Microbial community analysis of Acropora palamata mucus swabs, water and sediment samples from Hawksnest Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Colonies of the scleractinian coral Acropora palmata, listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act in 2006, have been monitored in Hawksnest Bay, within Virgin Islands National Park, St. John, from 2004 through 2010 by scientists with the US Geological Survey, National Park Service, and the University of the Virgin Islands. The focus has been on documenting the prevalence of disease, including white band, white pox (also called patchy necrosis and white patches), and unidentified diseases (Rogers et al., 2008; Muller et al., 2008). In an effort to learn more about the pathologies that might be involved with the diseases that were observed, samples were collected from apparently healthy and diseased colonies in July 2009 for analysis. Two different microbial assays were performed on Epicentre Biotechnologies DNA swabs containing A. palmata coral mucus, and on water and sediment samples collected in Hawksnest Bay. Both assays are based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of portions of the small rRNA gene (16S). The objectives were to determine 1) if known coral bacterial pathogens Serratia marcescens (Acroporid Serratiosis), Vibrio coralliilyticus (temperature-dependent bleaching, White Syndrome), Vibrio shiloi (bleaching, necrosis), and Aurantimonas coralicida (White Plague Type II) were present in any samples, and 2) if there were any differences in microbial community profiles of each healthy, unaffected or diseased coral mucus swab. In addition to coral mucus, water and sediment samples were included to show ambient microbial populations. In the first test, PCR was used to separately amplify the unique and diagnostic region of the 16S rRNA gene for each of the coral pathogens being screened. Each pathogen test was designed so that an amplified DNA fragment could be seen only if the specific pathogen was present in a sample. A positive result was indicated by bands of DNA of the appropriate size on an agarose gel, which separates DNA fragments based on the size of the molecule. DNA from pure cultures of each of the pathogens was used as a positive control for each assay.

St. John, USVI mission report: a strategy to inventory, characterize, and monitor the marine region within and around the National Park and Monument boundaries of St. John, USVI

The intent of this field mission was to continue ongoing efforts: (1) to spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance and size of both reef fishes and conch within and around the waters of the Virgin Islands National Park (VIIS) and newly established Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument (VICR), (2) to correlate this information to in-situ data collected on associated habitat parameters, (3) to use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting and to establish the efficacy of those management decisions. This work is supported by the National Park Service and NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program’s Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Project.

Shallow-water benthic habitats of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Coral reef ecosystems of the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, Virgin Islands National Park and the surrounding waters of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands are a precious natural resource worthy of special protection and conservation. The mosaic of habitats including coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves, are home to a diversity of marine organisms. These benthic habitats and their associated inhabitants provide many important ecosystem services to the community of St. John, such as fishing, tourism and shoreline protection. However, coral reef ecosystems throughout the U.S. Caribbean are under increasing pressure from environmental and anthropogenic stressors that threaten to destroy the natural heritage of these marine habitats. Mapping of benthic habitats is an integral component of any effective ecosystem-based management approach. Through the implementation of a multi-year interagency agreement, NOAA’s Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment - Biogeography Branch and the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) have completed benthic habitat mapping, field validation and accuracy assessment of maps for the nearshore marine environment of St. John. This work is an expansion of ongoing mapping and monitoring efforts conducted by NOAA and NPS in the U.S. Caribbean and replaces previous NOAA maps generated by Kendall et al. (2001) for the waters around St. John. The use of standardized protocols enables the condition of the coral reef ecosystems around St. John to be evaluated in context to the rest of the Virgin Island Territories and other U.S. coral ecosystems. The products from this effort provide an accurate assessment of the abundance and distribution of marine habitats surrounding St. John to support more effective management and conservation of ocean resources within the National Park system. This report documents the entire process of benthic habitat mapping in St. John. Chapter 1 provides a description of the benthic habitat classification scheme used to categorize the different habitats existing in the nearshore environment. Chapter 2 describes the steps required to create a benthic habitat map from visual interpretation of remotely sensed imagery. Chapter 3 details the process of accuracy assessment and reports on the thematic accuracy of the final maps. Finally, Chapter 4 is a summary of the basic map content and compares the new maps to a previous NOAA effort. Benthic habitat maps of the nearshore marine environment of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands were created by visual interpretation of remotely sensed imagery. Overhead imagery, including color orthophotography and IKONOS satellite imagery, proved to be an excellent source from which to visually interpret the location, extent and attributes of marine habitats. NOAA scientists were able to accurately and reliably delineate the boundaries of features on digital imagery using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and fi eld investigations. The St. John habitat classification scheme defined benthic communities on the basis of four primary coral reef ecosystem attributes: 1) broad geographic zone, 2) geomorphological structure type, 3) dominant biological cover, and 4) degree of live coral cover. Every feature in the benthic habitat map was assigned a designation at each level of the scheme. The ability to apply any component of this scheme was dependent on being able to identify and delineate a given feature in remotely sensed imagery.

Moderate-depth benthic habitats of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment’s (CCMA) Biogeography Branch and the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) have completed mapping the moderate-depth marine environment south of St. John. This work is an expansion of ongoing mapping and monitoring efforts conducted by NOAA and NPS in the U.S. Caribbean. The standardized protocols used in this effort will enable scientists and managers to quantitatively compare moderate-depth coral reef ecosystems around St. John to those throughout the U.S. Territories. These protocols and products will also help support the effective management and conservation of the marine resources within the National Park system.

Mission report: a strategy to inventory, characterize, and monitor the marine region within and around the National Park and Monument boundaries of St. John, USVI, July 21- July 31, 2008

The intent of this field mission was to continue ongoing efforts: (1) to spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance and size of both reef fishes and conch within and around the waters of the Virgin Islands National Park (VIIS) and newly established Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument (VICR), (2) to correlate this information to in-situ data collected on associated habitat parameters, (3) to use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting and to establish the efficacy of those management decisions. This work is supported by the National Park Service and NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program’s Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Project. The report highlights the successes of this mission.