JIMAR Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2018 For Cooperative Agreements NA16NMF4320058, NA17NMF4320250, NA17NMF4320293, and NA17NMF4320294 Douglas S. Luther, PhD Director Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 1000 Pope Road, Marine Sciences Building 312 Honolulu, HI 96822 USA http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/jimar Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2018 Douglas S. Luther, PhD Director Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research University of Hawai’i at Manoa 1000 Pope Road, Marine Sciences Building 312 Honolulu, HI 96822 http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/jimar JIMAR 2018 Annual Report ii Table of Contents Introduction ______________________________________________________________________________v Accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2018 __________________________________________________________1 Ecosystem Forecasting _____________________________________________________________________1 Ecosystem Monitoring _____________________________________________________________________3 Ecosystem-Based Management _____________________________________________________________39 Protection and Restoration of Resources _____________________________________________________43 Equatorial Oceanography __________________________________________________________________63 Climate Research and Impacts ______________________________________________________________69 Tropical Meteorology _____________________________________________________________________76 Tsunamis and Other Long-Period Ocean Waves _________________________________________________79 JIMAR Publications ________________________________________________________________________85 Appendices Appendix I List of Acronyms ______________________________________________________________96 Appendix II List of Awards and Related Amendment Numbers ___________________________________105 Appendix III Visiting Scientists ___________________________________________________________107 Appendix IV Workshops, Meetings and Seminars ______________________________________________109 Appendix V JIMAR Personnel _____________________________________________________________110 Appendix VI Awards ____________________________________________________________________111 Appendix VII Graduates _________________________________________________________________112 Appendix VIII Publication Summary _______________________________________________________113 Appendix IX Progress Reports for Associated Awards __________________________________________114 iii JIMAR 2018 Annual Report iv Introduction The Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (JIMAR) manages the Cooperative Institute for the Pacific Islands Region, one of 16 NOAA cooperative institutes nationwide. JIMAR’s mission is to conduct research that is necessary for understanding and predicting environmental change in the Pacific Islands Region, for conserving and managing coastal and marine resources in island environments, notably the Hawaiian Islands and the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands, and for supporting the region’s economic, social, and environmental needs. Included in this report are projects under award numbers NA16NMF4320058, NA17NMF4320250, NA17NMF4320293, and NA17NMF4320294. JIMAR seeks to: • facilitate innovative collaborative research between scientists at NOAA and the University of Hawaii; • provide educational opportunities for basic and applied research in the Life and Earth Sciences at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels; • advance interactions through the support of visiting scientists and post-doctoral scholars; and, • promote the transition of research outcomes to operational products and services Doug Luther, PhD, Director that benefit the Pacific Islands Region. JIMAR is located at the University of Hawaii (UH), a research-intensive land- grant and Sea Grant institution that maintains a service mission to the State as well as to the Pacific Islands Region. JIMAR is a unit within the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), which has developed several centers of excellence in marine, atmospheric, and earth sciences that align substantially with the mission interests of NOAA. The University also provides capacity for social science research via several academic units. Adjacent to the UH campus is the independent, publicly funded East-West Center, which provides policy analysis and applied science across the Pacific Rim. JIMAR serves as a bridge to facilitate engagements between NOAA in the Pacific Region and these academic research units. The principal NOAA Line Office for JIMAR is the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and JIMAR collaborates closely with its Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) at the Inouye Regional Center (IRC). The ~100 JIMAR scientists within PIFSC are oceanographers, marine biologists, zoologists, geographers, coastal and environmental scientists, economists, fisheries scientists, sociologists, computer scientists, and engineers. The work Jeff Hare, PhD, Deputy Director with PIFSC is undertaken across ~23 JIMAR projects encompassing coral reef for PIFSC Projects monitoring and research, marine mammal and turtle research, human dimensions investigations and economics of fisheries, fisheries bycatch mitigation research, oceanic and reef ecosystems modeling, insular and pelagic fisheries stock assessment research, fisheries database management, and more. JIMAR also interacts with the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS), National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Line Offices, which support a number of projects in the research themes of equatorial oceanography, climate research and impacts, tropical meteorology, and tsunamis and other long-period ocean waves. JIMAR programs active in these areas include the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center (UHSLC), the Pacific El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Applications Climate (PEAC) Center, and the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS). Research JIMAR research covers eight themes, all aligned with the NOAA strategic plan and the University’s Indo- Pacific mission. The themes are as follows: (1) ecosystem forecasting; (2) ecosystem monitoring; (3) ecosystem- based management; (4) protection and restoration of resources; (5) equatorial oceanography; (6) climate research and impacts; (7) tropical meteorology; and (8) tsunamis and other long-period waves. v JIMAR 2018 Annual Report JIMAR’s collaboration with the NOAA PIFSC drives the primary research and educational activities within the Institute. Here are some highlights that demonstrate the scope of JIMAR/PIFSC research in the theme areas of ecosystem-based management, ecosystem monitoring and forecasting, and the protection and restoration of resources. • The coastal ocean and coral reefs provide seafood, resources for recreation, protection from waves and storms, and preservation of cultural practices. However, ecosystems are vulnerable to the pressures of increasing population, coastal development, fishing, pollution, and climate change. JIMAR Ecosystem Model Researcher Mariska Weijerman led a study to provide options for protection and restoration of marine ecosystems for the future using an ecosystem model to simulate alternative management strategies and evaluate indicators of key ecosystem services (Weijerman et al., 2017). The current management scenario was the poorest performer, with nearly all key ecosystem indicators decreasing or with no meaningful change. Alternative management options showed improvements in ecosystem structure and resilience. The scenario with only line fishing represented the most balanced trade-off for all indicators with positive gains for both ecosystem structure and resilience and dive tourism and only moderate losses for fisheries. • The impacts of the 2014 thermal stress event on reefs in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) were assessed in a study led by JIMAR Coral Reef Researcher Courtney Couch (Couch et al., 2017). The study tested for signs of regional acclimation, and investigated long-term change in heat stress using bleaching surveys, satellite data and Structure-from-Motion technology. The 2014 event was widespread and severe with the highest stress at Lisianski Island, which experienced 20°C-weeks of thermal stress, up to 91% coral bleaching and 68% loss in coral cover that resulted in rapid and dramatic loss in reef complexity. Historical satellite data demonstrated the heat stress in 2014 was unlike any previous event and that exposure of corals to bleaching-level heat stress has increased significantly in the northern PMNM since 1982, highlighting the increasing threat of climate change to reefs. • Ecological monitoring of a large projected area presents great challenges to scientists and managers due to its size and the wide variety of habitats it can potentially encompass. JIMAR Ecological Research Statistician Atsuko Fukunaga and a NOAA scientist from the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument developed a multivariate statistical method that quickly triggers an alarm when unusual changes in the biological community structure are detected in long-term monitoring data (Fukunaga and Kosaki, 2017). This method accounts for different environmental factors (e.g., geographical locations and habitats) before examining temporal changes in biological data and can be used with any ecological monitoring data, greatly increasing the utility of monitoring data in the management