Fish, coral from off-limits Hawaii come to Waikiki

HONOLULU (AP) — Hundreds of rare fish and coral pieces from one of the most remote parts of the planet have arrived in bustling Waikiki.

The Waikiki Aquarium's newest permanent exhibit, opening on Thursday, showcases specimens gathered from the pristine atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — an area so well-protected it's generally off-limits to everyone but researchers and Native Hawaiians performing cultural rites.

It promises to be a special treat for scuba divers and fish enthusiasts only rarely able to see species like the white-and-black-colored masked angelfish or table corals — corals that spread out like tabletops around a central stem.

It should also appeal to those curious about the 1,200-mile long string of atolls so highly valued the United Nations named them a World Heritage Site last year and then-President George W. Bush designated them a marine national monument in 2006.

"Given the challenges in getting to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the vast, vast majority of people, this will be their only chance to see a taste of some of the wonders that exist up there," said Andrew Rossiter, the aquarium's director.

The islands are all so small they're inhospitable to human settlement. But this has also meant people have mostly left them alone and in their natural condition.

The limited signs of human presence include ancient Hawaiian heiau, or shrines, lining the top of a ridge running along the spine of Mokumanamana island.

The Navy once had a base at Midway Atoll — the site of the famous 1942 battle between the U.S. and Japan that turned the tide of World War II — but turned the island over to the Fish and Wildlife Service for a wildlife refuge in 1993.

Today, the atolls have thriving coral reefs accounting for nearly 70 percent of all coral under U.S. jurisdiction. Experts say the robust reefs are what the rest of Hawaii's reefs looked like before they were damaged by coral mining, runoff from land, overfishing, and other human activity over the years.

Sharks — which have been overfished in many other parts of the world — are richly abundant there. Life also comes in unusual forms: 25 percent of the 7,000 marine species in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are found nowhere else in the world.

"This is a really, really unique place — nothing else like it in the world. And it's exactly how a coral reef should look, and this is how it was once around here," Rossiter said during an interview in his Honolulu office.

Fish and coral from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have been on display before, in limited circumstances. The Waikiki Aquarium has a small, existing exhibit, as does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's discovery center in Hilo on the Big Island.

But the aquarium's new display sets a new standard. The tank occupies about 10 percent of the aquarium's exhibit space, and will boast some 30 different fish species and 20 coral varieties. Altogether, the exhibit will feature 225 fish and 200 coral fragments.

The masked angelfish will allow researchers to observe how the unusual sex-changing fish behave and interact. Around the main Hawaiian islands the fish lives in deep water that's impractical for extended human observation. But scientists watching the aquarium tank may watch the fish for hours or days at a time.

The species is notable in part because they're all female when they're a certain size. Then one member of the group gets a little more aggressive, dominates the others, and changes its sex to male. The newly male fish uses the remaining females as his harem.

Scientists will not only be able to observe this process, but perhaps begin to understand why some of the fish change sex and others not, Rossiter said. The exhibit will have five to start with, and the aquarium will add four more by mid-September for a total of nine.

Aulani Wilhelm, superintendent of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, said the aquarium is offering people a way to connect to a place that by necessity must be appreciated from afar.

"These are atolls, these are fragile places," Wilhelm said, noting even well-intentioned or well-regulated travel would inflict harm on the islands. "There's only so much visitation a place like that can handle before it's changed."

___

If You Go...

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Exhibit: Stars Aug. 18 at the Waikiki Aquarium, 2777 Kalakaua Ave., Honolulu; www.waquarium.org or 808-923-9741. Adults, $9; children ages 13-17 and people with disabilities, $4; children ages 5-12, $2. Special rates for military and Hawaii residents. Open daily, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. except Christmas Day and Honolulu Marathon Sunday.

AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Fish-coral-from-off-limits-Hawaii-come-to-Waikiki-1992277.php#ixzz1VCOOLilF

Mining to blame for islands to sink beneath waves

13 May 2011
By Sivaramakrishnan Parameswaran
BBC Tamil Service

Two small islands in South Asia's first marine biosphere reserve have sunk into the sea primarily as a result of coral reef mining, experts say.

The islets were in a group in the Gulf of Mannar, between India and Sri Lanka.

The Indo-Pacific region is considered to contain some of the world's richest marine biological resources.

The group's 21 islands and islets are protected as part of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, covering an area of nearly 560 sq km (216 sq miles).

Fishermen had indiscriminately and illegally mined invaluable coral reefs around the islets of Poomarichan and Villanguchalli for many decades, said S Balaji, chief conservator of forests and wildlife for that region of Tamil Nadu state.

"The absence of any regulations prior to 2002 led to illegal mining of the coral reefs, which came to an end when environmental protection laws were enacted," he told the BBC Tamil Service.

Mr Balaji said rising sea level as a result of global warming was also a factor behind the islands' submergence.

But this was questioned by Simon Holgate from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, UK, who said observations showed that the sea level in the region had been rising slower than the global average.

"I think that global sea level rise had little impact on the disappearance of these islands and it must be due to other reasons, possibly the mining of coral reefs," Dr Holgate told BBC News.

Though these islets were only 3-5m (10-15 ft) above sea level, their submergence sounded an alarm bell about the danger many more small islands faced in the long run, according to Mr Balaji, who is also director of the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust (GOMBRT).

The Gulf of Mannar was chosen as a biosphere reserve by the Indian government in 1989 because of its biological and ecological uniqueness, and the distinctive socio-economic and cultural profile shaped by its geography.

Most of the 21 islands are uninhabited, and the corals were mined for use as a binding material in the construction industry, as they were rich in calcium carbonate.

Rich biodiversity

The biosphere reserve is a storehouse of about 3,600 species of marine flora and fauna.

Many more wait to be studied, said Deepak Samuel, marine biologist and project associate with the Energy and Environment Unit of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

"The Gulf of Mannar is a unique reserve with ecosystems like coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass," Mr Samuel said.

"It is a nursery for shell and fin fishes, which means the entire breeding and juvenile raising takes places in these three ecosystems."

More than 300,000 fishermen depend on the Gulf of Mannar for their livelihood. It is also the dwelling place for many endemic species, notably the dugong or "sea cow".

Studies have proved that this gulf is home to 117 species of corals belonging to 37 genera, and 13 out of the 14 species of seagrasses in Indian seas.

The area has also been famous for pearl harvesting for over 2,000 years.

According to marine biologists, a quarter of the 2,000-plus fin fish species in Indian waters are in this gulf, making it one of the region's most diverse fish habitats.

The loss of these two islands should be a "wake-up call" for all those in the entire Asia-Pacific region, said Mr Balaji.

Though the lost islets were small, he cautioned that a similar fate may happen to larger islands in the long run as a result of global warming coupled with large scale mining.

Losing the reefs may result in migration of fish populations to other regions, which would result in loss of the gulf's biodiversity, according to Dr Samuel.

"Lost islets are indicators, and can even be considered as a warning," he said.

With the threat of climate change in years to come, factors such as coral mining will have an accelerating effects on the submergence of many island, he warned.

People in the area have gone on record many times as saying that the coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar saved them from destruction when the devastating tsunami struck in December 2004.

Experts also point out the need to keep the remaining 19 islands and islets "pristine" in order to offer them some protection them from processes such as climate change.

The Indian National Oceanographic Institute point out that very few of the islands and islets in the gulf are in good shape.

Collection of coral by students for research over many decades, and heavy industrial pollution caused by onshore industries, have inflicted an irreversible damage to the coral reefs in this unique marine biosphere.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13383182

Coral Fossils Document Past Sea Life

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 06:39 CST

Scientists may use fossilized coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reefs to understand how sea levels have changed over the past 20,000 years.

An international team of researchers plan to spend 45 days at sea, gathering core samples from about 40 sites.

Coral, which is described as the "tree of the sea", have growth rings that show seasonal variations.

Researchers say that samples taken of the coral will also help show past sea temperatures, as well as other changes to the reef.

Alan Stevenson, team leader of marine geology at the British Geological Survey (BGS), said the fossilized corals' annual growth rings provided an insight to conditions under waves.

"We can then analyze those rings to build up a very detailed picture of what the ocean was like when they were forming, including temperature and salinity, “ he said.

Stevenson told BBC News that the Great Barrier Reef is about half a million years old.

"Over this time, parts have died out... as sea levels change. Basically, corals drown when it becomes too deep for them."

The team plans to collect samples of fossilized corals that were developed between 20,000 to 10,000 years ago.

"We will core into a 'time capsule' of sediments that holds information on the environmental evolution of the reef since the last glaciation some 20,000 years ago," said Dan Evans, a marine geologist at BGS and science manager for the ECORD Science Operator.

Researchers currently believe that there were three periods in which the sea level rise was accelerated: 19,000, 13,800 and 11,300 years ago.

"By understanding more about the past, we can understand a little bit more about the future," said Stevenson.

The team will gather core samples, some of which are 490 ft below the seabed.

Stevenson said that the expedition would not disturb the live coral in the World Heritage site.

"Obviously, it is a national park and we are in there with the permission of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park authority. If they were not happy, then we would not be there."

The European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD) and the forms part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) all are funding the expedition.

---

On the Net:

British Geological Survey (BGS)
Expedition 325 - Great Barrier Reef Environmental Changes

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1823365/coral_fossils_document_past_sea_life/index.html

Strange creatures of the deep found in underwater 'twilight zone'

Thousands of strange ceatures which exist in perpetual darkness miles below the surface of the oceans have been catalogued for the first time by scientists.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2009

The Census of Marine Life, a major international project surveying the oceans, recorded 5,722 species living at depths greater than 0.62 miles where the sun never shines.

Many inhabited icy cold black realms as deep as three miles where the pressure would crush a human.

In total, 17,650 species were identified living deeper than 200 metres, the ''twilight zone'' where light barely penetrates and photosynthesis ceases to be possible.

Scientists were surprised by the diversity of life in the deepest reaches of the oceans.

Even the mud at the bottom of the ocean abyss was teeming with living things.

Among the bizarre creatures encountered by the researchers were a six foot long cirrate octopod - nicknamed ''Dumbo'' because of the large ear-like fins it uses to swim - discovered more than a mile deep on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Another was a ''wildcat'' tubeworm caught in the act of dining on crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. When the worm was extracted by a robot arm from the sea bed, oil gushed both from the animal's body and the hole in which it was found.

Also recovered from the Atlantic was an ''indescribable'' catch of multi-coloured invertebrates, including corals, sea cucumbers and sea urchins living a kilometre below the surface.

At more than 1.7 miles down, in the northern Gulf of Mexico, scientists videoed an odd-looking transparent sea cucumber creeping forward on its many tentacles.

Dr Robert Carney, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US, one of the Census scientists, said: ''Distribution is pretty straightforward for animals in the deep sea. The composition of faunal populations changes with depth, likely a consequence of physiology, ecology and the suitability of sea-floor habitat condition for certain animals.

''Diversity is harder to understand. Although the mud on the deep sea floor appears monotonous and poor in food, that monotonous mud has a maximum of species diversity on the lower continental margin. To survive in the deep, animals must find and exploit meagre or novel resources, and their great diversity in the deep reflects how many ways there are to adapt.''

The vast majority of creatures collected in mud from the abyssal plain were new to science, said the researchers.

Of some 680 specimens of copepods collected from the south-eastern Atlantic, for example, just seven could be identified.

Among the hundreds of species of earthworm-sized macrofauna found at different sites, 50% to 85% were unrecognised.

British expert Dr David Billett, another member of the team from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said: ''The abyssal fauna is so rich in species diversity and so poorly described that collecting a known species is an anomaly. Describing for the first time all the different species in any coffee cup-sized sample of deep sea sediment is a daunting challenge.''

The scientist used a range of high and low-tech hardware including robot submersibles and sea-floor rovers, coring drills, dredges and trawling nets.

The Census, which is also surveying life at shallower depths, is due to complete its work in October 2010.

Dr Chris German, one of the project leaders from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, US, said: ''The deep sea is the Earth's largest continuous ecosystem and largest habitat for life. It is also the least studied.''

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6628299/Strange-creatures-of-the-deep-found-in-underwater-twilight-zone.html

Strange creatures of the deep found in underwater 'twilight zone'

Thousands of strange ceatures which exist in perpetual darkness miles below the surface of the oceans have been catalogued for the first time by scientists.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2009

The Census of Marine Life, a major international project surveying the oceans, recorded 5,722 species living at depths greater than 0.62 miles where the sun never shines.

Many inhabited icy cold black realms as deep as three miles where the pressure would crush a human.

In total, 17,650 species were identified living deeper than 200 metres, the ''twilight zone'' where light barely penetrates and photosynthesis ceases to be possible.

Scientists were surprised by the diversity of life in the deepest reaches of the oceans.

Even the mud at the bottom of the ocean abyss was teeming with living things.

Among the bizarre creatures encountered by the researchers were a six foot long cirrate octopod - nicknamed ''Dumbo'' because of the large ear-like fins it uses to swim - discovered more than a mile deep on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Another was a ''wildcat'' tubeworm caught in the act of dining on crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. When the worm was extracted by a robot arm from the sea bed, oil gushed both from the animal's body and the hole in which it was found.

Also recovered from the Atlantic was an ''indescribable'' catch of multi-coloured invertebrates, including corals, sea cucumbers and sea urchins living a kilometre below the surface.

At more than 1.7 miles down, in the northern Gulf of Mexico, scientists videoed an odd-looking transparent sea cucumber creeping forward on its many tentacles.

Dr Robert Carney, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US, one of the Census scientists, said: ''Distribution is pretty straightforward for animals in the deep sea. The composition of faunal populations changes with depth, likely a consequence of physiology, ecology and the suitability of sea-floor habitat condition for certain animals.

''Diversity is harder to understand. Although the mud on the deep sea floor appears monotonous and poor in food, that monotonous mud has a maximum of species diversity on the lower continental margin. To survive in the deep, animals must find and exploit meagre or novel resources, and their great diversity in the deep reflects how many ways there are to adapt.''

The vast majority of creatures collected in mud from the abyssal plain were new to science, said the researchers.

Of some 680 specimens of copepods collected from the south-eastern Atlantic, for example, just seven could be identified.

Among the hundreds of species of earthworm-sized macrofauna found at different sites, 50% to 85% were unrecognised.

British expert Dr David Billett, another member of the team from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said: ''The abyssal fauna is so rich in species diversity and so poorly described that collecting a known species is an anomaly. Describing for the first time all the different species in any coffee cup-sized sample of deep sea sediment is a daunting challenge.''

The scientist used a range of high and low-tech hardware including robot submersibles and sea-floor rovers, coring drills, dredges and trawling nets.

The Census, which is also surveying life at shallower depths, is due to complete its work in October 2010.

Dr Chris German, one of the project leaders from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, US, said: ''The deep sea is the Earth's largest continuous ecosystem and largest habitat for life. It is also the least studied.''

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6628299/Strange-creatures-of-the-deep-found-in-underwater-twilight-zone.html

Ocean acid rise threatens underwater catastrophe

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Rising acid levels in the world's oceans are threatening an 'underwater catastrophe', which could see swathes of coral destroyed and fish and shellfish numbers decimated.

Such a loss of habitat and stocks would have a severe knock-on effect on fishing industries and communities that rely on them.

Two reports – one by Britain's respected Royal Society, the other by researchers in America – both warn of the damage acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

At present, about 30 per cent of the CO2 put into the atmosphere by human activities is absorbed by the oceans where it dissolves, altering the chemistry of the surface sea levels making it more acidic.

Higher acid levels particularly damage shellfish.

There were almost 13,000 fishermen in Britain in 2007, who harvested £645million of marine products, almost half of which were shellfish, according to researcher by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said the effect of rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere on the oceans had not received much political attention.

'Unless emissions can be cut by at least 50 per cent by 2050 and more thereafter, we could confront an underwater catastrophe,' he added.

He urged political leaders meeting in Denmark in December to thrash out a deal to cut emissions as a matter of urgency.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Ocean_acid_rise_threatens_underwater_catastrophe&in_article_id=675899&in_page_id=34

Studies shed light on collapse of coral reefs

28-May-2009

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean acidification.

Corals, it appears, have a genetic complexity that rivals that of humans, have sophisticated systems of biological communication that are being stressed by global change, and are only able to survive based on proper function of an intricate symbiotic relationship with algae that live within their bodies.

After being a highly successful life form for 250 million years, disruptions in these biological and communication systems are the underlying cause of the coral bleaching and collapse of coral reef ecosystems around the world, scientists will report tomorrow in the journal Science.

The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

"We've known for some time the general functioning of corals and the problems they are facing from climate change," said Virginia Weis, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University. "But until just recently, much less has been known about their fundamental biology, genome structure and internal communication. Only when we really understand how their physiology works will we know if they can adapt to climate changes, or ways that we might help."

Corals are tiny animals, polyps that exist as genetically identical individuals, and can eat, defend themselves and kill plankton for food. In the process they also secrete calcium carbonate that becomes the basis for an external skeleton on which they sit. These calcified deposits can grow to enormous sizes over long periods of time and form coral reefs – one of the world's most productive ecosystems, which can harbor more than 4,000 species of fish and many other marine life forms.

But corals are not really self sufficient. Within their bodies they harbor highly productive algae – a form of marine plant life – that can "fix" carbon, use the energy of the sun to conduct photosynthesis and produce sugars.

"Some of these algae that live within corals are amazingly productive, and in some cases give 95 percent of the sugars they produce to the coral to use for energy," Weis said. "In return the algae gain nitrogen, a limiting nutrient in the ocean, by feeding off the waste from the coral. It's a finely developed symbiotic relationship."

What scientists are learning, however, is that this relationship is also based on a delicate communication process from the algae to the coral, telling it that the algae belong there, and that everything is fine. Otherwise the corals would treat the algae as a parasite or invader and attempt to kill it.

"Even though the coral depends on the algae for much of its food, it may be largely unaware of its presence," Weis said. "We now believe that this is what's happening when the water warms or something else stresses the coral – the communication from the algae to the coral breaks down, the all-is-well message doesn't get through, the algae essentially comes out of hiding and faces an immune response from the coral."

This internal communication process, Weis said, is not unlike some of the biological processes found in humans and other animals. One of the revelations in recent research, she said, is the enormous complexity of coral biology, and even its similarity to other life forms. A gene that controls skeletal development in humans, for instance, is the identical gene in corals that helps it develop its external skeleton – conserved in the different species over hundreds of millions of years since they parted from a common ancestor on their separate evolutionary paths.

There's still much to learn about this process, researchers said, and tremendous variation in it. For one thing, there are 1,000 species of coral and perhaps thousands of species of algae all mixing and matching in this symbiotic dance. And that variation, experts say, provides at least some hope that combinations will be found which can better adapt to changing conditions of ocean temperature, acidity or other threats.

The problems facing coral reefs are still huge, and increasing. They are being pressured by changes in ocean temperature, pollution, overfishing, sedimentation, acidification, oxidative stress and disease, and the synergistic effect of some of these problems may destroy reefs even when one cause by itself would not. Some estimates have suggested 20 percent of the world's coral reefs are already dead and an additional 24 percent are gravely threatened.

The predicted acidification of the oceans in the next century is expected to decrease coral calcification rates by 50 percent and promote the dissolving of coral skeletons, the researchers noted in their report.

"With some of the new findings about coral symbiosis and calcification, and how it works, coral biologists are now starting to think more outside the box," Weis said. "Maybe there's something we could do to help identify and protect coral species that can survive in different conditions. Perhaps we won't have to just stand by as the coral reefs of the world die and disappear."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/osu-ssl052209.php

Underwater Britain: the invasive species

The UK has a rich diversity of marine wildlife and is home to more than 44,000 species from basking sharks to jellyfish and tiny corals.

But that diversity is being threatened. New species are arriving in UK waters every year via container ships, accidental release or commercial fishing.

Most live in harmony with the pre-existing wildlife but some ‘invasive aliens’, as marine scientists refer to them, are disrupting native species and their habitats. Species like the zebra mussel and Chinese mitten crab have no native predators or competitors, and as a result, their populations can quickly multiply.

For full article and photos see: http://environment.uk.msn.com/wildlife/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=14280445

Shape-shifting coral evade identification

Photo: Zac ForsmanContact: Charlotte Webber
charlotte.webber@biomedcentral.com
44-207-631-9980
BioMed Central

The evolutionary tendency of corals to alter their skeletal structure makes it difficult to assign them to different species. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have used genetic markers to examine coral groupings and investigate how these markers relate to alterations in shape, in the process discovering that our inaccurate picture of coral species is compromising our ability to conserve coral reefs.

Zac Forsman led a team of researchers from University of Hawaii at Manoa's Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology who carried out the molecular studies. He said, "Our study represents important progress towards understanding the evolution and biodiversity of corals, and provides a foundation for future work. As coral ecosystems are increasingly threatened, we need to understand how many groups exist that can interbreed rather than judging potential for extinction by just looking at groups according to their shape alone".

Skeletal shape is currently used to differentiate coral species. According to the authors, this can make them notoriously difficult to tell apart as shape can change independent of reproductive isolation or evolutionary divergence, the factors most commonly understood to define 'species'. By studying the genetic characteristics of corals at several regions of the genome, Forsman and his colleagues were able to confirm many morphological species groupings, while finding evidence that appearances are very deceiving in a few groups; some corals were genetically indistinguishable despite differing in size and shape, such as branching and massive corals, whereas some corals with similar appearance had deep genetic divergence. The authors said, "Our analysis of multiple molecular markers reveals previously unrecognised cryptic patterns of species diversity within the coral genus Porites. Our approach shows that morphological characters previously thought capable of delineating species must be re-examined to accurately understand patterns of evolution, and biodiversity in reef-building coral".

The authors' research will be very useful in aiding efforts to understand and preserve coral biodiversity. According to Forsman, "Currently used species definitions are likely to be misleading and confound attempts to identify, understand, and conserve coral biodiversity or to recognize its loss".

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/bc-sce022009.php