Macrofauna of Laufuti Stream, Tau, American Samoa, and the Role of Physiography in Its Zonation
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2004-01
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University of Hawai'i Press
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Abstract
Laufuti Stream, on the island of Tau, American Samoa, is a complex
interrupted perennial stream, consisting of three accessible sections, lower
Laufuti (perennial), middle Laufuti (intermittent), and upper Laufuti (perennial),
and the inaccessible falls zone, a series offour sheer, intermittent waterfalls
separating lower Laufuti from middle Laufuti. The macrofauna consists primarily
of amphidromous species that are relatively common and widespread in
the tropical Pacific. However, in comparison with stream communities on Tutuila,
Laufuti is unusual. Its shrimp community is more diverse and abundant,
dominated by Macrobrachium latimanus, a species neither widespread nor abundant
on Tutuila. It also supports a relatively diverse, alien-free freshwater fish
community of six species representing three families, Gobiidae, Eleotridae, and
Anguillidae, including Anguilla megastoma, a species of limited occurrence on
Tutuila. The fish community of Laufuti is similar to that of other tropical Pacific
high-island streams in terms of dominant families, but zonation of macrofauna
differs. There are no euryhaline fish species, and only Anguilla megastoma
occurs above the falls zone. There are seven species of shrimps in lower Laufuti,
but only Macrobrachium lar and M. latimanus occur above the falls zone. The
severe dispersal barrier represented by the falls zone plus the absence of estuarine
conditions, both products of the islands' geologic history, have produced a
pattern of species distributions unlike that of most other tropical Pacific high
islands.
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Cook RP. 2004. Macrofauna of Laufuti Stream, Tau, American Samoa, and the role of physiography in its zonation. Pac Sci 58(1): 7-21.
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