RECREATIONAL and commercial fishing around Western Australia will soon benefit from a marine science PhD at Murdoch University.

Supervised by Professor Ian Potter, Fiona Valesini (pictured) is devising a simple guide for classifying the different types of fish habitat found along the lower west coast of Australia.

By measuring characteristics, such as the orientation of the beach, the type of substrate, the extent of exposure to swell and the amount of seagrass present, Ms Valesini has been able to distinguish six broad habitat types along this coastline.

Ms Valesini, together with five honours students and graduate research assistants, has been recording the types of fauna, particularly fish species, present during each season and during the day and night.

Marine invertebrates were also investigated at some of the sites.

“Sampling the fish and invertebrate fauna at examples of each of the six habitat types at different times of the day and year has provided a comprehensive view of how each of those habitat types is used by fauna throughout the year,” she said.

“Our results will be relevant to anyone interested in commercial and recreational fishing. For example, certain areas in the coastal zone act as a critical habitat for many baitfish, such as sandy sprat and blue sprat, and as nursery areas for commercial and recreational fish species, such as King George whiting, tailor, yellow-eye mullet and silver bream.

“The results will enable managers to conserve those habitats that are important for some of our major fish species.

“We believe that the new approaches we’ve developed for relating the composition of fish communities with habitat type will be able to be modified for use in coastal regions around Australia.”

Ms Valesini’s project forms part of a study that was funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC). She intends to complete her PhD next year.