Journal articles on the topic 'Coral reef ecology – American Samoa'

In 1917, Alfred Mayor surveyed a 270 m transect on a reef flat on American Samoa. Eleven surveys were conducted on the transect from 1917 to 2019. The coral community on the reef crest was resilient over the century, occasionally being seriously damaged but always recovering rapidly. In contrast, the originally most dense coral community on the reef flat has been steadily deteriorating throughout the century. Resilience of coral communities in regions of high wave energy on the reef crests was associated with the important binding function of the crustose coralline alga (CCA) Porolithon onkodes. Successful coral recruits were found on CCA 94% of the time, yet living coral cover correlated negatively with CCA cover as they became alternative winners in competition. Mayor drilled a core from the transect on the surface to the basalt base of the reef 48 m below. Communities on Aua reef were dominated by scleractinians through the Holocene, while cores on another transect 2 km away showed the reef was occupied by alcyonaceans of the genus Sinularia, which built the massive reef with spiculite to the basalt base 37 m below. Despite periods of sea levels rising 9 to 15 times the rate of reef accretion, the reefs never drowned. The consistency of scleractinians on Aua reef and Sinularia on Utulei Reef 2 km away during the Holocene was because the shape of the bay allowed more water motion on Aua reef. After 10700 yr of reef building by octocorals, coastal construction terminated this spiculite-reef development.

Despite being among the most valuable ecosystems on Earth, coral reefs face ongoing threats that could negatively impact the human populations who depend on them. The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) collects and monitors data on various aspects of U.S. coral reefs to provide a holistic understanding of the status of the reefs and adjacent human communities. This paper explores results from the NCRMP’s first socioeconomic monitoring cycle using an ecosystem services framework and examines how these results can be used to improve coral reef management in the following U.S. coral reef jurisdictions: American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Results suggest that residents in the U.S. Pacific coral reef basin may hold stronger cultural and provisioning values, whereas residents in the U.S. Atlantic coral reef basin may hold stronger regulating values. These findings suggest that outreach efforts have been successful in communicating benefits provided by coral reef ecosystems to the public. They also provide insight into which ecosystem services are valued in each jurisdiction, allowing resource managers to make science-based decisions about how to communicate conservation and management initiatives.

Ecocolonialism, the imposition of European conservation paradigms and power structures on indigenous villagers, is incompatible with the principles of indigenous control of village rainforest preserves. Since 1988, four rainforest reserves in Western Samoa and one US National Park in American Samoa have been created on communal lands using the principles of indigenous control, preserving a total of 30 000 hectares of lowland rainforest and associated coral reef. The reserves in Western Samoa are owned, controlled, administered and managed by the villagers. While these reserves appear to be robust approaches to preserve establishment within the communal land tenure system of Samoa, the concept of indigenous control appears to conflict with ecocolonialist attitudes that disparage the traditional knowledge, culture, political systems, and integrity of indigenous peoples. We discuss problems that have occurred in the Samoan village preserves and offer suggestions for the establishment of future village-controlled preserves in other areas of the South Pacific.

A recent study reported that seventy-five species of reef-building corals, considered to be at elevated extinction risk when assessed by the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, occur in Pacific waters under United States jurisdiction. Closer examination substantiates records of occurrence for 66 species, while records for the other 9 species were based on misinterpretations or are otherwise uncertain. Of these, at least 55 have been reported from reef habitat under federal protection within National Parks, Marine National Monuments, National Marine Sanctuaries, and National Wildlife Refuges. The highest number of species (31) is found within the Ofu Island unit of the National Park of American Samoa, followed by Kingman Reef (24) and Palmyra Atoll (21), both within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Federally protected areas already in place serve as important habitats for resources whose stewardship needs and priorities may vary over time.

AbstractFlow over complex terrain causes stress on the bottom leading to drag, turbulence, and formation of a boundary layer. But despite the importance of the hydrodynamic roughness scale z0 in predicting flows and mixing, little is known about its connection to complex terrain. To address this gap, we conducted extensive field observations of flows and finescale measurements of bathymetry using fluid-lensing techniques over a shallow coral reef on Ofu, American Samoa. We developed a validated centimeter-scale nonhydrostatic hydrodynamic model of the reef, and the results for drag compare well with the observations. The total drag is caused by pressure differences creating form drag and is only a function of relative depth and spatially averaged streamwise slope, consistent with scaling for k–δ-type roughness, where k is the roughness height and δ is the boundary layer thickness. We approximate the complex reef surface as a superposition of wavy bedforms and present a simple method for predicting z0 from the spatial root-mean-square of depth and streamwise slope of the bathymetric surface and a linear coefficient a1, similar to results from other studies on wavy bedforms. While the local velocity profiles vary widely, the horizontal average is consistent with a log-layer approximation. The model grid resolution required to accurately compute the form drag is O(10–50) times the dominant horizontal hydrodynamic scale, which is determined by a peak in the spectra of the streamwise slope. The approach taken in this study is likely applicable to other complex terrains and could be explored for other settings.

Several sponges from American Samoa, collected by the Coral Reef Research Foundation, Republic of Palau, were tentatively identified by one of us as Acanthotetilla cf seychellensis (Thomas 1973), due to the possession of relatively small acanthose oxeas, compared to those of other species of the genus Acanthotetilla Burton 1959. These sponges were later compared to Cinachyrella australiensis (Carter 1886), taking into account the lack of conspicuous spination on the acanthose oxeas and general features of spiculation and skeletal organisation. The specimens were later considered to represent a new species of the genus Cinachyrella Wilson 1925, after a careful comparison was made between the American Samoan specimens and C. australiensis which also contains small acanthose oxeas. Several recent molecular phylogenetic studies have confirmed the generic assignment of one of the American Samoan specimens as belonging to Cinachyrella. Cinachyrella anatriaenilla sp. nov., described herein, is the fifth of 40 Cinachyrella spp. that contain lightly spined microacanthoxeas.

ABSTRACT In 1999, the U.S. Coast Guard developed an Incident Action Plan (IAP) to remove oil and hazardous materials from nine foreign-owned tuna longliner vessels grounded on the reef flat within Pago Pago Harbor, American Samoa. This plan involved the construction of rock and trestle causeways and rock working platforms to access the clusters of vessels, and partial removal of the vessels to access the oil and hazardous materials onboard. A natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) study was conducted to quantify the injuries associated with the response action and scale emergency restoration alternatives. A rapid field assessment program was implemented to characterize the benthic habitats around the grounded vessels and in the footprints of the proposed rock and trestle causeways and working platforms. Likely impacts to the dominant habitat types (coral, algal turf, and Halimeda/algal turf communities) from the proposed response actions were: (1) crushing and mortality in areas of fill deposition; (2) partial crushing in spillage zones around fill areas; (3) damages to the reef flat rock platform and framework due to collapse and fracturing; (4) physical injury from remobilization of residual materials remaining on the flat after fill removal; (5) water quality impacts from increased suspended sediment levels during fill placement, use, and removal; and (6) shading impacts to biota under trestles. These injuries were quantified in terms of the dimensions and degree of mortality and/or reduced function for different impacts. Habitat recovery rates for physical crushing and shading were developed, as well. Emergency restoration options were identified and scaled in terms of habitat credits, with one of the preferred options being complete removal of the vessel hulls followed by reef stabilization.

ABSTRACT: 2017-226 Fa’a-Samoa (the Samoan way) is a living tradition and continues to define the Samoan way of life. It is the foundation of Polynesia’s oldest culture - dating back some 3,000 years. Fa’a-Samoa is interconnected with Samoan lands and waters and by sharing the intact and vibrant traditions, values, and legends that connect the Samoan people to the land and sea, the local community plays an INTEGRAL role in the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources of the area. Fa’a-Samoa places great importance on the dignity and achievements of the group rather than individuals. On April 14, 2016, the 62 ft. FV NO1 JI HYUN lost the main engines and grounded off the west side of Aunu’u Island in the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa (NMSAS). This area is of ecological and cultural significance for the local residents using hook-and-line, casting nets, spearfishing (non-scuba assisted) and other non-destructive fishing methods including those traditionally used for sustenance and cultural purposes such as gleaning, ‘enu and ola. The village on Aunu’u was extremely wary of inclusion of the waters of Aunu’u in the expansion of the sanctuary being concerned about loss of control of their traditional uses of the nearshore environment. In what became an extension of Fa’a-Samoa, the United States Coast Guard (USCG), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the American Samoa Territorial government worked, together to address both the pollution hazards from the incident and the impact to the coral reef ecosystem even after the fuel was removed. While a relatively straight forward response were it to happen in the continental U.S., severe weather (Tropical Cyclone Amos), high winds and swells, limitations on site access, daylight high tides, and availability of resources to include tugs, tow lines and trained personnel made this quite challenging. Three removal attempts occurred under Oil Pollution Act (OPA) authorization and three efforts occurred under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA), with guidance from a professional salvage master. This prolonged 4-month response has prompted some new dialogue and hopefully new commitment to increase preparedness and spill response capabilities within the territory. The designation of the NMSAS allowed for the use of the combined authorities of OPA and the NMSA, forging new path that protects and preserves both the natural and cultural resources of the region from the impacts of pollution and from future groundings whether large or small.

Ecological restoration of forests, meadows, reefs, or other foundational ecosystems during climate change depends on the discovery and use of individuals able to withstand future conditions. For coral reefs, climate-tolerant corals might not remain tolerant in different environments because of widespread environmental adjustment of coral physiology and symbionts. Here, we test if parent corals retain their heat tolerance in nursery settings, if simple proxies predict successful colonies, and if heat-tolerant corals suffer lower growth or survival in normal settings. Before the 2015 natural bleaching event in American Samoa, we set out 800 coral fragments from 80 colonies of four species selected by prior tests to have a range of intraspecific natural heat tolerance. After the event, nursery stock from heat-tolerant parents showed two to three times less bleaching across species than nursery stock from less tolerant parents. They also retained higher individual genetic diversity through the bleaching event than did less heat-tolerant corals. The three best proxies for thermal tolerance were response to experimental heat stress, location on the reef, and thermal microclimate. Molecular biomarkers were also predictive but were highly species specific. Colony genotype and symbiont genus played a similarly strong role in predicting bleaching. Combined, our results show that selecting for host and symbiont resilience produced a multispecies coral nursery that withstood multiple bleaching events, that proxies for thermal tolerance in restoration can work across species and be inexpensive, and that different coral clones within species reacted very differently to bleaching.

ABSTRACT In the last few years, incidents such as the crash of Alaska Air Flight #261, the M/V Cape Mohican and SS Jacob Luckenbach spills and over 600 groundings a year in the Florida Keys have highlighted the need for coordinated, multi-hazard contingency planning to safeguard the marine, historical and cultural resources protected by the National Marine Sanctuary System. American waterways are a critical component of heightened homeland security; including the waters encompassed by marine protected areas. The challenge has been to develop consistent contingency plans that address a broad range of hazards from oil spills to hurricanes across 13 sites that are widely divergent in size, geographic location and type of resources. Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is larger than Yellowstone National Park and protects habitat ranging from coastal dunes to deep-ocean trenches while Fagatele Bay in American Samoa encompasses a coral reef inlet less than one square mile in size. Thunder Bay in Lake Huron and the U.S.S. Monitor sites focus on historical and cultural resources while habitat of humpback whales is the primary concern for the Hawaiian Islands sanctuary. Because of site diversity, regulations and prohibited activities vary widely. Jurisdictional issues are complex with nearly half of the sites incorporating state waters and shorelines. In 2001, NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries initiated a project to develop and build a suite of contingency plans and tools. This web-based contingency plan and tool set, hosted on a secure Intranet, is called Sanctuaries Hazardous Incident Emergency Logistics Database System (SHIELDS). SHIELDS gives resource managers efficient access to numerous NOAA databases, GIS systems, charts and images providing on-demand information for making critical decisions about environmental tradeoffs during a response.

The late Neogene was a time of major environmental change in Tropical America. Global cooling and associated oceanographic reorganization and the onset and intensification of glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere during the past ten million years coincided with the uplift of the Central American isthmus and resulting changes in regional oceanographic conditions. Previous analyses of patterns of taxonomic turnover and the shifting abundances of major ecological guilds indicated that the regional shallow-water marine biota responded to these environmental changes through extinction and via a restructuring of local benthic food webs, but it is not clear whether this ecological response had an effect on the diversity of molluscan assemblages in the region. Changes in regional and local diversity are often used as proxies for similar ecological response to environmental change in large-scale paleontological studies, but a clear relationship between diversity and ecological function has rarely been demonstrated in marine systems dominated by mollusks. To explore this relationship, we have compiled a data set of the stratigraphic and environmental distribution of genera of mollusks in large new collections of fossil specimens from the late Neogene and Recent of the southwestern Caribbean. Analysis of a selection of ecological diversity measures indicates that within shelf depths, assemblages from deeper water (51–200 m) were more diverse than shallow-water (<50 m) assemblages in the Pliocene. Lower diversity for shallow-water assemblages is caused by increased dominance of a few superabundant taxa in each assemblage. This implies that studies of diversity of shelf benthos need to control for relatively fine scaled environmental conditions if they are to avoid interpreting artifacts of uneven sampling as true change of diversity. For shallow-water assemblages only, there was significant increase in local and regional diversity of bivalve assemblages after the late Pliocene. No parallel increase in gastropods could be detected, but this likely is because sample size was inadequate for documenting the diversity of gastropod assemblages following a steep post-Pliocene decline of average gastropod abundance. Both the increasing bivalve diversity and the decrease in average abundance of gastropod taxa correspond to an interval of increasing carbonate deposition and reef building in the region, and are likely a result of increased fine-scale habitat heterogeneity controlled by the local distribution of carbonate buildups. Each of these results demonstrates that documenting the ecological response of tropical marine ecosystems to regional environmental change requires a large volume of fine-scaled samples with detailed paleoenvironmental control. Such data sets are rarely available from the fossil record.

Abstract. Here we report seasonally resolved sea surface temperatures for the southern Mozambique Channel in the SW Indian Ocean based on multi-trace-element temperature proxy records preserved in two Porites sp. coral cores. Particularly, we assess the suitability of both separate and combined Sr∕Ca and Li∕Mg proxies for improved multielement SST reconstructions. Overall, geochemical records from Europa Island Porites sp. highlight the potential of Sr∕Ca and Li∕Mg ratios as high-resolution climate proxies but also show significant differences in their response at this Indian Ocean subtropical reef site. Our reconstruction from 1970 to 2013 using the Sr∕Ca SST proxy reveals a warming trend of 0.58±0.1 ∘C in close agreement with instrumental data (0.47±0.07 ∘C) over the last 42 years (1970–2013). In contrast, the Li∕Mg showed unrealistically large warming trends, most probably caused by uncertainties around different uptake mechanisms of the trace elements Li and Mg and uncertainties in their temperature calibration. In our study, Sr∕Ca is superior to Li∕Mg to quantify absolute SST and relative changes in SST. However, spatial correlations between the combined detrended Sr∕Ca and Li∕Mg proxies compared to instrumental SST at Europa revealed robust correlations with local climate variability in the Mozambique Channel and teleconnections to regions in the Indian Ocean and southeastern Pacific where surface wind variability appeared to dominate the underlying pattern of SST variability. The strongest correlation was found between our Europa SST reconstruction and instrumental SST records from the northern tropical Atlantic. Only a weak correlation was found with ENSO, with recent warm anomalies in the geochemical proxies coinciding with strong El Niño or La Niña. We identified the Pacific–North American (PNA) atmospheric pattern, which develops in the Pacific in response to ENSO, and the tropical North Atlantic SST as the most likely causes of the observed teleconnections with the Mozambique Channel SST at Europa.

Climate change induced sea-level rise (SLR) is on its increase globally. Regionally the lowlands of China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and islands of the Malaysian, Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are among the world’s most threatened regions. Sea-level rise has major impacts on the ecosystems and society. It threatens coastal populations, economic activities, and fragile ecosystems as mangroves, coastal salt-marches and wetlands. This paper provides a summary of the current state of knowledge of sea level-rise and its effects on both human and natural ecosystems. The focus is on coastal urban areas and low lying deltas in South-East Asia and Vietnam, as one of the most threatened areas in the world. About 3 mm per year reflects the growing consensus on the average SLR worldwide. The trend speeds up during recent decades. The figures are subject to local, temporal and methodological variation. In Vietnam the average values of 3.3 mm per year during the 1993-2014 period are above the worldwide average. Although a basic conceptual understanding exists that the increasing global frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones is related with the increasing temperature and SLR, this relationship is insufficiently understood. Moreover the precise, complex environmental, economic, social, and health impacts are currently unclear. SLR, storms and changing precipitation patterns increase flood risks, in particular in urban areas. Part of the current scientific debate is on how urban agglomeration can be made more resilient to flood risks. Where originally mainly technical interventions dominated this discussion, it becomes increasingly clear that proactive special planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery are important, but costly instruments. 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