‘Meta groups’: these are combination of a number of functional groups in the EwE foodweb. These include:
- Target Species: Emperors adults and Snappers,Threadfin
- Mammals: Humpback whale and Dolphins
- Sea Birds: Coastal seabirds and Migratory shorebirds
- Fish Trophic levels 2 to 3: Planktivore fish, Reef Associated Pelagics, Herbivorous Fish, Small Reef Fish
- Corals: Hard corals and Soft corals
‘Charismatic species’: these include specific functional groups in EwE foodweb which hold a particular economic social or cultural value to different stakeholder groups:
- Pelagic sharks
- Snubfin Dolphin
- Adult barramundi
- Large Reef Fish
- Shallow Demersal Fish
- Turtles: Green sea turtle and Marine turtles
- Dugong
‘Habitats’: including seagrass and mangroves
‘System level indicators’ which are designed to reflect the state of the overall foodweb rather than of some of its component. These include:
- Total biomass
- Net Primary production (ratio between primary producers and total biomass)
- Divergence. This is a measure of how the distribution of biomass between species change over time. Here we adopted the ‘Hellinger’ distance [17] as a measure of divergence.
- Total Divergence. This is a modification of the divergence measure at the previous point. While the Divergence is insensitive to changes in overall biomass, the Total Divergence account for change in total biomass by assigning change in overall biomass to a fictitious species in the foodweb. This measure has been designed specifically for this project and we intend to publish it in the near future.