross-jurisdictional management can mitigate the cumulative pressures on Australia’s Great Southern Reef. Through these models, she seeks to inform management strategies that preserve biodiversity and support sustainable marine ecosystems.