Baseline assessment of Fish and Coral bays, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands in support of watershed restoration activities, part I: fish, coral and benthic habitats

This report provides baseline biological data on fishes, corals and habitats in Coral and Fish Bays, St. John, USVI. A similar report with data on nutrients and contaminants in the same bays is planned to be completed in 2013. Data from NOAA’s long-term Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring program was compiled to provide a baseline assessment of corals, fishes and habitats from 2001 to 2010, data needed to assess the impacts of erosion control projects installed from 2010 to 2011. The baseline data supplement other information collected as part of the USVI Watershed Stabilization Project, a project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and distributed through the NOAA Restoration Center, but uses data which is not within the scope of ARRA funded work. We present data on 16 ecological indicators of fishes, corals and habitats. These indicators were chosen because of their sensitivity to changes in water quality noted in the scientific literature (e.g., Rogers 1990, Larsen and Webb 2009). We report long-term averages and corresponding standard errors, plot annual averages, map indicator values and list inventories of coral and fish species identified among surveys. Similar data will be needed in the future to make rigorous comparisons and determine the magnitude of any impacts from watershed stabilization.

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.

An environmental assessment of the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and the Key Largo Coral Reef Marine Sanctuary (Unpublished 1983 Report)

The Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was established in 1960 and the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary in 1975. Field studies, funded by NOAA, were conducted in 1980 - 1981 to determine the state of the coral reefs and surrounding areas in relation to changing environmental conditions and resource management that had occurred over the intervening years. Ten reef sites within the Sanctuary and seven shallow grass and hardbottom sites within the Park were chosen for qualitative and quantitative studies. At each site, three parallel transects not less than 400 m long were run perpendicular to the reef or shore, each 300 m apart. Observations, data collecting and sampling were done by two teams of divers. Approximately 75 percent of the bottom within the 18-m isobath was covered by marine grasses, predominantly turtle grass. The general health of the seagrasses appeared good but a few areas showed signs of stress. The inner hardbottom of the Park was studied at the two entrances to Largo Sound. Though at the time of the study the North Channel hardbottom was subjected to only moderate boat traffic, marked changes had taken place over the past years, the most obvious of which was the loss of the extensive beds of Sargassum weed, one of the most extensive beds of this alga in the Keys. Only at this site was the green alga Enteromorpha encountered. This alga, often considered a pollution indicator, may denote the effects of shore run off. The hardbottom at South Channel and the surrounding grass beds showed signs of stress. This area bears the heaviest boat traffic within the Park waters causing continuous turbidity from boat wakes with resulting siltation. The offshore hardbottom and rubble areas in the Sanctuary appeared to be in good health and showed no visible indications of deterioration. Damage by boat groundings and anchors was negligible in the areas surveyed. The outer reefs in general appear to be healthy. Corals have a surprising resiliency to detrimental factors and, when conditions again become favorable, recover quickly from even severe damage. It is, therefore, a cause for concern that Grecian Rocks, which sits somewhat inshore of the outer reef line, has yet to recover from die-off in 1978. The slow recovery, if occurring, may be due to the lower quality of the inshore waters. The patch reefs, more adapted to inshore waters, do not show obvious stress signs, at least those surveyed in this study. It is apparent that water quality was changing in the keys. Water clarity over much of the reef tract was observed to be much reduced from former years and undoubtedly plays an important part in the stresses seen today over the Sanctuary and Park. (PDF contains 119 pages)

Standard and routine metabolic rates of juvenile sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus), including the effects of body mass and acute temperature change*

Standard and routine metabolic rates (SMRs and RMRs, respectively) of juvenile sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) were measured over a range of body sizes (n=34) and temperatures normally associated with western Atlantic coastal nursery areas. The mean SMR Q10 (increase in metabolic rate with temperature) was 2.9 ±0.2. Heart rate decreased with increasing body mass but increased with temperature at a Q10 of 1.8−2.2. Self-paired measures of SMR and RMR were obtained for 15 individuals. Routine metabolic rate averaged 1.8 ±0.1 times the SMR and was not correlated with body mass. Assuming the maximum metabolic rate of sandbar sharks is 1.8−2.75 times the SMR (as is observed in other elasmobranch species), sandbar sharks are using between 34% and 100% of their metabolic scope just to sustain their routine continuous activity. This limitation may help to explain their slow individual and population growth rates, as well as the slow recoveries from overfishing of many shark stocks worl

Estimating consumption rates of juvenile sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, using a bioenergetics model*

Using a bioenergetics model, we estimated daily ration and seasonal prey consumption rates for six age classes of juvenile sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) in the lower Chesapeake Bay summer nursery area. The model, incorporating habitat and species-specific data on growth rates, metabolic rate, diet composition, water temperature (range 16.8−27.9°C), and population structure, predicted mean daily rations between 2.17 ±0.03 (age-0) and 1.30 ±0.02 (age-5) % body mass/day. These daily rations are higher than earlier predictions for sandbar sharks but are comparable to those for ecologically similar shark species. The total nursery population of sandbar sharks was predicted to consume ~124,000 kg of prey during their 4.5 month stay in the Chesapeake Bay nursery. The predicted consumption rates support the conclusion that juvenile sandbar sharks exert a lesser top-down effect on the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem than do teleost piscivores and hu

Stanford University’s John Otterbein Snyder: Student, Collaborator, and Colleague of David Starr Jordan and Charles Henry Gilbert

John Otterbein Snyder (1867–1943) was an early student of David Starr Jordan at Stanford University and subsequently rose to become an assistant professor there. During his 34 years with the university he taught a wide variety of courses in various branches of zoology and advised numerous students. He eventually mentored 8 M.A. and 4 Ph.D. students to completion at Stanford. He also assisted in the collection of tens of thousands of fish specimens from the western Pacific, central Pacific, and the West Coast of North America, part of the time while stationed as “Naturalist” aboard the U.S. Fish Commission’s Steamer Albatross (1902–06). Although his early publications dealt mainly with fish groups and descriptions (often as a junior author with Jordan), after 1910 he became more autonomous and eventually rose to become one of the Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus spp., experts on the West Coast. Throughout his career, he was especially esteemed by colleagues as “a stimulating teacher,” “an excellent biologist,” and “a fine man.

The Geographic Distribution of Bowhead Whales, Balaena mysticetus, in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas: Evidence from Whaleship Records, 1849–1914

We have extracted, digitized, and analyzed information about bowhead whales, Balaena mysticetus, contained in records of whaling cruises that were undertaken in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas from 1849 to 1914. Our database consists of 65,000 days of observations which provide insights into whether this bowhead stock may comprise more than one population.

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930): Founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930) became the founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, in 1919 without the benefit of a college education. An inquisitive and ambitious man, he began his career in the newspaper business and was introduced to commercial fisheries when he joined the U.S. Fish Commission (USFC) in 1895 as a clerk, and he was soon promoted to a “Field Agent” in the Division of Statistics, Washington, D.C. During the next 17 years, Cobb surveyed commercial fisheries from Maine to Florida, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska for the USFC and its successor, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. In 1913, he became editor of the prominent west coast trade magazine, Pacific Fisherman, of Seattle, Wash., where he became known as a leading expert on the fisheries of the Pacific Northwest. He soon joined the campaign, led by his employer, to establish the nation’s first fisheries school at the University of Washington. After a brief interlude (1917–1918) with the Alaska Packers Association in San Francisco, Calif., he was chosen as the School’s founding director in 1919. Reflecting his experience and mindset, as well as the University’s apparent initial desire, Cobb established the College of Fisheries primarily as a training ground for those interested in applied aspects of the commercial fishing industry. Cobb attracted sufficient students, was a vigorous spokesman for the College, and had ambitions plans for expansion of the school’s faculty and facilities. He became aware that the College was not held in high esteem by his faculty colleagues or by the University administration because of the school’s failure to emphasize scholastic achievement, and he attempted to correct this deficiency. Cobb became ill with heart problems in 1929 and died on 13 January 1930. The University soon thereafter dissolved the College and dismissed all but one of its faculty. A Department of Fisheries, in the College of Science, was then established in 1930 and was led by William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), who emphasized basic science and fishery biology. The latter format continues to the present in the Department’s successor, The School of Aquatic Fisheries and Science.