Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve Survey

Abstract

This report presents and discusses the results of a biological survey of subtidal reefs at the Poor Knights Islands. It was done from July 1983 to January 1984 and represents the work of some 285 scuba dives. The report is designed to accommodate different levels of interest in the results and different levels of expertise, from the layman to the professional biologist. Accordingly, it is divided into several sections. Chapter 1 contains a general description of habitats, a rationale for the sampling techniques and a summary of the major findings. Chapters 2 & 3 contain details of the sampling programme, a full description of results and a discussion. These chapters are more technical in nature than the first. Finally, the Appendix contains information about the abundances of individual species, statistical models used for analyses, and a previous report (1982) on fish populations.