USGS Scientists Contribute to Coral Reefs of the USA


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USGS Scientists Contribute to Coral Reefs of the USA

By Barbara Lidz and Caroline Rogers
September 2008

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Coral-reef biologists, ecologists, and geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and numerous other organizations have made significant contributions to a comprehensive new book, Coral Reefs of the USA. Edited by Bernhard M. Riegl and Richard E. Dodge of the National Coral Reef Institute, which operates at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Florida, the book is the first volume in a series titled Coral Reefs of the World. Published in March 2008 by Springer Science+Business Media in Berlin, the book was showcased in July to more than 3,500 registered attendees at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A scholarly overview of what is known about coral reefs in U.S. territorial waters, the book is rich in both color and cultural history, as well as scientific aspects of the various reef types, their geomorphic and oceanographic characteristics, and their inhabitants.

USGS researchers are lead authors on 3 of the 21 chapters: Charles Birkeland (Hawai‘i Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, University of Hawai‘i), Barbara H. Lidz (Florida Integrated Science Center, St. Petersburg, Florida), and Caroline S. Rogers (Caribbean Field Station, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands). USGS coauthors are Eric E. Grossman (Pacific Science Center, Santa Cruz, California), Ilsa B. Kuffner (Florida Integrated Science Center, St. Petersburg, Florida), and William Bane Schill (National Fish Health Research Laboratory, Kearneysville, West Virginia). Former USGS researchers are also coauthors: Kate T. Ciembronowicz, Robert B. Halley, J. Harold Hudson, Erinn Muller, Daniel M. Robbin, Eugene A. Shinn, and Anthony Spitzack. Besides USGS scientists, contributors include researchers from 28 universities, the National Park Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, State entities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Organization of chapters is alphabetically by ocean. First are reefs of the Atlantic Ocean (Florida; the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Navassa Island in the Caribbean; and the northern Gulf of Mexico), then the Pacific (the main Hawaiian Islands, the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the Line and Phoenix Islands, Wake and Johnston Atolls, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa), and finally deep reefs of all oceans. Chapter titles by the lead USGS authors are "Geologic Setting and Ecological Functioning of Coral Reefs in American Samoa" (Birkeland), "Controls on Late Quaternary Coral Reefs of the Florida Keys" (Lidz), and "Ecology of Coral Reefs in the US Virgin Islands" (Rogers).

The full citation of the book is: Riegl, B.M., and Dodge, R.E., eds., 2008, Coral reefs of the USA, v. 1 of Coral reefs of the world: Springer Science+Business Media, Berlin, 803 p. (See list of "Recently Published Articles" in Sound Waves, August 2008, for individual chapter citations.) Cover photographs from the chapters within provide examples of the rich use of color throughout the book. To learn more about the book or to order a copy ($169), visit URL http://www.springer.com/geosciences/book/978-1-4020-6846-1.