Redmap (Range Extension Database & Mapping Project)
REDMAP (Range Extension Database and Mapping Project) is an interactive website and ecological monitoring project designed to collect data from the community AbOUT how climate change May Be affecting the distribution of marine species in Tasmanian waters. Many species are undergoing range expansions or shifts in their distributional range, with those more often associated with waters around Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales being more frequently caught or seen by local fishers and divers in Tasmania. There are also species that are usually present in the north of Tasmania moving much further south. At least 45 fish species have altered their usual geographical ranges over the last few decades in addition to gastropods and barnacles and sea urchins . Shifts in range for many of these species are thought to be a consequence of climate change – waters off the east coast of Tasmania are warming at 3–4 times the global average as a result of the increased extension and persistence of the East Australian Current.
The REDMAP site allows the local community to act as citizen scientists and record scientific data by logging sightings of species that are caught or observed outside their usual or known range. Community participation in REDMAP can create for individuals the sense (and in this case, the reality) that they are actively and constructively helping with a major issue currently facing the global community – people can log on and literally see ‘their’ data point on the map. Making the community aware of climate change issues in the marine context is a challenge as the impacts are less visible in comparison to ‘dry dams and rivers’ and ‘forest dieback’.