Biodiversity and habitat assessment of subtidal reefs at the Mercury Islands, northeastern New Zealand

Report: TR 2023/25

Authors: PE Caiger, O Peleg and NT Shears (Institute of Marine Science)

With growing pressure on the marine environment there is an urgent need to understand the health of coastal reef ecosystems in order to inform marine managers on the state of the environment and support marine spatial planning.

To date, very limited information exists on the biodiversity and health of rocky reef ecosystems at the Mercury Islands, northeastern New Zealand.

To address this knowledge gap, reef fish and benthic community surveys were carried out at nine sites spanning the island group in 2021/2022. In addition, targeted surveys for key reef invertebrates (red rock lobster Jasus edwardsii, long-spined urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii) were carried out at seven of these sites.