Pacific Islands Network (PACN) Marine Monitoring Sites

Locations of monitoring sites related to the Pacific Islands Network (PACN) Benthic Marine and Marine Fish monitoring protocols administered by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). These monitoring sites are located within nearshore waters of the following National Parks:

• Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park (NHP) on the western shore of Hawaii Island (Big Island)
• Kalaupapa National Historical Park (NHP) on the nothern shore of Molokai in Hawaii
• War in the Pacific National Historical Park (NHP) on the western shore of Guam
• National Park (NP) of American Samoa on the northern shore of Tutuila

The benthic marine community within PACN is a complex ecologic system and a diverse taxonomic environment, including algae and corals and other invertebrates. Reef-building corals are the primary architectural organism and are sensitive to environmental degradation; therefore, they are a good indicator of overall health for nearshore marine ecosystems. Primary stressors to coral reefs include disease, bleaching, sedimentation, eutrophication, storms, and global climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has proposed using coral reefs as a worldwide indicator ecosystem for global climate change (Spalding et al. 2004). For these reasons, the PACN has chosen to implement long-term monitoring of benthic marine communities. Benthic marine communities are most closely linked with marine fish, and monitoring efforts will be conducted at the same time and location to maximize data value.

Fish are a major component of coral reef ecosystems. This highly diverse assemblage of carnivores, planktivores, herbivores, and detritovores serves a variety of ecological functions. Fish affect ecosystem structure, productivity, and sustainability. Selected species can act as indicators of general reef health, environmental stress, and potential ecosystem changes. Fishing is increasingly recognized as a principal threat to Pacific Ocean coral reefs and other marine ecosystems worldwide. In this respect, it is highly probable that most of the Pacific island national parks can be categorized as "impaired" to "seriously impaired" in terms of their fish communities. While the harvest of fish and other marine creatures will be addressed in a separate (fisheries-dependent) monitoring protocol, data collected through PACN marine fish monitoring contributes to the overall fish analyses by providing an in-water (fisheries-independent) assessment of the size and abundance of species within park waters.