ABRS National Taxonomy Research Grant Program
In the 2009–2010 grants round, CReefs began a partnership with the ABRS to provide $205 000 per year for three years to supplement matching funding from the ABRS National Taxonomy Research Grant Program. This combined pool of $410 000 per annum supported a number of taxonomic research projects focussed in the area of tropical reef systems.
CReefs is a field project of the international Census of Marine Life focused on filling gaps in our knowledge of what lives on coral reefs. A partnership between BHP Billiton, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) is allowing Australian reef sites to be included in the CReefs global research initiative. A consortium of scientists is sampling and analyzing coral reef biodiversity at three key Australian reef sites: the Great Barrier Reef’s Heron and Lizard Islands and Ninglaoo Reef in Western Australia. The consortium included scientists from AIMS, the Australian Museum, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Museum Victoria, the Queensland Museum, the South Australian Museum and the Western Australian Museum, as well as the University of Adelaide, Murdoch University, the Australian Herbarium and the Smithsonian Institution.
Grants associated with CReefs funding were awarded through the normal ABRS grants process. CReefs provided input to this process in terms of priorities for research and expected deliverables (e.g. estimates of morphospecies numbers, barcoding and the serving of data to OBIS — the Biogeographic Information System) and formal input to the assessment process for grants that include CReefs funding.