Assessing the effectiveness of two methods of habitat characterisation for understanding species habitat relationships, using the western rock lobster (Panulirus cygnus George)

The present study assesses the effectiveness of two methods, towed video and multibeam acoustics, for characterising habitat and their ability to predict the distribution and abundance of lobsters. Lobsters were chosen as a case study for the comparison given previous work demonstrating that their strong habitat associations can be effectively modelled.Both methods of habitat assessment showed a strong association between western rock lobster abundance and size and habitat types with approximately 60% of lobster abundance and size explained by the combination of Ecklonia and sponges. Simple cost effective methods, such as towed video, can generate comparable results to more complex and expensive methods. Given the large spatial scales over which natural resources management is implemented, simple cost effective methods of habitat assessment are essential.