Benthic-pelagic coupling in Australian coastal waters: Outcomes and lessons learned from an interdiciplinary research initiative.

Coastal ecosystems are large repositories for terrestrial and internally-produced carbon that play an important role in biogeochemical cycling. Our understanding of these systems has traditionally been based on data from American and European environments, but better representation of diverse ecosystem types is needed to improve biogeochemical and ecological models. The CSIRO Coastal Carbon Cluster is an interdisciplinary research initiative to quantify carbon stocks, transport pathways and processing rates in Australian coastal ecosystems. Here, we integrate key findings from the first three years of Cluster research to examine land-ocean interactions along the Australia coastline. We link results from field surveys, process studies and remote sensing to update our conceptual understanding of coastal carbon cycling and assess potential feedbacks driven by climatic and anthropogenic changes. Finally we discuss lessons learned and challenges from this first phase of collaborative, interdisciplinary research under the CSIRO Coastal Carbon Cluster.