Charles Birkeland | University of Hawaii (original) (raw)

Papers by Charles Birkeland

This report presents t.e Unesco workshop conclusions concerning important differences among tropi... more This report presents t.e Unesco workshop conclusions concerning important differences among tropical seas in terms of ecological processes in coastal marine ecosystems, and the corresponding implications for resource management guidelines. The conclusions result from the presentation and discussion of eight review papers which are included in this document. These are: (1) "Nutrient Pools and Dynamics in Tropical, Marine, Coastal Environments, with Special Reference to the Caribbean and Indo-West Pacific Regions" (W. J. Wiebe); (2) "Nutrient Availability as a Major Determinant of Differences Among Coastal Hard-Substratum Communities in Different Regions of the Tropics" (Charles Birkeland); (3) "Sponge Biomass as an Indication of Reef Productivity in Two Oceans" (C. R. Wilkinson); (4) "Interoceanic Differences in Architecture and Ecology: the Effects of History and Productivity" (G. J. Vermeil); (5) "A Comparison of Some Eco o,,ical Processes on Coral Reefs of the Caribbean and the Great Barrier Reef" (P. W. Sammarco); (6) "Characteristics of Fish Communities on Coral Reefs and in Potentially Interacting Shallow Habitats in Tropical Oceans of the World" J. D. Parrish); (7) "Interoceanic and Regional Differences in the Reproductive Biology of Reef-Associated Fishes" (R. E. Thresher); and (8) "Reproduction and Recruitment of Corals: Comparisons Among the Caribbean, the Eastern Pacific, the Indo-West Pacific, and the Red Sea" (R. H. Richmond). (TW) ev w Unesco reports in marir.a science ri_nrytnn ri n hollAtean In A

Pacific Science, Oct 1, 1999

for Water, Environment and Health is a member of the United Nations University family of organiza... more for Water, Environment and Health is a member of the United Nations University family of organizations. It is the UN Think Tank on Water created by the UNU Governing Council in 1996 to strengthen water management capacity, particularly in developing countries, and to provide on the ground project support. UNU-INWEH's Coastal Ecosystems Programme focuses on improvement of scientific understanding to foster sound decision making for sustainable coastal marine management. This is directly linked to capacity development efforts to address critical gaps, achieved through diffusion of scientific research and promotion of human and institutional capacity. The University of North Carolina Wilmington, the state's coastal university, is dedicated to learning through the integration of teaching, research and service. We strive to stimulate creative inquiry, critical thinking, thoughtful expression and responsible citizenship at the baccalaureate and master's levels, and in our doctoral programs in marine biology and educational leadership. Substantial research activity, combined with teaching excellence and moderate size, advances student involvement in faculty scholarship. We are committed to diversity and inclusion, affordable access, global perspectives, and enriching the quality of life through community engagement in areas such as health, education, the economy, the environment, marine and coastal issues, and the arts.

Reciprocal transplant experiments of the corals Pocillopora eydouxi Milne Edwards & Haime and Por... more Reciprocal transplant experiments of the corals Pocillopora eydouxi Milne Edwards & Haime and Porites lobata Dana were carried out for an 18month period from September 2004 to March 2006 between two back reef pools on Ofu Island, American Samoa, to test environmental versus genetic effects on skeletal growth rates. Skeletal growth of P. eydouxi showed environmental but not genetic effects, resulting in doubling of growth in Pool 300 compared with Pool 400. There were no environmental or genetic effects on skeletal growth of P. lobata. Pool 300 had more frequent and longer durations of elevated seawater temperatures than Pool 400, characteristics likely to decrease rather than increase skeletal growth. Pool 300 also had higher nutrient levels and flow velocities than Pool 400, characteristics that may increase skeletal growth. However, higher nutrient levels would be expected to increase skeletal growth in both species, but there was no difference between the pools in P. lobata growth. P. eydouxi is much more common in high-energy environments than P. lobata; thus the higher flow velocities in Pool 300 than in Pool 400 may have positively affected skeletal growth of P. eydouxi while not having a detectable effect on P. lobata. The greater skeletal growth of P. eydouxi in Pool 300 occurred despite the presence of clade D zooxanthellae in several source colonies in Pool 300, a genotype known to result in greater heat resistance but slower skeletal growth. Increased skeletal growth rates in higher water motion may provide P. eydouxi a competitive advantage in shallow, high-energy environments where competition for space is intense.

Citeseer

This report is structured to provide information according to the primary threats, topics, and go... more This report is structured to provide information according to the primary threats, topics, and goals outlined in the National Coral Reef Action Strategy (NCRAS; NOAA, 2002) and other guidance documents developed by the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) and its member organizations. Following the Executive Summary, which distills general conclusions from the entire document, an introductory chapter provides background information about the distribution of coral reef ecosystems in the U.S. and FAS, the different types of reefs that occur in these areas, and an estimate of the potential extent of coral reef ecosystems (including reefs, seagrass and macroalgae beds, sand patches, etc.) for each jurisdiction. The third chapter summarizes the current understanding of the 13 key natural and anthropogenic threats to coral reef ecosystems that were identified in the NCRAS. An additional 'other' threat category was included to allow writing teams to characterize threats that may be important or unique to a specific jurisdiction, but do not appear on the NCRAS list of key threats. Chapters 4 through 17 comprise the heart of this report. In these chapters, the local writing teams characterized the current understanding of the condition of the coral reef ecosystems in their jurisdictions. Writing teams were asked to: 1) describe the geographical distribution of reefs and provide salient background information; 2) discuss how each of the key threats has manifested in their area; 3) describe existing monitoring programs and identify specific data sets upon which their assessments are based; 4) present methods, results, and discussion for each monitoring data set, organized around the three primary themes of water quality, benthic habitats, and associated biological communities; 5) introduce the conservation and management actions currently being undertaken to respond to issues of concern; and 6) provide an overall summary of the status of each jurisdiction's coral reef ecosystems and priority recommendations for future research and management alternatives. Finally, the National Summary chapter synthesizes and integrates the results and conclusions from each of the preceding chapters to present broad-scale conclusions from a national perspective. The structure of the National Summary chapter reframes the results of the jurisdiction chapters in the context of the goals identified in the NCRAS. Grouping the information in this way clearly demonstrates how the report conclusions can help measure progress towards overarching NCRAS goals and provide a means to evaluate the effectiveness of management actions. This report represents an evolving effort to determine the condition of coral reef ecosystems at both local and national scales. To do this, scientists must ask the right questions, and then design effective studies to gather data with sufficient frequency to confidently answer those questions. This report serves as a vehicle for the dissemination of information about data collection activities in the U.S. and FAS. As more monitoring data are collected and analyzed, scientists will be better equipped to present time series information and provide condition reports that address all aspects of these complex and dynamic ecosystems. Another objective of this report is to increase the participation of scientists and managers at all levels in synthesizing all available information to provide the most robust, integrated assessments possible. Data collection and integrated reporting of information are crucial to management efforts that strive to protect and conserve coral reefs, their associated habitats, and the organisms that depend on them. It is hoped that, through this and future page viii This report represents the second in an ongoing series of reports that integrate the wealth of quantitative and qualitative information on the condition of U.S. coral reef ecosystems that has emerged since the inception of the USCRTF. Future reporting efforts will continue to document progress toward the goals outlined by the USCRTF and in the NCRAS and contribute to a broader understanding of U.S. coral reef ecosystems.

Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Apr 1, 1971

... not extend below +0.2 m MLLW ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank Brian D. Gregory andEsther Birk... more ... not extend below +0.2 m MLLW ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank Brian D. Gregory andEsther Birkeland for providing much help with the field work. This work was supported in part by a National Science Founda-tion Grant, No. GB 6518. REFERENCES CHIA, FS, 1969 ...

Zootaxa, Oct 21, 2009

(Erratum)

Coral Reefs, Apr 27, 2006

Frequent predation on living coral by barred filefish (Cantherhines dumerilii) and spotted puffer... more Frequent predation on living coral by barred filefish (Cantherhines dumerilii) and spotted puffers (Arothron meleagris) may be a substantial energy drain on coral populations in the main Hawaiian Islands, and may contribute to the irregular morphology of the corals. Cantherhines dumerilii preys mainly on Porites lobata and Pocillopora meandrina, leaving small superficial lesions. A. meleagris, on the other hand, makes substantial concave excavations on P. lobata heads and Porites compressa fingers (Figs. 1, 2, 3). Predation only kills the smaller corals. In a healthy community, on P. compressa colonies over 1-2 cm tall, coral tissue starts to regenerate across exposed skeleton within 8 days. Although the bite marks are not healed beyond recognition before 42 days, this initial rapid recovery appears to prevent algae from colonizing the open lesions. Grazing by herbivorous fishes may also limit algal colonization. Our surveys show that predation is abundant, but due to this process of recovery, the intensity of predation has gone largely unnoticed. The process of recovery may be a chronic energy drain (Meesters et al. 1994) for P. compressa, P. lobata, and other Hawaiian coral populations. The abundance of bites appears disproportionate to the small number of A. meleagris observed. This is may be because A. meleagris is shy and more abundant than is indicated by visual surveys (I.D. Williams, personal communication).

Coral Reefs, Jan 2, 2017

The fisheries policies of some Pacific island nations are more appropriate to the biology of thei... more The fisheries policies of some Pacific island nations are more appropriate to the biology of their resources than are some of the fisheries policies of more industrialized countries. Exclusive local ownership of natural resources in Palau encourages adjustive management on biologically relevant scales of time and space and promotes responsibility by reducing the tragedy of the commons. The presence of large individuals in fish populations and adequate size of spawning aggregations are more efficient and meaningful cues for timely management than are surveys of abundance or biomass. Taking fish from populations more than halfway to their carrying capacity is working favorably with the fishery because removing fish potentially increases resource stability by negative feedback between stock size and population production. Taking the same amount of fish from a population below half its carrying capacity is working against the fishery, making the population unstable, because reducing the reproductive stock potentially accelerates reduction of the population production by positive feedback. Reef fish are consumed locally, while Palauan laws ban the export of reef resources. This is consistent with the high gross primary production with little excess net production from undisturbed coral-reef ecosystems. The relatively rapid growth rates, short life spans, reliable recruitment and wide-ranging movements of open-ocean fishes such as scombrids make them much more productive than coral-reef fishes. The greater fisheries yield per square kilometer in the open ocean multiplied by well over a thousand times the area of the exclusive economic zone than that of Palau's coral reefs should encourage Palauans to keep reef fishes for subsistence and to feed tourists open-ocean fishes. Fisheries having only artisanal means should be encouraged to increase the yield and sustainability by moving away from coral reefs to bulk harvesting of nearshore pelagics.

Marine Biology, 1974

One can predict the major features of a muricid's life history from its adult size. Most adults d... more One can predict the major features of a muricid's life history from its adult size. Most adults do not grow, and juveniles of all species grow 1 to 2 ram/month, so that larger adults have had longer juvenile periods. Larger females deposit larger egg capsules and, since each of these contains more eggs, their clutches are larger. Small females deposit several clutches each year, and thus have relatively large annual fecundities. However, larger females live longer, so each spawns many more eggs in her lifetime than would a smaller female. From 90 to 99 % of the juveniles die within their first year. However hatchings of small species are much more likely to complete their first year; a newly hatched Urosalpinx cinerea is 25 times more likely to survive long enough to breed once than a newly hatched Ceratostoma ]oliatum (Gmelin, t79t).

Ecological Monographs, Mar 1, 1974

The sea pen Ptilosarcus gurneyi Gray provides a major source of food for at least seven predator ... more The sea pen Ptilosarcus gurneyi Gray provides a major source of food for at least seven predator species in Puget Sound: the asteroids Hippasteria spinosa, Dermasterias imbricata, Crossaster papposus, and Mediaster aequalis, and the nudibranchs Armina californica, Tritonia festiva, and Hermissenda crassicornis. Ptilosarcus is long—lived (15 yr +), takes 5 or 6 yr to reach sexual maturity, and has a spatially clumped pattern of recruitment. It never grows large enough to avoid predation by four of its predators, and the refuges and escape mechanisms of Ptilosarcus are not sufficient to explain its abundance in the face of this predation. Determination of rates of critical life history processes of species involved in this association, e.g., recruitment, growth, and predation, permitted estimates of the effects of the activities of each species on the others in the association. Particular attention was paid to age structure and to the natural history during the periods shortly following metamorphosis of each species. In dense recruitment patches, 97% of Ptilosarcus mortality occurs during the 1st year because of predation by Hermissenda, Tritonia, and Crossaster. Adult pens are eaten by Hippasteria, Dermasterias, Mediaster, and Armina, which together remove 2 pens/m2°yr, or 3.1% from the 10 adult year classes combined. The latter four predator species selectively prey upon the largest pens available. The time required for capture and consumption increases at a slower rate with prey size than does prey biomass. Recruitment of the long—lived food specialist Hippasteria seems to be impaired by the spatially unpredictable and clumped nature of Ptilosarcus recruitment. Although the adults have an opulent food supply, the young Hippasteria require small Ptilosarcus to feed on and rarely find enough. The generalists, which are not dependent upon one prey during their recruitment and are able to maintain themselves without Ptilosarcus, could in theory increase until they have reduced the sea pen populations to below the level needed by the specialists and thus outcompete them. However, predation on the generalists by a higher order predator, the asteroid Solaster dawsoni, removes each year at least 9.4% of the adult Mediaster and 38% of the adult Crossaster, a rate at least as great as, and usually greater than, the rate of recruitment into the populations of adult prey. The characteristic organization of the Ptilosarcus association and the existence of Hippasteria may depend upon S. dawsoni.

Elsevier eBooks, 2019

Abstract Although there are still many local coral-reef communities that display remarkably rapid... more Abstract Although there are still many local coral-reef communities that display remarkably rapid recovery, numerous surveys have indicated that the average living coral cover is decreasing circumtropically. This is partly because disturbance is nearly always faster than recovery, damaged or stressed corals tend to produce fewer larvae, reef community recovery times become longer when fast-growing branching corals are more vulnerable to stresses and disturbances and are replaced by more tolerant slow-growing corals, disturbances become more frequent and do not allow sufficient time for recovery, combinations of local and global disturbances and stresses result in positive feedbacks that accelerate reef degradation, and degraded reefs decrease the proportion of habitat acceptable to recruiting larvae. In the recent past, many reefs had time to largely recover before the next disturbance; otherwise, the reefs at the sites would not have developed as well as they had. As more reefs are disturbed and become less favorable for survival of recruits, connectivity is reduced by fewer larvae produced, more areas become unattractive to larvae for settlement, distances between fewer favorable sites become longer, and larval pelagic duration sometimes becomes shorter with increasing temperature. The processes listed above determine that prevention is more efficient and effective than repair. Marine reserves and fixing local problems are important to continue, but they are not buying time. The time has arrived and we have to act directly on the reduction of CO2 emissions.