Myers, Jaelen, Barnett, Adam, Crook, Kevin, and Sheaves, Marcus (2026) Characterising Intertidal Ray Communities of North-East Australia. Estuaries and Coasts, 49. 139.

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Abstract

Tidal flat ecosystems are considered essential habitats for numerous elasmobranch species worldwide, yet regional-scale assessments of community composition and habitat use are largely lacking, particularly for batoids (rays). Aerial drone surveys were conducted at eight intertidal flats in North Queensland, Australia to better characterise patterns of species occurrence in tropical estuarine (n = 2), marine beach (n = 3), and offshore reef flat (n = 3) environments. Between Sept 2020-Oct 2022, 155 video surveys were collected over repeat site visits, totalling 2,667 total ray observations. For each site, Machelef’s species richness, community evenness, and species composition were calculated from the total observations. Nine species were encountered across three families (Dasyatidae, Aetobatidae, and Glaucostegidae), with most common species including Australian whipray Himantura australis (n = 1,295), broad cowtail ray Pastinachus ater (n = 515), mangrove whipray Urogymnus granulatus (n = 386), giant shovelnose ray Glaucostegus typus (n = 233), and pink whipray Pateobatis fai (n = 88). Species richness among habitat types ranged from 1.34 to 3.16 and community evenness from 0.25 to 0.89. Estuarine sites contained highest relative abundances of H. australis, while beach flats supported more balanced mixed-species assemblages of H. australis, G. typus, and P. ater, and reef flats supported assemblages of U. granulatus, P. ater, and P. fai. This study offers one of the first multi-site comparisons of ray communities in North Queensland. Continuing these efforts and integrating with other methodologies will be valuable for elucidating species-habitat associations and drivers of community variability amidst increasing coastal change.

Item ID:	92533
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1559-2731
Keywords:	Batoid, Community ecology, Australia, Species composition, Drone survey, Intertidal
Copyright Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	30 Jun 2026 23:26
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180504 Marine biodiversity @ 100%
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