Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Coral Reefs 26 (2007): 47-51, doi:10.1007/s00338-006-0158-x.
Description:
On coral reefs in Palmyra—a central Pacific atoll with limited fishing
pressure—total fish biomass is 428 and 299% greater than on reefs in nearby
Christmas and Fanning Islands. Large apex predators –groupers, sharks, snappers, and
jacks larger than 50 cm in length- account for 56% of total fish biomass in Palmyra on
average, but only 7% and 3% on Christmas and Fanning. These biomass proportions
are remarkably similar to those previously reported for the remote and uninhabited
Northwest Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and densely populated Main Hawaiian Islands
(MHI), although Palmyra’s reefs are dominated in biomass by sharks (44% of the
total), whereas the NWHI by jacks (39%). Herbivorous fish biomass was also greater
on Palmyra than on Christmas and Fanning (343% and 207%, respectively). These
results and previous findings indicate that remote, uninhabited islands support high
levels of consumers, and highlight the importance of healthy coral reef ecosystems as
reference points for assessment of human impacts and establishment of restoration
goals.
Keywords:
Coral reefs
;
Food webs
;
Fishing impacts
;
Top predators
;
Palmyra
;
Line Islands
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
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