Author Identifier (ORCID)
Abstract
Southern Australia supports a high diversity of fishes in the family Syngnathidae, which is recognised as globally threatened, facing threats from coastal development, over-exploitation and bycatch. In southwestern Australia, Cockburn Sound houses a large industrial port and naval defence assets with plans to substantially expand the port facilities but also sits within a recognised syngnathid ‘hotspot’. Using a broad array of data sources, including historical museum vouchers, published records, historical and contemporary observations from notebooks and diving surveys, historical and contemporary trawl surveys, citizen science observations and environmental DNA, we compiled 4839 records of syngnathid fishes from the embayment. Twenty-one species of seadragons, seahorses or pipefishes were confirmed from an area of around 200 km2, representing a high diversity by area on a global scale. This remarkable diversity exists despite the bay being a highly modified system. Many species are likely to face conservation concerns within the bay, but others may benefit from the addition of artificial structures. There is clearly a need to protect the diversity and mitigate detrimental impacts from development and ongoing infrastructure operations, including direct and indirect interaction, habitat loss, water quality, turbidity, noise and introduced pests.
Keywords
Cockburn Sound, infrastructure development, pipefish, seadragon, seahorse, threatened
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
7-1-2026
Article Number
437
E-ISSN
14242818
Volume
18
Issue
7
Publication Title
Diversity
Publisher
MDPI
School
Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research / School of Science
RAS ID
101941
Funding Information
This research was funded by the Western Australian Government, Department of Transport and delivered by the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) as Project 8.4 (Spatio-temporal distribution of syngnathid fishes in Cockburn Sound and Owen Anchorage, Western Australia) of the WAMSI Westport Marine Science Program.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Moore, G. I., Ritchie, J. A., Nester, G. M., Hyndes, G. A., & Kendrick, A. J. (2026). A remarkable diversity of syngnathid fishes in a highly modified large coastal embayment in the southeastern Indian Ocean. Diversity, 18(7), Article 437. https://doi.org/10.3390/d18070437