The timing of adult eclosion in forest zone blackflies of the Bandama cytotype of the Simulium damnosum complex in the Ivory Coast was investigated both in the field and laboratory. An eclosion trap and a simple technique for keeping... more
The timing of adult eclosion in forest zone blackflies of the Bandama cytotype of the Simulium damnosum complex in the Ivory Coast was investigated both in the field and laboratory. An eclosion trap and a simple technique for keeping black‐fly pupae in the laboratory are described. Hourly collections of newly emerged S.damnosum adults showed that there was an eclosion peak at 05.30–06.30 hours in the field and at 07.00–08.00 hours in the laboratory. Approximately 30% of the blackflies in the field emerged at 06.00–06.30 hours. S.damnosum kept under natural light‐dark conditions in the laboratory did not show any delay in the timing of the eclosion peak, relative to that of the first day in the laboratory, until the third day of the experiment.
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Coral cover on tropical reefs has declined during the last three decades due to the combined effects of climate change, destructive fishing, pollution, and land use change. Drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions combined with... more
Coral cover on tropical reefs has declined during the last three decades due to the combined effects of climate change, destructive fishing, pollution, and land use change. Drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions combined with effective coastal management and conservation strategies are essential to slow this decline. Innovative approaches, such as selective breeding for adaptive traits combined with large-scale sexual propagation, are being developed with the aim of pre-adapting reefs to increased ocean warming. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of the technical and methodological constraints to producing corals for such restoration interventions. Here we propose a framework for selectively breeding corals and rearing them from eggs to 2.5-year old colonies using the coral Acropora digitifera as a model species. We present methods for choosing colonies for selective crossing, enhancing early survivorship in ex situ and in situ nurseries, and outplantin...
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The brooding reef-building octocoral Heliopora is widespread on Indo-West Pacific reefs and appears to be relatively resistant to thermal stress, which may enable it to persist locally while scleractinians diminish under Anthropocene... more
The brooding reef-building octocoral Heliopora is widespread on Indo-West Pacific reefs and appears to be relatively resistant to thermal stress, which may enable it to persist locally while scleractinians diminish under Anthropocene conditions. However, basic physiological measurements of “blue corals” are lacking and prevent their inclusion in trait-based studies. We address this by quantifying rates (mean ± SE) of linear extension (0.86 ± 0.05 cm yr−1) and skeletal density (2.01 ± 0.06 g cm−3) to estimate calcification rates (0.87 ± 0.08 g cm−2 yr−1) for the small branching/columnar morphology of Heliopora coerulea. We postulate that H. coerulea may become an increasingly important reef-builder under ocean warming due to its relative resistance to thermal stress and high skeletal density that make colonies less vulnerable to storm damage under ocean acidification. Moreover, Heliopora corals are likely dispersal limited suggesting they may be an underappreciated genus for restorat...
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Effects of combined rising sea temperature and increasing sea level on coral reefs, both factors associated with global warming, have rarely been addressed. In this ~40 y study of shallow reefs in the eastern Indian Ocean, we show that a... more
Effects of combined rising sea temperature and increasing sea level on coral reefs, both factors associated with global warming, have rarely been addressed. In this ~40 y study of shallow reefs in the eastern Indian Ocean, we show that a rising relative sea level, currently estimated at ~11 mm y−1, has not only promoted coral cover but also has potential to limit damaging effects of thermally-induced bleaching. In 2010 the region experienced the most severe bleaching on record with corals subject to sea temperatures of >31 °C for 7 weeks. While the reef flats studied have a common aspect and are dominated by a similar suite of coral species, there was considerable spatial variation in their bleaching response which corresponded with reef-flat depth. Greatest loss of coral cover and community structure disruption occurred on the shallowest reef flats. Damage was less severe on the deepest reef flat where corals were subject to less aerial exposure, rapid flushing and longer submer...
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Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2°C by 2050 to 2100, values that significantly exceed those of at least the past 420,000 years during which... more
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2°C by 2050 to 2100, values that significantly exceed those of at least the past 420,000 years during which most extant marine organisms evolved. Under conditions expected in the 21st century, global warming and ocean acidification will compromise carbonate accretion, with corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems. The result will be less diverse reef communities and carbonate reef structures that fail to be maintained. Climate change also exacerbates local stresses from declining water quality and overexploitation of key species, driving reefs increasingly toward the tipping point for functional collapse. This review presents future scenarios for coral reefs that predict increasingly serious consequences for reef-associated fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, and people. As the International Year of the Reef 2008 begins, scaled-up management i...
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Aim To understand why and when areas of endemism (provinces) of the tropical Atlantic Ocean were formed, how they relate to each other, and what processes have contributed to faunal enrichment.Location Atlantic Ocean.Methods The... more
Aim To understand why and when areas of endemism (provinces) of the tropical Atlantic Ocean were formed, how they relate to each other, and what processes have contributed to faunal enrichment.Location Atlantic Ocean.Methods The distributions of 2605 species of reef fishes were compiled for 25 areas of the Atlantic and southern Africa. Maximum‐parsimony and distance analyses were employed to investigate biogeographical relationships among those areas. A collection of 26 phylogenies of various Atlantic reef fish taxa was used to assess patterns of origin and diversification relative to evolutionary scenarios based on spatio‐temporal sequences of species splitting produced by geological and palaeoceanographic events. We present data on faunal (species and genera) richness, endemism patterns, diversity buildup (i.e. speciation processes), and evaluate the operation of the main biogeographical barriers and/or filters.Results Phylogenetic (proportion of sister species) and distributi...
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Published on behalf of the Education Department of the Government of Saint HelenaAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:q93/16335 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
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Biology, Teleostei, Cape Verde, Archipelago, Lower limb, and 3 morePomacentridae, Damselfish, and Lateral Line
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Some 180 species of marine fish were reported from Ghana in F. R. Irvine's The Fishes and Fisheries of the Gold Coast, an important milestone in West African ichthyology published in 1947. Although the book has been a major source... more
Some 180 species of marine fish were reported from Ghana in F. R. Irvine's The Fishes and Fisheries of the Gold Coast, an important milestone in West African ichthyology published in 1947. Although the book has been a major source of records for subsequent workers, the underpinning collections have been largely ignored. Two hundred and ninety-two specimens from 139 species
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As marine species adapt to climate change, their heat tolerance will likely be under strong selection. Yet trade-offs between heat tolerance and other life history traits could compromise natural adaptation or restorative assisted... more
As marine species adapt to climate change, their heat tolerance will likely be under strong selection. Yet trade-offs between heat tolerance and other life history traits could compromise natural adaptation or restorative assisted evolution. This is particularly important for ecosystem engineers, such as reef-building corals, which support biodiversity yet are vulnerable to heatwave-induced mass bleaching and mortality. Here, we exposed 70 colonies of the reef-building coral Acropora digitifera to a long-term marine heatwave emulation experiment. We tested for trade-offs between heat tolerance and three traits – colony growth (3D photogrammetry models), fecundity (oocyte counts), and symbiont community composition (ITS2 sequencing). Despite observing remarkable within-population variability in heat tolerance, all coral colonies were dominated by Cladocopium C40 symbionts. We found no evidence for trade-offs between heat tolerance and fecundity or growth. Contrary to expectations, po...
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The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these... more
The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place. The CSD includes 6178 observations (3085 of which were unpublished) of the time or day of spawning for over 300 scleractinian species in 61 genera from 101 sites in the Indo-Pacific. The goal of the CSD is to provide open access to coral spawning data to accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and to provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in reproductive phenology
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Increasingly intense marine heatwaves threaten the persistence of many marine ecosystems. Heat stress-mediated episodes of mass coral bleaching have led to catastrophic coral mortality globally. Remotely monitoring and forecasting such... more
Increasingly intense marine heatwaves threaten the persistence of many marine ecosystems. Heat stress-mediated episodes of mass coral bleaching have led to catastrophic coral mortality globally. Remotely monitoring and forecasting such biotic responses to heat stress is key for effective marine ecosystem management. The Degree Heating Week (DHW) metric, designed to monitor coral bleaching risk, reflects the duration and intensity of heat stress events and is computed by accumulating SST anomalies (HotSpot) relative to a stress threshold over a 12-week moving window. Despite significant improvements in the underlying SST datasets, corresponding revisions of the HotSpot threshold and accumulation window are still lacking. Here, we fine-tune the operational DHW algorithm to optimise coral bleaching predictions using the 5 km satellite-based SSTs (CoralTemp v3.1) and a global coral bleaching dataset (37,871 observations, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). After developing...
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The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these... more
The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place. The CSD includes 6178 observations (3085 of which were unpublished) of the time or day of spawning for over 300 scleractinian species in 61 genera from 101 sites in the Indo-Pacific. The goal of the CSD is to provide open access to coral spawning data to accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and to provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in reproductive phenology.<br>
Making sensible management choices in the face of uncertainty. www.gefcoral.org
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The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these... more
The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place. The CSD includes 6178 observations (3085 of which were unpublished) of the time or day of spawning for over 300 scleractinian species in 61 genera from 101 sites in the Indo-Pacific. The goal of the CSD is to provide open access to coral spawning data to accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and to provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in reproductive phenology.
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Zoology, Oceanography, Rehabilitation, Biology, Ecology, and 4 moreCoral Reef, Coral, Reef, and Seeding
The conservation status of 845 zooxanthellate reef-building coral species was assessed by using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Criteria. Of the 704 species that could be assigned conservation status, 32.8% are in... more
The conservation status of 845 zooxanthellate reef-building coral species was assessed by using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Criteria. Of the 704 species that could be assigned conservation status, 32.8% are in categories with elevated risk of extinction. Declines in abundance are associated with bleaching and diseases driven by elevated sea surface temperatures, with extinction risk further exacerbated by local-scale anthropogenic disturbances. The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds that of most terrestrial groups. The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle (western Pacific) has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk. Our results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures.
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Climate Change, Coral Reefs, Ecology, Climate, Indian Ocean, and 15 moreConservation Status, Coral Bleaching, Anthozoa, Animals, Anthropogenic Disturbance, Extinction Risk, Coral Biology, Coral Reef, Caribbean region, Coral, Greenhouse Effect, Ecosystem, Conservation of Natural Resources, Coral Disease, and International Union for Conservation of Nature
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Engineering, Geography, Environmental Science, Chemistry, Climate Change, and 15 moreFisheries, Biology, Climate, global Climate change, Anthozoa, Animals, Fishes, Coral Reef, Greenhouse Effect, Ecosystem, Ecosystem service, Coral Reef Fish, Climate Warming, Ecosystem Function, and Conservation of Natural Resources
The Philippines has more than 30,000 km of reef area and hosts some of the world’s most diverse and endangered coral communities, however there is little information on patterns of coral reproduction (Bermas et al. 1992) and to date there... more
The Philippines has more than 30,000 km of reef area and hosts some of the world’s most diverse and endangered coral communities, however there is little information on patterns of coral reproduction (Bermas et al. 1992) and to date there are no published accounts of direct spawning observations. Sampling to determine the reproductive state of Acropora species and in situ observations of coral spawning was conducted in 2006 and 2007 at sites close to the Bolinao Marine Laboratory (BML) in northwestern Luzon, (16 22¢N 119 54¢E). Prior to the full moon in March 2006, 22 sampled Acropora species (67% of colonies, n = 208) contained white or pigmented oocytes large enough to be visible in branches that were fractured artificially underwater (for methods see Baird et al. 2002) suggesting a seasonal peak in reproduction from March to May. Night dives were carried out during the week following the full moons of 15 March and 14 April 2006; and 2 April, 2 May and 1 June 2007. Multi-species coral spawning was observed during all of the months of observation except in April 2007. Across all months of observation, a total of at least 36 scleractinian species belonging to 14 genera and 7 families (Acroporidae, Mussidae, Agariciidae, Faviidae, Oculinidae, Merulinidae and Poritidae) broadcast spawned (Fig. 1), with a maximum of 13 species observed on the fifth night after full moon in May 2007. Further studies are required to establish the extent of spawning at other times of the year and the reproductive patterns of corals elsewhere in the Philippines.
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Coral cover on tropical reefs has declined during the last three decades due to the combined effects of climate change, destructive fishing, pollution, and land use change. Drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions combined with... more
Coral cover on tropical reefs has declined during the last three decades due to the combined effects of climate change, destructive fishing, pollution, and land use change. Drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions combined with effective coastal management and conservation strategies are essential to slow this decline. Innovative approaches, such as selective breeding for adaptive traits combined with large-scale sexual propagation, are being developed with the aim of pre-adapting reefs to increased ocean warming. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of the technical and methodological constraints to producing corals for such restoration interventions. Here we propose a framework for selectively breeding corals and rearing them from eggs to 2.5-year old colonies using the coral Acropora digitifera as a model species. We present methods for choosing colonies for selective crossing, enhancing early survivorship in ex situ and in situ nurseries, and outplantin...
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Lubbockichthys myersi is described from a single 38.6 mm SL specimen from Blue Hole, Guam. It is unique among pseudoplesiopines in having a very slender body (greatest body depth 15.8 % SL; body depth at dorsal-fin origin 15.3 % SL) and a... more
Lubbockichthys myersi is described from a single 38.6 mm SL specimen from Blue Hole, Guam. It is unique among pseudoplesiopines in having a very slender body (greatest body depth 15.8 % SL; body depth at dorsal-fin origin 15.3 % SL) and a higher number of vertebrae (14 + 18).