R. Watson, G. Goeden, (1989). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 27, 611-620.
Management needs for zonation of the central Great Barrier Reef Marine Park by user activity prompted a study of the demersal trawl fauna from a range of sites. Cluster analysis revealed three distinct site assemblages: ‘coastal’ , ‘inshore’ , and ‘inter-reef’ , characterized by the conspicuous abundance of some species and the absence of other species. The location of these assemblages was related to water depth, sediment particle size composition and distance offshore but could not be explained by the distribution of fishing effort. Some sites, intermediate in location between these assemblages, were assigned to a ‘transitional’ assemblage in which sites changed affiliation temporally.