Symposium on Marine Diversity and Biogeography in the Tropics. Pacific Science Congress, May-June 1991, Honolulu

Abstract

Seven persons were asked to discuss the diversity and biogeography of various groups of marine organisms from as wide a geographic span as possible in the warm Pacific. The organisms covered were marine algae, marine mollusks, and fishes; unfortunately, J. E. N. Veron of Australia, who was expected to speak on corals, was unable to attend. We present here three abstracts and three full-length papers. No symposium on marine diversity has ever been presented to the Congress, although each member country in the Congress is impacted by one or more oceans or seas. Of the major groups of marine organisms, probably the least studied (and least understood) are the marine algae. The three papers are on algae and show different perspectives although the subject matter is systematics and ecology. In "Geographic patterns of diversity in benthic marine algae," Paul Silva defines diversity and shows that although land plant diversity is greater in the tropics, marine algae show more diversity in the warm-temperate boundaries. In "Marine phytogeography of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago: A new assessment," Bernabe Santelices shows that the relatively high diversity with 32% endemism found in the Juan Fernandez Islands is largely due to the physical barrier of the cold northward-flowing Peru or Humboldt Current. Celia Smith in "Diversity in intertidal habitats: An assessment of the marine algae of select high islands in the Hawaiian Archipelago" revealed many data that furnished the bases for far-reaching comparisons: age-related basalt substrates and limestone benches on an island about 35,000 yr old yielded a flora with greater diversity than similar transects on a younger basalt island, contributing to the conclusion that similar diversity patterns appear to depend on substrate similarity as well as current patterns around islands. The three abstracts cover algae from French Polynesia, fishes, and marine mollusks. The papers that stem from these abstracts have been or are being published elsewhere.