JIMAR Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2017 For Cooperative Agreements NA16NMF4320058, NA16NMF4320216, and NA16NMF4320219 Mark A. Merrifield, 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 2017 Performance Period October 1, 2016–June 30, 2017 Mark A. Merrifield, PhD Director Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research University of Hawaii at Manoa 1000 Pope Road, Marine Sciences Building 312 Honolulu, HI 96822 http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/jimar JIMAR 2017 Annual Report ii Table of Contents Introduction ______________________________________________________________________________v Accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2017 __________________________________________________________1 Ecosystem Forecasting _____________________________________________________________________1 Ecosystem Monitoring _____________________________________________________________________2 Ecosystem-Based Management _____________________________________________________________38 Protection and Restoration of Resources _____________________________________________________44 Equatorial Oceanography __________________________________________________________________64 Climate Research and Impacts ______________________________________________________________68 Tropical Meteorology _____________________________________________________________________78 Tsunamis and Other Long-Period Ocean Waves _________________________________________________79 JIMAR Publications ________________________________________________________________________81 Appendices Appendix I List of Acronyms ______________________________________________________________87 Appendix II List of Awards and Related Amendment Numbers ____________________________________95 Appendix III Visiting Scientists ____________________________________________________________97 Appendix IV Workshops, Meetings and Seminars Hosted by JIMAR _______________________________102 Appendix V JIMAR Personnel _____________________________________________________________104 Appendix VI Awards ____________________________________________________________________105 Appendix VII Graduates _________________________________________________________________106 Appendix VIII Publication Summary _______________________________________________________107 iii JIMAR 2017 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, conserving and managing coastal and marine resources in island environments, notably the Hawaiian Islands and the U.S.- affiliated Pacific Islands, and supporting the region’s economic, social, and environmental needs. Included in this report are projects under award numbers NA16NMF4320058, NA16NMF4320216, and NA16NMF4320219. 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; • sponsor interactions through the support of visiting scientists and post- doctoral scholars; Mark Merrifield, Director, PhD • promote the transition of research outcomes to operational products and services that benefit the Pacific Islands Region. JIMAR is located at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a research-intensive land-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 the 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 with PIFSC is undertaken across ~25 JIMAR projects ranging from coral reef 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 NWS, NESDIS, and 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), Pacific ENSO Applications Climate (PEAC) Center, and Pacific Island Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS). JIMAR research covers eight themes, all aligned with the NOAA strategic plan and the University’s Indo- Pacific mission. The themes are: (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. JIMAR’s collaboration with the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) drives the primary research and educational activities within the Institute. Here are a few highlights that demonstrate the scope of JIMAR/PIFSC research in the theme areas of ecosystem-based management, ecosystem monitoring and forecasting, and protection and restoration of resources. • Recent studies stressed the importance of coral reef conservation for protecting herbivorous fish, which are heavily fished in many parts of the world. However, JIMAR Supervisory Reef Fish Researcher Adel Heenan led a team that found that populations of herbivorous fish vary widely from site to site, and are strongly influenced by factors including temperature and island type. This means strategies to protect these important species may not be effective unless local conditions are taken into account, and no single approach is likely to v JIMAR 2017 Annual Report work everywhere. (Adel Heenan, Andrew Hoey, Gareth Williams, and Ivor Williams, 2016. Natural bounds on herbivorous coral reef fishes, Proc. R. Soc. B., 283(1843), 20161716, doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.1716). • Coral reef jacks, snapper, and other top-tier coral reef predators such as sharks are well studied in waters accessible to open-circuit SCUBA divers in depths to 100 ft. However, information on predator populations in mesophotic depths (100-330 ft) remains scant, with access restricted to complicated, expensive, or hazardous survey approaches. JIMAR Marine Ecosystem Research Coordinator Jacob Asher used low-cost, baited remote underwater stereo-video systems to assess predator populations at mesophotic depths across the Hawaiian Archipelago, and this research shows that predator populations shift dramatically from shallow to mesophotic depths across that expanse. Stereo-video robustly extends the depth range of roving predator surveys, highlights important community shifts in populated versus remote parts of the Archipelago, and is well-suited for large-scale roving predator work across the Pacific. (Jacob Asher, Ivor Williams, and Euan Harvey, 2017. An assessment of mobile predator populations along shallow and mesophotic depth gradients in the Hawaiian Archipelago, Sci. Rep., 7(1), 3905, doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03568-1). • Under work led by JIMAR Cetacean BioAcoustic Technician Ali Bayless, the deep-set tuna-target commercial fishery was acoustically monitored for false killer whale vocalizations. This work included collaboration with the Hawaii Longline Association and the NOAA Pacific Islands Regional Office Observer Program. The timing of vocalizations was compared to fishing activities and depredation rates, and it was found that false killer whales are heard most often during the hauling of gear. This suggests they may be cueing into some haul- related sound, and these detections were found to move towards the vessel during the soak, then away from the vessel during the haul, further supporting an acoustic cue. It was also found that false killer whales may be depredating bait more often than catch. (Alexandra Bayless, Erin Oleson, Simone Baumann-Pickering, Anne Simonis, Jamie Marchetti, Sean Martin, and Sean Wiggins, 2017. Acoustically monitoring the Hawaii longline fishery for interactions with false killer whales, Fish. Res., 190, 122-131, doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2017.02.006). • Mesophotic coral ecosystems, also termed the ‘coral twilight zone’,