Amy R. Baco’s research while affiliated with Florida State University and other places

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Publications (70)


Finding Boundaries in the Sea: The Main Gap of the Emperor Seamount Chain as a Biogeographic Boundary for Benthic Fauna
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May 2024

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48 Reads

Deep Sea Research Part II Topical Studies in Oceanography

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A Global View of the Cold-Water Coral Reefs of the World

December 2023

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258 Reads

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3 Citations

Cold-water corals (CWC) form reef structures in continental margin and seamount settings at tropical, temperate, and even some polar latitudes. This global distribution makes them more widespread than shallow-water reefs, while their role in these regions is no less important than the influence that shallow-water coral reefs have on shallow, tropical systems. They create habitat structure, host endemic species, enhance elemental cycling, alter current flow, sequester carbon, and provide many other ecosystem services that we are just beginning to understand. This introductory chapter to The Cold-Water Coral Reefs of the World reviews historical and recent information, reveals new findings from reefs that have been discovered only recently, and presents key avenues for future research. Global distribution and environmental data are synthesized into an ensemble model that described the niche of key species of framework-forming corals. Using an algorithm to distinguish coral colony occurrence from coral reef and mound occurrence, we further describe the subset of conditions under which CWC form reefs. This effort reveals new areas that are highly likely to host undiscovered CWC reef habitats and provides a framework for future ocean exploration. We are on the cusp of understanding the critical role that CWC reefs play in the world ocean, and this chapter and this book helps to set the stage for future efforts to determine their global impact and potential threats to the ecosystem services they provide.


Deep-Sea Corals of the North and Central Pacific Seamounts

December 2023

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135 Reads

The North and Central Pacific are home to a number of major archipelagos including Hawaii, the Marianas, Samoa, Line Islands, Phoenix Islands, and Marshall Islands, and numerous seamounts associated with each of these island groups. These islands span from 14°S, the latitude of American Samoa in the South Pacific, to Kure Atoll at 28°N latitude in the Central North Pacific, with seamounts continuing along the Hawaiian Ridge northwest into the Emperor Seamount Chain. Although all are generally remote, some of these island and seamount chains are so isolated (Hawaii and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) that they have some of the world’s highest levels of marine endemism. Differences across the Central Pacific have been documented in the extensive shallow tropical coral reef communities through two decades of directed assessment and monitoring efforts for the subgroup of sites that include the US Pacific Islands. It is likely that deeper coral communities also differ across this region, however, broader explorations of mesophotic and deep-sea communities are needed to document these patterns. Extensive explorations have been undertaken in the Hawaiian Archipelago and started to expand to the rest of the Central Pacific in 2015. Within the North and Central Pacific, deep-sea scleractinian reefs are so far only known to occur from the far end of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and lower end of the Emperor Seamount Chain (ESC), and from the Phoenix Islands, thus this chapter will focus on those regions. In all areas of the North and Central Pacific so far explored, dense beds of octocorals and antipatharian corals are instead generally the dominant benthic megafaunal taxa on deep-sea hard substrates, occupying the same functional roles and niche as scleractinian reefs, but far more common and extensively distributed, thus they will also be frequently mentioned.


Identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ): the Northwest Pacific Seamounts
  • Article
  • Full-text available

November 2023

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334 Reads

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2 Citations

Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) are the common heritage of humankind and require coordinated protection, conservation, restoration, and sustainable use by the international community. A common first step in marine area-based management is the identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) using the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) scientific criteria. While possessing many EBSA qualities, a published EBSA assessment for the Northwest (NW) Pacific seamounts is lacking. Herein, the CBD EBSA criteria are applied to a seamount complex within ABNJ between the United States (Mariana Islands, Guam, Wake Island Marine National Monument), Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Japan (Ogasawara and Minamitori Island). The EBSA assessment concluded that these Magellan, Marcus-Wake, and Marshall seamounts rank High for all EBSA criteria except one (Medium ranking) and strongly identify these NW Pacific seamounts as an EBSA, including their surrounding water. Existing or anticipated threats to the seamounts include but are not limited to seabed mining and climate change. This NW Pacific Ocean Seamounts EBSA identification synthesizes the best available science and provides a robust assessment and thorough review to support marine area-based management and future CBD workshops on the region.

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Figure 1. The Northwest (NW) Pacific Ocean Seamounts Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area (EBSA). The EBSA contains Magellan, Marcus-Wake, and Marshall seamounts in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) between the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the United States (Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the Wake Island Unit of the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument), the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Japan (Minamitori Island and Ogasawara). Seamounts adapted from ISA 2022. Feature description of the area The assessed seamount complex includes the oldest seamounts and oceanic crust in the world (Clouard and Bonneville 2005; Müller et al. 2016) and some of the tallest seamounts, rising from some of the deepest basins in the world (e.g., east Marianas Basin; Stewart and Jamieson 2019) to summits as shallow as 550 m depth (e.g., Alba Guyot; Mel'nikov et al. 2016). This area also contains the highest density of seamounts in the world (Kitchingman et al. 2007; FAO 2023). Here, the Magellan, Marshall, and MarcusWake seamounts intersect and form a complex of volcanotectonic massifs containing approximately 205 seamounts within ABNJ (ISA 2022; only about half are named features, www.gebco.net). While abundant in number, the cumulative area of the seamounts is small and highly fragmented. Within this area, the bare rock seamounts account for only ~4.3% of the ocean floor (ISA 2022) and represent the only shallow bathyal zone habitat (between 3000 and 800 m depth; UNESCO 2009; Watling et al. 2013; ISA 2022). In contrast, the other 95.7% of the ocean floor is predominantly muddy abyssal plains and nodule fields between 6500 and 3500 m depth (UNESCO 2009; ISA 2022). The flow of currents around and over the seamount complex is not yet resolved or well understood (ISA 2022), but it is known that these seamounts can alter local hydrodynamics, and most are within range of directly interacting with and/or impacting at least their immediate neighbours (Jiang et al. 2021; Xie et al.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Ecological or Biological Significant Area (EBSA) scientific criteria and descriptions, and the rankings and supporting information (justifications) for the Northwest (NW) Pacific seamount complex in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). Possible rankings: No information, Low, Medium, and High.
Identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ): the Northwest Pacific Seamounts Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3571

November 2023

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515 Reads

Marine Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) are the common heritage of humankind and require coordinated protection, conservation, restoration, and sustainable use by the international community. A common first step in marine area-based management is the identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) using the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) scientific criteria. While possessing many EBSA qualities, a published EBSA assessment for the Northwest (NW) Pacific seamounts is lacking. Herein, the CBD EBSA criteria are applied to a seamount complex within ABNJ between the United States (Mariana Islands, Guam, Wake Island Marine National Monument), Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Japan (Ogasawara and Minamitori Island). The EBSA assessment concluded that these Magellan, Marcus-Wake, and Marshall seamounts rank High for all EBSA criteria except one (Medium ranking) and strongly identify these NW Pacific seamounts as an EBSA, including their surrounding water. Existing or anticipated threats to the seamounts include but are not limited to seabed mining and climate change. This NW Pacific Ocean Seamounts EBSA identification synthesizes the best available science and provides a robust assessment and thorough review to support marine area-based management and future CBD workshops on the region.


Towards a scientific community consensus on designating Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems from imagery

October 2023

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630 Reads

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10 Citations

Management of deep-sea fisheries in areas beyond national jurisdiction by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations/Arrangements (RFMO/As) requires identification of areas with Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). Currently, fisheries data, including trawl and longline bycatch data, are used by many RFMO/As to inform the identification of VMEs. However, the collection of such data creates impacts and there is a need to collect non-invasive data for VME identification and monitoring purposes. Imagery data from scientific surveys satisfies this requirement, but there currently is no established framework for identifying VMEs from images. Thus, the goal of this study was to bring together a large international team to determine current VME assessment protocols and establish preliminary global consensus guidelines for identifying VMEs from images. An initial assessment showed a lack of consistency among RFMO/A regions regarding what is considered a VME indicator taxon, and hence variability in how VMEs might be defined. In certain cases, experts agreed that a VME could be identified from a single image, most often in areas of scleractinian reefs, dense octocoral gardens, multiple VME species’ co-occurrence, and chemosynthetic ecosystems. A decision flow chart is presented that gives practical interpretation of the FAO criteria for single images. To further evaluate steps of the flow chart related to density, data were compiled to assess whether scientists perceived similar density thresholds across regions. The range of observed densities and the density values considered to be VMEs varied considerably by taxon, but in many cases, there was a statistical difference in what experts considered to be a VME compared to images not considered a VME. Further work is required to develop an areal extent index, to include a measure of confidence, and to increase our understanding of what levels of density and diversity correspond to key ecosystem functions for VME indicator taxa. Based on our results, the following recommendations are made: 1. There is a need to establish a global consensus on which taxa are VME indicators. 2. RFMO/As should consider adopting guidelines that use imagery surveys as an alternative (or complement) to using bycatch and trawl surveys for designating VMEs. 3. Imagery surveys should also be included in Impact Assessments. And 4. All industries that impact the seafloor, not just fisheries, should use imagery surveys to detect and identify VMEs.


Population genetic structure of the deep-sea precious red coral Hemicorallium laauense along the Hawaiian Ridge

September 2023

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107 Reads

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2 Citations

Marine Biology

The deep-sea precious red coral Hemicorallium laauense has long been overharvested in the North Pacific for the jewelry and curio trades. An understanding of the population structure and connectivity of these octocorals has been limited due to the difficulty of sampling and taxonomic challenges within the Family Coralliidae. We report on population genetics of 270 H. laauense individuals from 16 populations throughout the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) using nine microsatellite loci. Observed heterozygosity (0.69–0.85) was generally lower than expected heterozygosity (0.71–0.85) except for the population at Twin Banks. Moderate FIS values (0.01–0.20) were present in nearly half of the populations. Global G’ST (0.166) and pairwise values were moderate to high ( – 0.003 to 0.489). G’ST values also show moderate genetic structuring among populations within seamounts (0.12–0.22) for populations separated by as little as 3 km. DAPC indicated separation of the MHI from the NWHI, but two NWHI sites fall into the MHI clusters and samples from Ka’ena Point (an MHI site) appear to form their own cluster. Membership assignments showed moderate admixture between some locations, while three locations showed almost no admixture. Within-seamount admixture was surprisingly limited for populations on the same seamount. A pattern of isolation by distance, with exchange primarily among adjacent seamounts, was supported by MIGRATE results but not by Mantel tests. These results suggest a mixed pattern of connectivity, with some distant locations well connected and others more isolated. The inconsistent connectivity of these corals is likely amplified by their patchy distributions.



Horizontal distribution of benthic and demersal fish assemblages on three seamounts in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

February 2023

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52 Reads

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1 Citation

Deep Sea Research Part I Oceanographic Research Papers

Deep-sea fishes on seamounts have recently been shown to have strong changes in assemblage patterns with depth. However, horizontal variability patterns within a single seamount and among seamounts remain drastically understudied. The Papah¯anaumoku¯akea Marine National Monument (PMNM) is part of an extensive seamount chain that is relatively unimpacted by human activity as well as highly variable in physiographic and oceanographic characteristics. Three PMNM seamounts, Necker Island, French Frigate Shoals (FFS), and Pioneer Bank, were explored using Autonomous Underwater Vehicle surveys to document the deep-sea fish assemblages and their horizontal patterns of distribution at three different depths. Quantitative comparisons were made among the sides of the seamount and among the three seamounts while controlling for depth. The Gadiformes were the most abundant order with the highest number of individuals at 300 and 450 m on Pioneer and FFS. At 600 m the Myctophiformes showed the highest number of individuals overall and were the most abundant on FFS. Significant differences in abundance by seamount, side, and their interaction were observed at 300 and 600 m. Significant differences in some diversity metrics occurred in one, both, or the interaction of the factors of seamount and side at each depth. At all depths, the structure of the fish assemblage showed significant variation among seamounts and sides, which was explained mostly by the interaction term. After accounting for the variability explained by the confounding factor of time of day, the most common environmental factors related to assemblage structure for at least two depths were the east-west component of currents (u), latitude, chlorophyll a (chl a), and particulate organic carbon (POC). At 300 m, oxygen and salinity were also important, at 450 m mean direction of the substrate was an additional factor that was correlated with assemblage structure. At 600 m the factor that explained the most variation in community structure was percent rugosity. The results obtained in this study show significant horizontal variability in seamount fish assemblages within a given depth range; this variability should be taken into consideration in the management and conservation of the Monument and other seamounts.


List of Deep Sea Coral Taxa in the Hawaiian Archipelago and Johnston Atoll: Depth and Geographic Distribution (v. 2021)

December 2022

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179 Reads

This annex to the U.S. Pacific Islands chapter in “The State of Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Ecosystems of the United States” (Parrish et al. 2017) provides a revised and updated list of deep-sea coral taxa in the Phylum Cnidaria, Classes Anthozoa and Hydrozoa, known to occur in U.S. waters around the Hawaiian Archipelago and Johnston Atoll. This list is an update of the peer-reviewed 2017 list, and includes taxa recognized through 2021.


Citations (45)


... Therefore, a better understanding of the current C demand of CWC reefs is crucial to predict their fate in the future ocean. Cold-water coral reefs are severely threatened by climate change and the impacts of other human activities (Roberts and Cairns, 2014;Hennige et al., 2015;Ragnarsson et al., 2017;Sweetman et al., 2017;Maier et al., 2019;De Clippele and Risch, 2021;Cordes et al., 2023;Wienberg et al., 2023), and recovery from any disturbance of these sensitive, slow growing reefs Freiwald et al., 2002) may take centuries (Roberts and Hirshfield, 2004;Althaus et al., 2009;Clark et al., 2016). ...

Reference:

Biomass mapping of fjordic cold-water coral reefs reveals distinct functional role of vertical wall habitat
A Global View of the Cold-Water Coral Reefs of the World
  • Citing Chapter
  • December 2023

... Moreover, the potential effects of climate change, marine debris, deep-sea mining, and other anthropogenic stressors still need to be fully investigated [8,56,57]; however, lately, effort has been put into highlighting the conservation needs of these habitats, increasing the establishment of protected areas for their preservation [8,31,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] and taking into account future restoration interventions [71]. After the foundation of the United Nations Environment Programme in 1972, the first international action plan addressing marine pollution and degradation of oceans and coastal areas was established in 1974, as the Regional Seas Programme. ...

Identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ): the Northwest Pacific Seamounts

... The need for spatial estimates of abundance is clear, given that qualitative definitions of particular VMEs encompass abundance as an attribute, such as 'significant concentrations' of 'structural organisms' that form complex features such as deepwater coral reefs and not simply presence or absence (FAO 2009). However, quantitative guidelines are lacking about the level of abundance that constitutes a VME (FAO 2009;Baco et al. 2023). Spatial estimates of abundance could contribute to identification of VMEs, in a way that presence-only spatial predictions have only been able to do in a limited extent (Burgos et al. 2020). ...

Towards a scientific community consensus on designating Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems from imagery

... Despite the relevancy of genetic studies in providing evidence that populations on seamounts reveal large variation in distances over which dispersion may occur and the contribution to understand connectivity among seamounts and other populations, they must be interpreted with caution . The few genetic connectivity studies across seamount fish (e.g., De Wysiecki et al., 2022), coral (e.g., Morgan et al., 2023), and invertebrates (e.g., Maxwell et al., 2022) revealed to be largely inconsistent, reflecting the ecological and evolutionary complexities of seamount systems (Shank, 2010). Nevertheless, while data on connectivity is still limited, it should not constrain the development of conservation measures, taking into consideration the expertise and participation of international working groups in their co-design and co-development (Boteler et al., 2022). ...

Population genetic structure of the deep-sea precious red coral Hemicorallium laauense along the Hawaiian Ridge

Marine Biology

... It has primarily been bycatch associated with the main commercial species Pentaceros wheeleri and Beryx splendens [33,57,59]. The maximum trawl fishing efforts on the Emperor Seamounts were concentrated on Jingu, Lira, Koko, Yuryaku, Kammu, Colahan, and C-H seamounts [19,[60][61][62]. ...

Bottom-contact fisheries disturbance and signs of recovery of precious corals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and Emperor Seamount Chain
  • Citing Article
  • April 2023

Ecological Indicators

... Horizontally, most studies have focused on continental margins where the highest species richness is generally found on the continental slope at a mean depth of 1500 m (Rex et al., 1993;Randall and Farrell, 1997). On seamounts, several studies have also shown variability in vertical patterns of abundance and diversity (Parin, 1991;Parin et al., 1997;Tracey et al., 2004;McClain et al., 2010;Mejía-Mercado et al., 2019;Mejía-Mercado and Baco, 2022). Many of these studies have found depth to be an important correlate to the composition of fish assemblages, but at the same time, other depth-covariates such as temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen may be the important drivers (Snelgrove and Haedrich, 1985;Clark et al., 2010bClark et al., , 2011McClain et al., 2010;Mejía-Mercado et al., 2019). ...

Characterization and spatial variation of the deep-sea fish assemblages on Pioneer Bank, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
  • Citing Article
  • June 2022

Marine Ecology Progress Series

... Only a few studies have examined in detail the biodiversity patterns of macro-infaunal organisms in canyon habitats (e.g., McClain and Barry, 2010;De Leo et al., 2014;Leduc et al., 2015;Campanyà-Llovet et al., 2018;Bernardino et al., 2019;Robertson et al., 2020;Shantharam et al., 2021). Even though some of these studies report higher macrofaunal diversity within canyons compared adjacent slope habitats, they also highlight high intra-canyon heterogeneity, often observed at small scales (De Leo et al., 2014;Campanyà-Llovet et al., 2018). ...

Macrofaunal diversity and community structure of the DeSoto Canyon and adjacent slope
  • Citing Article
  • April 2021

Marine Ecology Progress Series

... Monitoring programs for non-compliance involve remote sensing data and aerial surveillance, as detailed by and Burke et al. (2022) for Canadian marine conservation areas. Morgan and Baco (2021) used Automatic Identification System (AIS) data and algorithms of the publicly available Global Fishing Watch database to monitor fishing activities, fishing footprint, and compliance with closures for seamounts in the Northwest Pacific. ...

Recent fishing footprint of the high-seas bottom trawl fisheries on the Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge and Emperor Seamount Chain: A finer-scale approach to a large-scale issue

Ecological Indicators

... These discrepancies between bycatch data and the true scale of seabed impact highlight the need for visual surveys and highresolution mapping to accurately assess SAIs on VMEs. Currently, SAIs have only been visually mapped and quantified in the Emperor Seamount Chain (Baco et al. 2020). ...

Observations of vulnerable marine ecosystems and significant adverse impacts on high seas seamounts of the northwestern Hawaiian Ridge and Emperor Seamount Chain

Marine Policy

... Durden et al. [49] have studied the geological characteristics of positive elevations such as submarine hills and found that even slight altitude differences can cause changes in soft sediments, which makes the benthic communities in the mining area different. According to Morgan, N.B et al. [50,51], there are widely dispersed biological groups that can shelter organisms during deep-sea mining operations and aid in the ecosystem recovery in disturbed nodule areas. Seamount connectivity is also thought to vary widely. ...

Fine Scale Assemblage Structure of Benthic Invertebrate Megafauna on the North Pacific Seamount Mokumanamana