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Web of life · Sea country

Pull any thread

The land does not stop at the beach. The gradient runs on under the waves, beach to pasture to reef; pull on anything living out there and the rest of the place comes with it.

The Sunshine Coast sea country in cross-section A drawn cross-section of the Sunshine Coast's sea country, shore to sea. At the left, dry beach sand runs down past ghost crab burrows to the swash, where pipis ride the backwash and the low tide bares the flats. The sea surface runs across the frame, and the bottom slopes away under it: first the pale sunlit shallows carpeted with seagrass, grazed by a dugong and a green turtle, then hard rock, where the Noosa headland's reef, the Point Cartwright shoals, the boulder reef and the offshore pinnacles carry coral and cool-water sponge on the same stones, with a grey nurse shark and a manta ray hanging above them. Far out, whale spouts mark the travellers' road. The drawn residents are named beside their drawings, and labelled chips mark where each working group operates. The complete record of who is here, and how they are joined, follows this picture as text. Ghost crabs Pipis The beach The flats Swash & flats The passage Seagrass Dugong Green turtle Seagrass shallows Noosa headland Headland reef Mudjimba's boulder reef Wolf Rock Grey nurse shark Manta ray The reef Loggerhead Shorebirds The whale road The open water Wedge-tailed shearwater The air
The Sunshine Coast sea country in cross-section A tall drawn cross-section of the Sunshine Coast's sea country, read top to bottom as a descent from the beach into deep water. Under a narrow band of air with a shearwater in it, dry sand with ghost crab burrows gives way to the swash where the pipis ride, then to the bared low-tide flats with waders probing them. Below the flats lie the sunlit seagrass shallows, grazed by a dugong and a green turtle, and below the meadow the bottom turns to rock: the Point Cartwright shoals, the reef under the Noosa headland, the boulder reef and the offshore pinnacles, coral and cool-water sponge on the same stones, a grey nurse shark and a manta ray above them. The deep open water at the foot of the frame carries the whale road. The drawn residents are named beside their drawings, and labelled chips mark where each working group operates. The complete record of who is here, and how they are joined, follows this picture as text. Ghost crabs Pipis The beach The flats Swash & flats Loggerhead Shorebirds The passage Seagrass Dugong Green turtle Seagrass shallows Headland reef Noosa headland Mudjimba's boulder reef Wolf Rock Grey nurse shark Manta ray The reef The whale road The open water Wedge-tailed shearwater The air

70 living things and features. 118 connections between them. Touch one and the rest of the place comes with it.

Or touch anything in the drawing, or meet everyone who lives here.

Everyone who lives here

70 residents and features, in the working groups they belong to. Press any name to put it in the middle of the web.

the seagrass shallows · 5

The underwater meadow and the mouths that depend on it: a flowering plant carpeting the shallows, the dugong and the green turtle cropping it, and a generation of young fish and prawns hiding among its blades.

the reef · 4

Where a reef's energy starts: the thin turf of algae that grows back on bare stone within days, the pink coralline crusts that cement the rubble into reef, and the urchins and rasping molluscs that keep both of them cropped.

the reef · 9

Two oceans' worth of life on one rock: tropical coral and reef fish beside the cool south's leathery brown weed, sponges and wrasses, each near the edge of where it can live, and the small striped fish that runs a cleaning shop on the parasites the rest of them carry.

the reef · 6

The layer most people swim over without seeing: soft corals bending with the swell, anemones, sea squirts, hydroids and fan worms, all of them straining the drift out of the water, and the nudibranchs that eat them and steal their weapons.

the reef · 7

What the broken rock hides: a wobbegong lying flat as furniture, a moray pushing into holes, an octopus behind a rampart of cracked shell, and the lobsters, crabs and sea stars working the same crevices from the other end.

the swash and the flats · 3

The water-cleaners: the flats' buried millions turning trapped mud and rotting leaf back into food, the rock oyster that strains a hundred litres a day on its own, and the shellfish reef being rebuilt in the Noosa out of a barge-load of clean shell.

the swash and the flats · 6

The half of the sea nobody photographs: the slow fall of dead matter, and the bacteria, fungi, sea cucumbers, hermit crabs and burrowing shrimp that take it apart and hand the nutrient back to the water.

the open beach · 6

The bare beach's hidden workforce: surf diatoms colouring the wash, pipis riding it, beach worms under the wet sand, and the wrack at the high-tide mark with its sandhoppers and its ghost crabs.

the air · 5

The birds working the shore and the sea from above: the oystercatcher probing the wet sand, the osprey that hits the water feet-first, the terns and seabirds beyond the break, the gull that eats everything, and the shearwater that nests underground on an island the foxes cannot reach.

the reef · 3

The big fish nobody should fear: a critically endangered grey nurse with a fearsome face and no interest in you, leopard sharks asleep on the sand below the pinnacles, and a manta ray, no shark at all, soaring in over them to filter the smallest things in the sea.

the open water · 5

The whole of the open sea in one column: plants too small to see, the drifting animals that graze them, the bait shoals that strain those, and the mackerel and dolphins that follow.

the open water · 4

The ones passing through on journeys the map cannot hold: the godwit that crosses an ocean without feeding and lands here with nothing left, the curlew probing the mud with a bill built for one job, and the loggerhead that feeds at sea and nests on the sand.

The grounds of this place the stage itself · 7

The features here are places rather than forces: the flats at the river mouth, a long sheltered passage, three separate reefs from worked headland to offshore pinnacle, and the whale road past them. Each named ground is a real and different place with its own residents, so each is a place to stand like any resident.

Neighbouring stories just past the boundary · 2

These live at the edge of this web, not inside it. They appear because a connection or a signpost reaches them, and they are not drawn in the scene, because the scene holds only this place.

See the complete network all 118 relationships as one abstract graph, with each stroke saying where its evidence comes from
The sea country web drawn as a connected graph. Every resident and named ground is a dot, gathered into its working group, and every documented connection is a line between two dots: the more continuous the line, the stronger the evidence, and the arrow points at the taker. Selecting a dot lights its own connections; every line opens the evidence behind it. The same information follows as text below. predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere grazing · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology parasitism or disease · General ecology decomposition · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · Seen here habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology decomposition · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen here habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology decomposition · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology decomposition · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere nutrient cycling · General ecology seed dispersal · General ecology seed dispersal · General ecology decomposition · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology grazing · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology grazing · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology predation · General ecology predation · General ecology habitat and shelter · Seen elsewhere habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology habitat and shelter · General ecology The dugong. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The green turtle. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The pipefish and seahorses. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The young fish and prawns. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The seagrass. 11 relationships. Opens its entry. The coralline crusts. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The grazing molluscs. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The sea urchins. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The turfing algae. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The butterflyfish. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The damselfish. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The temperate wrasses. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The cleaner wrasse. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The fish parasites. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The parrotfish. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The hard corals. 7 relationships. Opens its entry. The cool-water sponges. 6 relationships. Opens its entry. The leathery brown seaweeds. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The fan worms. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The hydroids. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The nudibranchs. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The sea anemones. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The sea squirts. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The soft corals. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The brittle stars. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The moray eel. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The octopus. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The reef crabs. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The rock lobsters. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The sea stars. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The wobbegong. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The buried life of the flats. 5 relationships. Opens its entry. The Noosa oyster reef. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The Sydney rock oyster. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The burrowing shrimp. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The detritus. 8 relationships. Opens its entry. The hermit crabs. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The marine bacteria. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The marine fungi. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The sea cucumbers. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The beach worms. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The beach wrack. 4 relationships. Opens its entry. The ghost crabs. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The pipi. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The sandhoppers. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The surf diatoms. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The osprey. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The pied oystercatcher. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The seabirds. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The silver gulls. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The wedge-tailed shearwater. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The grey nurse shark. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The leopard sharks. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The manta rays. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The baitfish. 6 relationships. Opens its entry. The bottlenose dolphins. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The pelagic hunters. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The phytoplankton. 1 relationship. Opens its entry. The plankton. 11 relationships. Opens its entry. The bar-tailed godwit. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The eastern curlew. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The loggerhead turtle. 3 relationships. Opens its entry. The migratory shorebirds. 2 relationships. Opens its entry. The tidal estuary. 9 relationships. Opens its entry. Bribie Island & the Pumicestone Passage. 6 relationships. Opens its entry. Point Cartwright & the Mooloolaba rocky reef. 8 relationships. Opens its entry. Noosa headland (coastal rocky reefs). 4 relationships. Opens its entry. Mudjimba Island (Old Woman Island). 12 relationships. Opens its entry. Wolf Rock (Double Island Point). 6 relationships. Opens its entry. Whale season — the humpback highway. no connections here yet. Opens its entry. The grey mangrove. 1 relationship. Opens its entry.
Swipe sideways to move across the network. Tap a group or resident to simplify it here. Every line is a connection, and its stroke tells you how well it is evidenced. The arrow points at the taker; arrows both ways mark a trade. Select a line to read its evidence, a dot to open its entry. Seen here Seen elsewhere General ecology Our reading a resident a feature of the place a neighbour

About this web

This web holds 118 relationships across 70 residents and features, and every one of them is on the page. It shows the plants, animals and fungi you can expect to find in this country and how they depend on one another. Some of that is drawn from the book's own chapters and some is the ordinary, well-understood ecology of this kind of place; the counts are computed from the shipped records, never typed in.

A honeyeater at a banksia flower and a fungus in the leaf litter belong here because that is how this country runs, whether or not anyone has published the observation on this exact ground. Where a relationship does rest on a particular study or a passage of the book, its card says so and its mark says where that knowledge came from: 2 recorded in this sea country itself, 12 recorded for these species elsewhere, and 104 that are the general ecology of this kind of country. Those marks are about the record, not about the doubt: a parrotfish crunching its living off a reef rock is not a hypothesis, it is simply something nobody has published for this particular stretch of water. Every relationship, printed once with its full evidence, quotation and source, is on the evidence register.

Whose country this is

The Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) people are the Traditional Owners and continuing custodians of this country, and have read it for far longer than any source on this page. This release presents the published scientific record only. Knowledge of Country belongs to its custodians, and it would enter this product only through proper collaboration and cultural protocols, which has not yet happened. That is the scope of this page, stated plainly, not a gap we will quietly fill.

What the marks mean

  • Seen here · Recorded or measured in this sea country itself.
  • Seen elsewhere · Documented for these species, and not as a record made at this place. The source may well cover this coast; what it does not carry is the observation here. The tier word, not the verb, says where the work was done.
  • General ecology · Established for these species generally, and expected here for that reason. What is missing is the local record: nobody has published the observation made in this sea country yet.
  • Our reading · Our editorial interpretation, signed as such.

No resident here carries a location, by construction: the records this page is built from have nowhere to put one. The loggerhead nests on this coast's beaches, and this page will never say which beach more closely than that.