Recruitment Dynamics and Dispersal of Coral Reef Species in a Network of National Parks and Marine Protected Areas in Hawai’i: Some Preliminary Findings Final Report to Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit.
Basch LV, Eble J, Shafer D, Walsh W. 2009. Recruitment Dynamics and Dispersal of Coral Reef Species in a Network of National Parks and Marine Protected Areas in Hawai’i: Some Preliminary Findings Final Report to Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit.
This report presents preliminary findings and characterizes temporal and spatial recruitment patterns and processes and some aspects of the oceanography in a network of National Parks and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) off the Kona or west coast of Hawai`i Island. Using retrospective otolith analysis, we have improved understanding of how planktonic larval duration, larval growth rates, and size at settlement of herbivorous fish (important ecologically, in the commercial aquarium trade, and as food fish) can serve as indicators of potential survival success. This type of analysis, combined with fish population genetic and environmental-analytical chemical approaches by colleagues provides further resolution of questions regarding reef animal population sources and sinks, dispersal distances and rates, population connectivity and related phenomena. We examined temporal and spatial variation at several scales in the dispersion and recruitment of juveniles of reef invertebrates, including corals, which are of ecological, cultural, or economic importance.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Basch, Larry; Eble, J.; Shafer, D.; Walsh, W.J.
- Date of Issue
- 2009
- Units
- KAHO , PACN
- Keywords
- Coral Reef, Hawaii, Marine Fish, marine protected areas, otolith analysis, Plankton, Recruitment, reef invertebrates
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Marine Communities