Description
Three surveys at Easter Island (Rapa Nui) spanning the period 1999–2005, and examination of private and museum collections, have revealed a depauperate zooxanthellate scleractinian fauna. Collections were all made off island shelf exposures, from tide pools to 70 m with scuba, and by dredging to 100 m. With synonymies, reassignments, and two new records in the families Pocilloporidae and Faviidae, the Easter Island coral fauna now comprises 13 species. Pocilloporid and poritid coral abundances were generally high on all island shelves protected from southern swells. A cluster analysis of the coral fauna relationships of 19 south, central, and far-eastern Pacific sites indicates a strong affinity between those of Easter Island and the far-eastern Pacific equatorial region (e.g., Colombia, Ecuador, Panama´, and the Galapagos Islands). The precipitous drop in coral species richness from the Pitcairn Island group (61 species) to Easter Island suggests the presence of a dispersal barrier between these two remote southeastern Pacific areas, separated by @ 1,800 km of deep ocean waters. Consideration of the surface circulation based on satellite-tracked surface drifters confirms this conclusion. Surface currents are from east to west along the topography on which Easter and Sala-y-Gomez Islands sit, suggesting a substantial barrier to recruitment from the west.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 53 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Glynn P W, Wellington G M, Riegel B, Olson D B, Borneman E, Wieters E A (2024). Scleractinian Coral Fauna of Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Version 1.1. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. Occurrence dataset. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=scleractinian_rapa_nui&v=1.1
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3e0c680c-c8a2-4478-ba17-895f22c01e8b. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.
Keywords
Occurrence; Observation
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Originator
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Geographic Coverage
Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-27.21, -109.46], North East [-27.06, -109.29] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Scleractinian coral
| Order | Scleractinia |
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Sampling Methods
The focus of this study is Easter Island (Rapa Nui), centered at 109° 22' W, 27° 07' S. This is one of the most isolated localities in the tropical/subtropical oceans. Coral collection sites were concentrated along the western and northern shores, with some collections also carried out at two offshore islets to the south of the island and at Punta Redonda on the southeastern coast.
| Study Extent | Easter Island (Rapa Nui) |
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Method step description:
- Most collections were made with scuba to 70m depth on surveys conducted during 14–19 March 1999, 18–22 March 2000, and 12–20 March 2005. Most specimens were deposited in the Marine Invertebrate Museum of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami (UMML)
- Material was also examined from drag hauls at 100 m, and in the collections of the Museo de Zoologıa, Departamento de Zoologıa, Universidad de Concepcion (UCMZ).
Bibliographic Citations
- Glynn, P.W., Wellington, G.M., Riegl, B., Olson, D.B., Borneman, E., and Wieters, E.A. 2007. Diversity and Biogeography of the Scleractinian Coral Fauna of Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Pacific Science (2007), vol. 61, no. 1:67–90.
Additional Metadata
marine, harvested by iOBIS
| Alternative Identifiers | https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=scleractinian_rapa_nui |
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