Understanding the movements and space use of animals is necessary to identify vital habitats and better manage vulnerable species. We used acoustic telemetry to examine movement patterns of juvenile Himantura granulata in an intertidal bay. The majority of rays remained within the intertidal bay for the entire monitoring period, demonstrating the importance of intertidal habitats to H. granulata. Rays exhibited refuging behaviour in mangrove and reef habitats, suggesting that predation risk may be a principal factor influencing the movement of small rays.

With Australia's narrow continental shelf, Australia's estuaries, embayments and coastal waters are essential to fisheries productivity and marine biodiversity. Yet these are our most degraded ecosystems. This Business Case demonstrates that an investment in repair of $350 million would be repaid just from increased value of commercial fish catch in less than 5 years – probably a far greater return on investment than any of Australia's previous environmental initiatives.

DNA barcodes were used to identify deep-water chondrichthyans occurring off Portugal mainland. Cytochrome c oxidase I proved to be adequate for species identification, with almost all putative species analysed (Chimaeriformes, Hexanchiformes, Squaliformes, Carcharhiniformes and Lamniformes), recovered as well supported monophyletic clades. Results suggest that three different Centrophorus species occur off the Portuguese mainland, C. saquamosus, C. granulosus and C. uyato.

The toxicity of three antidepressants in diverse freshwater species was positively correlated with ambient pH, and varied among drugs and taxa. The environmental impact of these pollutants thus becomes greater as pH increases, and is greater in habitats containing sensitive species. The results suggest that sublethal effects will also be influenced by ambient pH, and other psychotropic amine drugs will behave in a similar way.

Inputs of nutrients, sediments and detritus from catchments can promote selected components of reservoir fish assemblages, while hindering others. We compared fish assemblages in reservoirs of two sub-basins of the Tennessee River representing differing intensities of agricultural development, and hypothesised that fish assemblage structure indicated by species percentage composition would differ among reservoirs in the two sub-basins. We observed a shift from an invertivore-based fish assemblage in forested catchments to a detritivore-based fish assemblage in agricultural catchments that may be a widespread pattern among reservoirs and other aquatic ecosystems.

On the lower Western Australian coast, the terapontid Pelates octolineatus uses seagrass as a nursery area during the first year of life, and then moves out into sparser seagrass in deeper waters, where it matures at the end of its second year of life at total lengths (TL) of 140–170 mm. This species attained a maximum TL of ~256 mm and maximum age of 10 years. A sine-based growth curve emphasised that growth is seasonal and instantaneous growth rates were shown to peak in the warm summer months and to decline in amplitude with age. Gonadal recrudescence occurs in early spring as water temperature and day length increases and spawning peaks in late-spring to mid-summer when water temperatures are approaching their maxima.

Little is known about the effect of different shell morphologies on the macrozoobenthic community. The associated fauna did not vary among empty shells of four bivalve species. The invasive species C. fluminea shells partially replaced the role of empty shells of native species as a physical substratum.

Characterising the movement and habitat affinities of fish is a fundamental component in understanding the functioning of marine ecosystems. Acoustic telemetry was employed at two coastal temperate rocky-reefs in south-east Australia to examine the movements, spatial utilisation and residency of the herbivorous teleost Girella elevata. Spatial metrics of habitat use highlighted the susceptibility of G. elevata to recreational fishing pressure. Such studies are providing important data for spatial management measures such as marine protected areas and increasing our understanding of the latitudinal interactions of fish populations.