Nico Fassbender 2024 Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting combined with NZMSS

Nico Fassbender

Hallo! I am currently completing my PhD at UWA and I'm assessing how climate change affects shark behaviour. My research investigates the relationship between reef habitat complexity and habitat use in 7 reef-associated shark species. By combining predator and prey assemblage structure, benthic structural complexity, and shark movement behaviour, I will model how changes to reef structure, and associated changes in reef fish communities, can affect fine-scale habitat suitability choices of coral reef top predators. Over the last year's we collected 550 hours of BRUVS footage, acoustically tagged and faecally swabbed over 100 sharks, and mapped 6 km2 of coral reefs using 3D photogrammetry.