As the effects of anthropogenic climate change and other stressors become apparent in ecosystems globally, having a baseline understanding of biodiversity and community composition is critical. Despite being one of the most charismatic and widely studied marine systems, significant knowledge gaps in our understanding of coral reef diversity remain. Benthic habitat in coral reef systems is dominated by inter-reefal soft sediment habitat, which hosts diverse and important taxa. However, these communities have been largely neglected in the scientific literature, with scant studies reporting infauna community composition in tropical systems. This research aims to characterise soft sediment communities within One Tree Island lagoon in the southern Great Barrier Reef. Furthermore, we will investigate how these communities vary with distance from patch reef, to assess the extent of the ecological influence of patch reefs on surrounding habitats. Our study will provide baseline descriptions of common taxa and community composition in this system, and will contribute to our understanding of how climate change may affect these communities by incorporating reefs of varying health (measured as % live coral cover) in the study design. Preliminary results indicate very high diversity and abundance of infauna across multiple phyla. Final results will be available by September.