MARINE HABITAT TRAJECTORIES |
Project MEXODUS |
Team Sea Habitats has been surveying the seagrass meadows and coral reefs of the Mersing Marine Park Islands, Johor, since 2005. These early efforts were sporadic and spatially-sparse, but they clued us into the potential of these data in revealing interesting ecosystem dynamics. Model predictions by other scientists about the effects of climate warming on fish, for example, suggest that tropical ecosystems are likely to experience either species reshuffling, or an outright loss of species. To test this idea, we need long-term data sets that show whether this region will experience a hypothesized exodus of species out of their usual tropical home range, or not.
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Project MEXODUS was launched in April 2017, marking the start of a systematic, long-term seagrass and coral reef monitoring program in the Johor archipelago (Pulau Rawa, Pulau Besar, Pulau Sibu and Pulau Tinggi). In doing so, there is also opportunity for strengthening how these ecosystems are managed by providing science-based evidence for habitat health and self-renewal.
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On how conservation, science, and management fit together: |
In Project Marine Exodus (MEXODUS), measurements that are climatically relevant and that reflect habitat health and status are collected across different seasons to yield long-term marine habitat data sets. These will help us understand the trajectories of our marine habitats and the reasons for their trends. |