[Coral-List] Advice on reference on recent papers on corals predators (Achantaster planci and Drupella)

Wed Dec 27 06:27:00 EST 2006

Hi everyone,
I am looking for recent papers and all general material related to the
effect of predation by crown of thorns and drupella on corals. After 3
months in Wakatobi marine national park assessing predated corals (along
with related diseases) I am now trying to right my final year project
dissertation (I am a part time student BSc Biological Science).
If you have or know of any sort of papers or reading on the topics could
you please let me know where to find them or send me a link?

Many thanks

Alessandra Perbellini
Group Compliance

Investec Bank (UK) Limited
Telephone: +44 20 7597 4647
Switchboard: +44 20 7597 4000
2 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7QP, United Kingdom
alessandra.perbellini at investec.co.uk
www.investec.com

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
[mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of
coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Sent: 21 December 2006 17:00
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Coral-List Digest, Vol 42, Issue 12

Send Coral-List mailing list submissions to
	coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov

You can reach the person managing the list at
	coral-list-owner at coral.aoml.noaa.gov

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than
"Re: Contents of Coral-List digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. symposium on effects of biodiversity on the coral	reefs in
      the Pacific (Charles Birkeland)
   2. "imageJ program" (chenypff)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 21:43:45 -1000
From: Charles Birkeland <charlesb at hawaii.edu>
Subject: [Coral-List] symposium on effects of biodiversity on the
	coral	reefs in the Pacific
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Message-ID: <f5f0ba93144ce.4589ae91 at hawaii.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

Biodiversity and Coral Reefs in Asia ? Pacific

Recently, there have been publications concerned with the effects of
biodiversity loss on marine ecosystem services. These articles have
focused mainly on the tropical western Atlantic.  The Pacific covers a
third of the Earth and provides some different perspectives from the
tropical western Atlantic. First, there is a major gradient of decrease
in species richness from west to east across the Pacific from SE Asia
(more than 500 species of scleractinian corals) to eastern Polynesia
(perhaps less than 100 species). Even higher taxa of reef fauna are
absent from eastern Polynesian reefs (e.g., 91 species of crinoids are
listed from Indonesian reefs, while none of the Class Crinoidea are on
reefs of the Society Islands, Marquesas, and Hawaii). Coastal habitats
such as mangroves were also naturally absent in the east. Clipperton
Island has only eight or nine species of scleractinians, yet the reef
ecosystem appears robust and productive. The relative loss of ecosystem
function and services on substantially less diverse French Polynesian
reefs in comparison with more diverse Japanese or Philippine reefs has
not yet been demonstrated. This gradient of decrease in species, higher
taxa and habitats across the Pacific allows natural experiments on large
scales.

This coming June 12-18, the 21st Pacific Science Congress will be held
in Okinawa.  ?Biodiversity and Coral Reefs in Asia ? Pacific? is a
symposium at this Congress. This letter is an invitation to come and
present your data and observations on the implications of patterns of
biodiversity on coral reefs across the Pacific.

The second new perspective is that the total lists of species for
islands or archipelagos in the Pacific are possibly increasing at a more
rapid rate than ever before in the history of the Earth.  For example,
as far as I know, there have been no recent extinctions in marine life
in the main Hawaiian Islands, but at least 287 species of marine
invertebrates have been documented as having been added to the coastal
fauna in recent years. Guam has gained at least 85 additional marine
species. Of course the rate of addition of introduced species possibly
does not allow time for evolutionary accommodation by niche shifts, but
does this added species richness increase redundancy and stability to
the system? 

MacArthur, Ehrlich and Ehrlich, and numerous others have proposed that
systems are more ecologically stable if the species richness or species
diversity is greater because with more participating species, the
greater the chance that critical ecosystem functions are accommodated.
Does this dramatic drop in species diversity imply that reefs are less
resilient from west to east? Are the reefs of Okinawa, Palau, and the
GBR more resistant to outbreaks of Acanthaster and Drupella than reefs
in American Samoa, Tahiti and Hawaii? Do reefs of Okinawa, Palau and the
GBR recover more quickly from Acanthaster outbreaks, hurricanes, lava
flows than those of Samoa or French Polynesia?  Or, alternatively, is
resilience more strongly affected by the environmental circumstances and
the presence of certain key species.

Robert Paine, Michael Soule, John Terborgh, and David Bellwood have
called attention to the possibility that most critical species are not
redundant. Are other Caribbean echinoids redundant with Diadema
antillarum? No other parrotfishes do what Bolbometapon does. Is the
pattern of urchins filling in and doing the job for herbivorous fishes
on the north coast of Jamaica a result of the diversity of urchins and
fishes at these sites or a result of ecological effects of particular
characteristics of Diadema antillarum and the herbivorous fishes?

If an equilibrium is reached among native and introduced species, will
there be a substantially greater number of species in archipelagos, with
more homogeneity among archipelagos?  Will the added number of species
lead to adjustments in niche dimensions, or will there be competition
and local extinctions? Sam Kahng and Rick Grigg have been studying the
introduced octocoral Carijoa riisei in Hawaii. It has invaded the deep
reefs and has been overgrowing and killing numbers of black corals. But
I think Sam Kahng has also found that the Carijoa riisei avoids lighted
conditions in which black corals can survive. Perhaps Carijoa and black
corals partition a range of conditions that black corals previously had
for themselves. Now we have added Carijoa riisei to the species list.
Black corals are still here, but I think Sam is finding that they soon
may have a more restricted niche space and lower abundance. But the
species list may be growing for Hawaii.

A number of small-scale experiments by Tilman and others in the
terrestrial realm have shown that more diverse systems can be slightly
more efficient at the ecosystem level of function, but there was
increased instability at the population level.  However, Don Kinsey, in
D.J. Barnes? 1983 book on Perspectives on Coral Reefs, documented the
relatively consistent ecosystem level functions of primary production
and carbonate turnover in Atlantic and Pacific reefs with studies at
widely varying levels of species richness. Ewel and Bigelow and others
likewise found in the terrestrial realm that simple agroecosystems and
other areas across a range of species richness performed ecosystem
processes similarly to neighboring tropical rainforests. Does the
decreasing diversity of reef biota from Okinawa towards French Polynesia
indicate that nutrient recycling more efficient in Japanese, Indonesian
and Philippine waters than in French Polynesia? The diversity of both
reef constructors and bioeroders also decreases from west to east. Does
this suggest that carbonate turnover is different from west to east?
Whether coral-reef ecosystem processes are substantially influenced by
species richness and redundancy are questions that need to be resolved.

A few possible questions: 

?	Do efficiencies or rates of ecosystem processes such as nutrient
recycling, reef accretion, and gross and net productivity decrease along
the decreasing gradient of biodiversity from west to east across the
Pacific?

?	Are reefs in the western Pacific more resistant and resilient
(more rapid recovery) to damage by hurricanes, large-scale bleaching
events, lava flows, outbreaks of predators (Acanthaster, Drupella) than
are less diverse reefs in the eastern Pacific? 

?	Are reefs in the western Pacific more resistant to invasion of
introduced species than are reefs in the eastern Pacific?

?	Relatively few introduced species spread from harbors to outer
reefs. Is this because the more diverse outer coral reefs resist
invasion, or because the introduced species that spread by initially
attaching to ships at anchor more adapted to backwaters of harbors than
to outer reefs?

?	Do introduced species cause local extinctions or reduced niches
of native species, or is it a first come first serve lottery with just
more species in the association?

(This letter is just to provoke you into participating in the symposium.
Let?s not burden CoralList with discussion of these topics.)

If interested in participating in the symposium on Biodiversity and
Coral Reefs in Asia ? Pacific at the 21st Pacific Science Congress, the
scientific program, schedule, registration, hotel accommodations, and
necessary information on Abstract submission and the online Abstract
Form are available on 

http://www.psc21.net/

The deadline for Abstracts is January 15.

We hope you will participate.

Makoto Tsuchiya   tsuchiya at sci.u-ryukyu.ac.jp

Charles Birkeland   charlesb at hawaii.edu

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:31:29 +0200
From: "chenypff" <chenypff at post.tau.ac.il>
Subject: [Coral-List] "imageJ program"
To: <Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Message-ID: <001001c72504$529df910$602b4284 at YehudaB3>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Dear members;

Does anybody know how to use the "imageJ program"
(http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image/)

For creating protein concentration assays? How can I find optical
densities with it?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanx

chen 

Chen Yoffe

PhD student

George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences

Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978,
Israel

Tel: 972-3-6407292

Fax: 972-3-6409403

E-mail: chenypff at post.tau.ac.il

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

End of Coral-List Digest, Vol 42, Issue 12
******************************************

_____________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by Verizon Business Internet
Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. For further
information visit http://www.mci.com

_____________________________________________________________________
Before acting on this e mail or opening any attachment please read the disclaimer which can be accessed at http://www.investec.com/EmailDisclaimer/UKEmailDisclaimer.htm
Investec Bank (UK) Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for viruses by MCI's Internet Managed Scanning Services - powered by MessageLabs. For further information visit http://www.mci.com