The Psychological Impact of the Boat Experience on Vietnamese Refugees

There is a growing need to study Asians and mental health. One such Asian subgroup that is important to study more thoroughly is Vietnamese people, more specifically, Vietnamese Boat People and the impact that their boat experiences had on their lives. The study sought to understand the boat experiences and its relation to their emotional and psychological well-being, the impact of immigrating to America after leaving Vietnam as well as how well they adapted to the American culture. Additionally, the study explored the strengths of the Vietnamese Boat People and what role these strengths have played as they coped with the stress after the boat experience. The investigator used a phenomenologically-grounded, qualitative research design. A purposeful sample of 16 Vietnamese Boat People from the Midwest and Pacific Southwest were interviewed using qualitative techniques (Creswell, 2007; Moustakas, 1994). Five hundred thirty-five statements were extracted and grouped together, resulting in 16 emergent themes. Participants described symptoms consistent with posttraumatic stress, denial, avoidance and depression. They also discussed struggles in balancing the American culture with their Vietnamese heritage immediately after arriving to the United States. Furthermore, the participants expressed resilience, optimism, and faithful devotion to God in moving past the ordeal and moving forward with their lives

Giant clam hatchery, ocean nursery and stock enhancement

A 109-page manual discusses the hatchery, ocean nursery and stock enhancement of giant clam. It also contains information on macroalgal and zooxanthellae culture.This manual is meant to serve as a guide to the culture of giant clams (Bivalvia, Subfamily Tridacninae). The first part focuses on hatchery methods. The second part is about the ocean nursery. The first two sections refer to selection and setting the ocean nursery site. Clam transport is introduced next although this is further tackled in the last part of this manual. Finally, the third and last part discusses the purposes of stock enhancement, survey methods for stock assessment, transport, monitoring and record keeping.The authors thank the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM, now WorldFish Center), International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada), Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation, Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, and the University of the Philippines (UP) for financially supporting the MSI Giant Clam Program on Research, Mariculture, and Restocking

Coral Gardening: Issues and Challenges

Coral gardening is the process of restoring cover of a damaged reef by affixing live coral fragments. This method of reef rehabilitation has been gaining popularity in the Philippines, and while it has its applications, it should be the last option for bringing a reef back to a healthy state. Proper management of reef resources through marine protected areas, removal of stressors, and easing of fishing pressure provides a broader and more holistic approach while allowing the reef to recover by itself. If coral gardening is the only viable option available for rehabilitating a certain reef, careful consideration must be put into site selection, coral species to be utilized, and the management of transplantation sites. All national and local government permits required for operating a coral gardening initiative should also be obtained, and a monitoring plan formulated to assess its effectivity in the long run

Achievements and lessons learned in restocking giant clams

Abstract For almost 20 years, the Marine Science Institute (MSI), University of the Philippines, has been culturing giant clams to restore depleted populations of these large bivalves in the Philippines, and to promote giant clam farming as a sustainable livelihood. Restocking activities were done in collaboration with local groups by providing training in the culture and ocean rearing of giant clams, and by implementing a "users pay" approach. Initially, a variety of giant clam species was used but once F1 broodstock of Tridacna gigas were reared, restocking focused on this species due to its scarcity and fast rate of growth. About 20 000 T. gigas were placed on coral reefs. In addition, >50 000 clams (T. gigas, T. squamosa, T. derasa, T. crocea, T. maxima and Hippopus hippopus) were distributed through other means. Altogether, >40 sites throughout the Philippines received cultured giant clams. Grow-out trials to test the viability of supplying giant clams for the aquarium trade to create new sources of income were conducted successfully with a group of fishers in Bolinao, Pangasinan. However, this initiative encountered legal obstacles when the government regulatory agency prohibited the export of cultured clams, regarding this as a threat to the conservation of wild individuals. The long experience in culturing and restocking giant clams in the Philippines provides many lessons for other countries wishing to restore stocks of these large bivalves. Particular care needs to be given to selection of release sites, negotiations with participating groups to safeguard the released clams, adequate transfer of technology to collaborators, and transport of large clams from nursery areas to release sites

Borneo coral reefs subject to high sediment loads show evidence of resilience to various environmental stressors

Copyright © 2019 Browne et al. For reefs in South East Asia the synergistic effects of rapid land development, insufficient environmental policies and a lack of enforcement has led to poor water quality and compromised coral health from increased sediment and pollution. Those inshore turbid coral reefs, subject to significant sediment inputs, may also inherit some resilience to the effects of thermal stress and coral bleaching. We studied the inshore turbid reefs near Miri, in northwest Borneo through a comprehensive assessment of coral cover and health in addition to quantifying sediment-related parameters. Although Miri's Reefs had comparatively low coral species diversity, dominated by massive and encrusting forms of Diploastrea, Porites, Montipora, Favites, Dipsastrea and Pachyseris, they were characterized by a healthy cover ranging from 22 to 39%. We found a strong inshore to offshore gradient in hard coral cover, diversity and community composition as a direct result of spatial differences in sediment at distances <10 km. As well as distance to shore, we included other environmental variables like reef depth and sediment trap accumulation and particle size that explained 62.5% of variation in benthic composition among sites. Miri's reefs showed little evidence of coral disease and relatively low prevalence of compromised health signs including bleaching (6.7%), bioerosion (6.6%), pigmentation response (2.2%), scars (1.1%) and excessive mucus production (0.5%). Tagged colonies of Diploastrea and Pachyseris suffering partial bleaching in 2016 had fully (90-100%) recovered the following year. There were, however, seasonal differences in bioerosion rates, which increased five-fold after the 2017 wet season. Differences in measures of coral physiology, like that of symbiont density and chlorophyll a for Montipora, Pachyseris and Acropora, were not detected among sites. We conclude that Miri's reefs may be in a temporally stable state given minimal recently dead coral and a limited decline in coral cover over the last two decades. This study provides further evidence that turbid coral reefs exposed to seasonally elevated sediment loads can exhibit relatively high coral cover and be resilient to disease and elevated sea surface temperatures

The behaviour of giant clams (Bivalvia: Cardiidae: Tridacninae)

Giant clams, the largest living bivalves, live in close association with coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific. These iconic invertebrates perform numerous important ecological roles as well as serve as flagship species—drawing attention to the ongoing destruction of coral reefs and their associated biodiversity. To date, no review of giant clams has focussed on their behaviour, yet this component of their autecology is critical to their life history and hence conservation. Almost 100 articles published between 1865 and 2014 include behavioural observations, and these have been collated and synthesised into five sections: spawning, locomotion, feeding, anti-predation, and stress responses. Even though the exact cues for spawning in the wild have yet to be elucidated, giant clams appear to display diel and lunar periodicities in reproduction, and for some species, peak breeding seasons have been established. Perhaps surprisingly, giant clams have considerable mobility, ranging from swimming and gliding as larvae to crawling in juveniles and adults. Chemotaxis and geotaxis have been established, but giant clams are not phototactic. At least one species exhibits clumping behaviour, which may enhance physical stabilisation, facilitate reproduction, or provide protection from predators. Giant clams undergo several shifts in their mode of acquiring nutrition; starting with a lecithotrophic and planktotrophic diet as larvae, switching to pedal feeding after metamorphosis followed by the transition to a dual mode of filter feeding and phototrophy once symbiosis with zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium spp.) is established. Because of their shell weight and/or byssal attachment, adult giant clams are unable to escape rapidly from threats using locomotion. Instead, they exhibit a suite of visually mediated anti-predation behaviours that include sudden contraction of the mantle, valve adduction, and squirting of water. Knowledge on the behaviour of giant clams will benefit conservation and restocking efforts and help fine-tune mariculture techniques. Understanding the repertoire of giant clam behaviours will also facilitate the prediction of threshold levels for sustainable exploitation as well as recovery rates of depleted clam populations