CReefs
ABRS National Taxonomy Research Grant Program
CReefs is currently partnering with ABRS as a Substantial Supplement Partner. In the 2009/2010 grants round, CReefs began a partnership with ABRS to provide $200 000 per year for three years to supplement matching funding from the ABRS National Taxonomy Research Grant Program. This combined pool of $400 000 p.a. is supporting a number of taxonomic research projects focussed in the area of tropical reef systems.
CReefs is a field project of the international Census of Marine Life focused on filling gaps in our knowledge of what lives on coral reefs. A partnership between BHP Billiton, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) is allowing Australian reef sites to be included in the CReefs global research initiative. A consortium of scientists is sampling and analyzing coral reef biodiversity at three key Australian reef sites: the Great Barrier Reef’s Heron and Lizard Islands and Ninglaoo Reef in Western Australia. The consortium currently includes scientists from AIMS, the Australian Museum, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Museum Victoria, the Queensland Museum, the South Australian Museum and the Western Australian Museum, as well as the University of Adelaide, Murdoch University, the Australian Herbarium and the Smithsonian Institution. The consortium is open to additional collaborators.
Grants associated with CReefs funding have been awarded through the normal ABRS grants process. CReefs provided input to this process in terms of priorities for research and expected deliverables (e.g. estimates of morphospecies numbers, barcoding and the serving of data to OBIS — the Biogeographic Information System) and formal input to the assessment process for grants that include CReefs funding.
For further information
Please contact AIMS Principal Research Scientist Julian Caley at j.caley@aims.gov.au.
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