The Future of the Public Trust: The Muddied Waters of Rockweed Management in Maine

Seaweeds, or more properly, intertidal macroalgae have never been easy to classify—by law or by science: they are not part of the animal kingdom, nor part of the plant kingdom (and scientific controversies about their phylogenetic placement abound), they are not completely on terra firma, nor completely submerged in ocean water. One such organism that exists at the space in between land and sea—the brown alga commonly known as Rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum) presents an intriguing legal question with implications that extend far beyond the shoreline. Recently, in Ross v. Acadian Seaplants Ltd. , the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (Court) ruled that Rockweed located within the intertidal zone is the property of the adjacent upland property owner, and therefore the public cannot enter intertidal lands to harvest Rockweed as a matter of right—a right that has been preserved for the harvest of shellfish species, fish species, and bird species. The legal status of Rockweed is important to the scientists that study its ecological benefits, the harvesters that collect it for commercial purposes, the state agency concerned with its sustainable management as a marine resource, and the coastal landowners that assert that seaweed is their private property. This article explores the legal justification for—and practical resource management issues associated with—the Court’s decision to treat a marine organism such as Rockweed that derives its nutrients from ocean water and not through a root system as private property

Monitoring Hawaii’s marine protected areas: examining spatial and temporal trends using a seascape approach

Hawaii’s coastal marine resources have declined dramatically over the past 100 years due to multiple anthropogenic stressors including overfishing, coastal development, pollution, overuse, invasive species and climate change. It is now becoming evident that ecosystem-based management, in the form of marine protected areas (MPAs), is necessary to conserve biodiversity, maintain viable fisheries, and deliver a broad suite of ecosystem services. Over the past four decades, Hawaii has developed a system of MPAs to conserve and replenish marine resources around the state. These Marine Life Conservation Districts (MLCDs) vary in size, habitat quality, and management regimes, providing an excellent opportunity to test hypotheses concerning MPA design and function using multiple discreet sampling units. NOAA/NOS/NCCOS/Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment’s Biogeography Branch used digital benthic habitat maps coupled with comprehensive ecological studies between 2002 and 2004 to evaluate the efficacy of all existing MLCDs using a spatially-explicit stratified random sampling design. The results from this work have shown that areas fully protected from fishing had higher fish biomass, larger overall fish size, and higher biodiversity than adjacent areas of similar habitat quality. Other key findings demonstrated that top predators and other important fisheries species were more abundant and larger in the MPAs, illustrating the effectiveness of these closures in conserving these populations. Habitat complexity, protected area size and habitat diversity were the major factors in determining effectiveness among MPAs

Integrating remote sensing products and GIS tools to support marine spatial management in West Hawai'i

Marine protected areas (MPAs) represent a form of spatial management, and geospatial information on living marine resources and associated habitat is extremely important to support best management practices in a spatially discrete MPA. Benthic habitat maps provide georeferenced information on the geomorphic structure and biological cover types in the marine environment. This information supports an enhanced understanding of ecosystem function and species habitat utilization patterns. Benthic habitat maps are most useful for marine management and spatial planning purposes when they are created at a scale that is relevant to management actions. We sought to improve the resolution of existing benthic habitat maps created during a regional mapping effort in Hawai`i. Our results complemented these existing regional maps and provided more detailed, finer-scale habitat maps for a network of MPAs in West Hawai`i. The map products created during this study allow local planners and managers to extract information at a spatial scale relevant to the discrete management units, and appropriate for local marine management efforts on the Kona Coast. The resultant benthic habitat maps were integrated in a geographic information system (GIS) that also included aerial imagery, underwater video, MPA regulations, summarized ecological data and other relevant and spatially explicit information. The integration of the benthic habitat maps with additional “value added” geospatial information into a dynamic GIS provide a decision support tool with pertinent marine resource information available in one central location and support the application of a spatial approach to the management of marine resources. Further, this work can serve as a case study to demonstrate the integration of remote sensing products and GIS tools at a fine spatial scale relevant to local-level marine spatial planning and management efforts

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

Scale-dependent spatial patterns in benthic communities around a tropical island seascape

Understanding and predicting patterns of spatial organization across ecological communities is central to the field of landscape ecology, and a similar line of inquiry has begun to evolve sub-tidally among seascape ecologists. Much of our current understanding of the processes driving marine community patterns, particularly in the tropics, has come from small-scale, spatially-discrete data that are often not representative of the broader seascape. Here we expand the spatial extent of seascape ecology studies and combine spatially-expansive in situ digital imagery, oceanographic measurements, spatial statistics, and predictive modeling to test whether predictable patterns emerge between coral reef benthic competitors across scales in response to intra-island gradients in physical drivers. We do this around the entire circumference of a remote, uninhabited island in the central Pacific (Jarvis Island) that lacks the confounding effects of direct human impacts. We show, for the first time, that competing benthic groups demonstrate predictable scaling patterns of organization, with positive autocorrelation in the cover of each group at scales \u3c ~1 km. Moreover, we show how gradients in subsurface temperature and surface wave power drive spatially-abrupt transition points in group dominance, explaining 48–84% of the overall variation in benthic cover around the island. Along the western coast, we documented ten times more sub-surface cooling-hours than any other part of the coastline, with events typically resulting in a drop of 1–4°C over a period of \u3c 5 h. These high frequency temperature fluctuations are indicative of upwelling induced by internal waves and here result in localized nitrogen enrichment (NO 2 + NO 3 ) that promotes hard coral dominance around 44% of the island\u27s perimeter. Our findings show that, in the absence of confounding direct human impacts, the spatial organization of coral reef benthic competitors are predictable and somewhat bounded across the seascape by concurrent gradients in physical drivers

Embedding the value of coastal ecosystem services into climate change adaptation planning

Coastal habitats, such as salt marshes and dune systems, can protect communities from hazards by reducing coastline exposure. However, these critical habitats and their diverse ecosystem services are threatened by coastal development and the impacts from a changing climate. Ever increasing pressure on coastal habitats calls for coastal climate adaptation efforts that mitigate or adapt to these pressures in ways that maintain the integrity of coastal landscapes. An important challenge for decisionmakers is determining the best mitigation and adaptation strategies that not only protect human lives and property, but also safeguard the ability of coastal habitats to provide a broad suite of benefits. Here, we present a potential pathway for local-scale climate change adaptation planning through the identification and mapping of natural habitats that provide the greatest benefits to coastal communities. The methodology coupled a coastal vulnerability model with a climate adaptation policy assessment in an effort to identify priority locations for nature-based solutions that reduce vulnerability of critical assets using feasible land-use policy methods. Our results demonstrate the critical role of natural habitats in providing the ecosystem service of coastal protection in California. We found that specific dune habitats play a key role in reducing erosion and inundation of the coastline and that several wetland areas help to absorb energy from storms and provide a protective service for the coast of Marin county, California, USA. Climate change and adaptation planning are globally relevant issues in which the scalability and transferability of solutions must be considered. This work outlines an iterative approach for climate adaptation planning at a local-scale, with opportunity to consider the scalability of an iterative science-policy engagement approach to regional, national, and international levels

National summary of NOAA's shallow-water benthic habitat mapping of U.S. coral reef ecosystems

Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most complex and important ecosystems in the marine environment. They are also among the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth, producing billions of dollars in food, as well as providing a suite of ecological services, such as recreation and tourism activities and coastal protection from storm and wave action. Yet, despite their value and importance, these fragile ecosystems are declining at an alarming rate (Waddell and Clarke (eds.) 2008) due to a myriad of threats both natural and manmade, including climate change, fishing pressure, and runoff and sedimentation. In response, the Unites States Coal Reef Task Force was established in 1998 by Presidential Executive Order 13089 to lead U.S. efforts to preserve and protect the nation’s coral reef ecosystems. In order to better understand the current state of coral reef ecosystems and successfully mitigate the impacts of stressors, informational products, such as benthic (or sea floor) habitat maps, are critical. Benthic habitat maps support the ability to prioritize areas for further study and protection, and offer a baseline to evaluate the changes in ecosystems over time. In 2000, the United States Coral Reef Task Force charged NOAA with leading federal efforts to produce comprehensive digital maps of all U.S. shallow-water (approximately 0 to 30 m in depth) coral reef ecosystem habitats

Parsing human and biophysical drivers of coral reef regimes

Coral reefs worldwide face unprecedented cumulative anthropogenic effects of interacting local human pressures, global climate change and distal social processes. Reefs are also bound by the natural biophysical environment within which they exist. In this context, a key challenge for effective management is understanding how anthropogenic and biophysical conditions interact to drive distinct coral reef configurations. Here, we use machine learning to conduct explanatory predictions on reef ecosystems defined by both fish and benthic communities. Drawing on the most spatially extensive dataset available across the Hawaiian archipelago-20 anthropogenic and biophysical predictors over 620 survey sites-we model the occurrence of four distinct reef regimes and provide a novel approach to quantify the relative influence of human and environmental variables in shaping reef ecosystems. Our findings highlight the nuances of what underpins different coral reef regimes, the overwhelming importance of biophysical predictors and how a reef's natural setting may either expand or narrow the opportunity space for management interventions. The methods developed through this study can help inform reef practitioners and hold promises for replication across a broad range of ecosystems. © 2019 The Author(s

Combining fish and benthic communities into multiple regimes reveals complex reef dynamics

Abstract Coral reefs worldwide face an uncertain future with many reefs reported to transition from being dominated by corals to macroalgae. However, given the complexity and diversity of the ecosystem, research on how regimes vary spatially and temporally is needed. Reef regimes are most often characterised by their benthic components; however, complex dynamics are associated with losses and gains in both fish and benthic assemblages. To capture this complexity, we synthesised 3,345 surveys from Hawai‘i to define reef regimes in terms of both fish and benthic assemblages. Model-based clustering revealed five distinct regimes that varied ecologically, and were spatially heterogeneous by island, depth and exposure. We identified a regime characteristic of a degraded state with low coral cover and fish biomass, one that had low coral but high fish biomass, as well as three other regimes that varied significantly in their ecology but were previously considered a single coral dominated regime. Analyses of time series data reflected complex system dynamics, with multiple transitions among regimes that were a function of both local and global stressors. Coupling fish and benthic communities into reef regimes to capture complex dynamics holds promise for monitoring reef change and guiding ecosystem-based management of coral reefs

Fish movement patterns in Virgin Islands National Park, Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument and adjacent waters

NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)-Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment’s (CCMA) Biogeography Branch, National Park Service (NPS), US Geological Survey, and the University of Hawaii used acoustic telemetry to quantify spatial patterns and habitat affinities of reef fishes around the island of St. John, US Virgin Islands. The objective of the study was to define the movements of reef fishes among habitats within and between the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument (VICRNM), the Virgin Islands National Park (VIIS), and Territorial waters surrounding St. John. In order to better understand species’ habitat utilization patterns among management regimes, we deployed an array of hydroacoustic receivers and acoustically tagged reef fishes. Thirty six receivers were deployed in shallow near-shore bays and across the shelf to depths of approximately 30 m. One hundred eighty four individual fishes were tagged representing 19 species from 10 different families with VEMCO V9-2L-R64K transmitters. The array provides fish movement information at fine (e.g., day-night and 100s meters within a bay) to broad spatial and temporal scales (multiple years and 1000s meters across the shelf). The long term multi-year tracking project provides direct evidence of connectivity across habitat types in the seascape and among management units. An important finding for management was that a number of individuals moved among management units (VICRNM, VINP, Territorial waters) and several snapper moved from near-shore protected areas to offshore shelf-edge spawning aggregations. However, most individuals spent the majority of their time with VIIS and VICRNM, with only a few wide-ranging species moving outside the management units. Five species of snappers (Lutjanidae) accounted for 31% of all individuals tagged, followed by three species of grunts (Haemulidae) accounting for an additional 23% of the total. No other family had more than a single species represented in the study. Bluestripe grunt (Haemulon sciurus) comprised 22% of all individuals tagged, followed by lane snappers (Lutjanus synagris) at 21%, bar jack (Carangoides ruber) at 11%, and saucereye porgy (Calamus calamus) at 10%. The largest individual tagged was a 70 cm TL nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum), followed by a 65 cm mutton snapper (Lutjanus analis), a 47 cm bar jack, and a 41 cm dog snapper (Lutjanus jocu). The smallest individuals tagged were a 19 cm blue tang (Acanthurus coeruleus) and a 19.2 cm doctorfish (Acanthurus chirurgus). Of the 40 bluestriped grunt acoustically tagged, 73% were detected on the receiver array. The average days at large (DAL) was 249 (just over 8 months), with one individual detected for 930 days (over two and a half years). Lane snapper were the next most abundant species tagged (N = 38) with 89% detected on the array. The average days at large (DAL) was 221 with one individual detected for 351 days. Seventy-one percent of the bar jacks (N = 21) were detected on the array with the average DALs at 47 days. All of the mutton snapper (N = 12) were detected on the array with an average DAL of 273 and the longest at 784. The average maximum distance travelled (MDT) was ca. 2 km with large variations among species. Grunts, snappers, jacks, and porgies showed the greatest movements. Among all individuals across species, there was a positive and significant correlation between size of individuals and MDT and between DAL and MDT