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expeditions/CReefs 2006
Census
of Marine Life, Census of Coral Reefs Expedition to
French Frigate Shoals (October 2006)
Background
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Julia
exquisita. Photo by Corey Pittman |
Coral
reefs, like rainforests, are very complex environments.
Just as rainforest trees provide a living three-dimensional
landscape for thousands of smaller plants and animals,
corals and coralline algae form
the reefs and atolls upon which a great diversity of
marine life flourishes. Our
understanding of the larger plants and animals that compose
the reefs and surrounding habitats of the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands - the corals, fishes, macro algae,
sea turtles, and mammals - is fairly comprehensive,
but our knowledge of the smaller, even microscopic life
forms is not nearly as complete. These organisms are
the barely visible, the extremely well camouflaged, those
that
live their entire existence within a tiny patch of sand
or rubble, or even within another organism. Just trying
to find these minute organisms takes a special knowledge
of their habits and preferred environments. Once found,
identifying them is even more challenging, sometimes
taking years, with many experts involved. Despite their
small
size, some of these organisms, such as the marine zooplankton,
rival all terrestrial animals in the scope and scale
of their activities with daily
migrations from the ocean depths
to sunlit surface waters where they feed on microscopic
plants, and their return to
the dark
abyss at dawn.
Scientific
understanding of the marine realm is many years behind
our knowledge of terrestrial environments, and NOAA
estimated in 2000 that we have explored only 5% of our
oceans, despite the fact that the majority of our planet’s
surface is water. Census
of Marine Life (CoML), Census
of Coral Reefs (CReefs) expeditions will provide baseline
coral reef biodiversity information to assist managers
globally and will also contribute to the greater CoML goal: “to
assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance
of marine life in the oceans - past, present, and
future.” CoML, a ten-year initiative, is composed
of a growing network of researchers in more than 73 nations.
Not only are these scientists seeking to assess and explain
biological diversity throughout the world’s oceans,
but they are doing it in such a way that their findings
can be easily shared with other researchers, managers,
and the public through techniques such as DNA
barcoding of organisms, and by populating vast online databases such
as the CoML Ocean Biogeographic
Information System (OBIS).
With this expedition and future research cruises, CReefs
will help OBIS in its creation of a massive and dynamic
catalogue of life in our oceans, allowing users to view
species distribution globally. Furthermore, information
from CReefs efforts will aid managers in understanding
coral reef ecosystem changes over time and how to manage
these systems. A project under CoML, the History
of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) is looking through
historic records to evaluate what our ocean life used to
look like, particularly
before the days of industrial exploitation. CoML’s
Future of
Marine Animal Populations (FMAP) will like-wise
look to predict patterns for the future and management.
This
CReefs expedition to French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument is being coordinated by the Coral
Reef Ecosystem Division of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, Pacific
Islands Fisheries Science Center. The expedition is composed
of leading taxonomists, scientific divers, outreach and
database specialists from across the country and around
the world. A variety of collection techniques and equipment
will be used to sample a wide range of habitats at French
Frigate Shoals. French Frigate Shoals was chosen for this
census because it has been relatively undisturbed by human
impacts, and several reports (Maragos et. al 2004) indicate
that the atoll has the highest shallow water coral reef
biodiversity of any islands and reefs in Hawaii, and perhaps
has served as an important pathway for the spread of species.
French Frigate Shoals is uniquely positioned at the nexus
of three distinct biogeographic areas - Johnston
Atoll to the south, the atolls, reefs, banks and small
coral rubble islands to the northwest and the high Hawaiian
islands and banks to the southeast, including Mokumananamana and Nihoa islands, and the main Hawaiian Islands.
Click
on one of the areas below to follow the expedition.
Ship
Logs:
Day-by-day
activities of the expedition.
Journals:
Daily
or semi-daily personal journal entries by
the particpants
in the expedition. These journals do not necessarily reflect
the positions of any of the agencies connected with this
project.
Interviews:
Interviews with expedition participants, scientists,
vessel crew, educators, etc.
Features:
Highlights or special information such as interesting
discoveries, articles or related research.
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