Documented strandings in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands over the past 17 years are reviewed with recorded autopsy information provided. Most of the strandings occurred on the island of Saipan, although two whales were noted to have stranded during this period on Tinian, one identified as Balaenoptera edeni, the Byrdes whale, while the other was not identified. The planned expansion of military activities in the Marianas Archipelago, particularly the use of sonar and the potential impact on cetaceans, is noted.

The marine benthic algae from Jarvis Island and Kingman Reef were identified from collections obtained from the Whippoorwill Expedition in 1924, the Itasca Expedition in 1935, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney in 1938, the Smithsonian Institution’s Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program in 1964 and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006. A total of 124 species, representing 8 Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), 82 Rhodophyta (red algae), 6 Heterokontophyta (brown algae) and 28 Chlorophyta (green algae), are reported from both islands. Seventy-nine and 95 species of marine benthic algae are recorded from Jarvis Island and Kingman Reef, respectively. Of the 124 species, 77 species or 62% (4 blue-green algae, 57 red algae, 2 brown algae and 14 green algae) have never before been reported from the 11 remote reefs, atolls and low islands comprising the Line Islands in the Central Pacific.

Maristentor dinoferus is visible in situ with the naked eye; it forms aggregations at several scales: individuals form dynamic clusters within colonies that are normally widely scattered, but in recurrent blooms during the dry seasons of 2005 through 2007, colonies often formed close together in patches (metapopulations). Patches were extremely abundant in Guam, both in Apra Harbor and on the outer coast. This is the first time that long-term changes in a benthic ciliate population have been documented in situ and that multi-scale patchiness has been reported for a benthic ciliate. Colonies were mapped and monitored; some patches over 1 m diameter were recorded. Since 2008, the distribution has again consisted of scattered colonies, as it did from 1999–2004.

This issue of Micronesica, 43(2), is this last one that will be printed on paper. Effective the beginning of 2013, the journal will be published using the continuous publishing model, online only, with free full-text access. There are several practical reasons for this change, and two key factors that now make it possible. Continuous publishing has been adopted by several journals including those published by the Royal Society of the U.K. (see http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/ authors/continuous_publication.xhtml).

Micronesica exists to disseminate the results of scientific research about the region or relevant to the region, and is one way in which the University of Guam achieves its mission of Ina, Diskubre, Setbe—To Enlighten, to Discover, to Serve. For that reason we have been posting full-text pdfs of articles on our website since 1999 upon publication of the printed issue. Micronesica is now found and accessed primarily through the Internet. We have long debated whether to maintain print copies, and two factors held us back until now: the requirement for print copies when new species are published and the need for long-term accessibility.

Micronesica has a long track record of new taxa, especially fish, crustaceans, insects and plants, and such articles are a vital element of the scope of the journal. Effective 2012, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN) (the “Melbourne Code”) recognized the need to accept online-only publication of botanical names (http://www.iapt-taxon.org/downloads/synopsis.pdf, Article 29), and to resolve issues of publication date arising from the widespread practice of “early” online publication, whereby journals published an article online before the print edition came out, sometimes with changes. The Zoological Code had required that an article published online had to be deposited in at least 5 major publicly accessible libraries, which had to be identified by name in the article. However, in a “landmark” decision, this rule was amended (http:// iczn.org/content/iczn-amendment-electronic-publication) such that “publication in an electronic-only scientific journal will be ‘legitimate’ if it meets criteria of archiving and the publication is registered on the ICZN’s official online registry, ZooBank.” Thus the way has been cleared for online-only publication of botanical and zoological taxa.

The articles in Micronesica are cited long after publication, especially taxonomic articles, unlike those in “cutting-edge” journals that are left behind after 5–10 years. Thus the ability to securely archive the journal was a second essential criterion. Micronesica will be archived by CLOCKSS (http://www.clockss.org). This consortium provides distributed archiving and would release the archives for public access should the publisher (i.e., UOG) become unable or unwilling to continue supporting the Micronesica website. For the immediate future, at least, we are not using the DOI service provided by CrossRef ®.

What does this mean for authors and readers? The following are the key changes:

 

Chris Lobban October 2012. (Edited to correct links, GCF, August 2015)

This work offers skeletal evidence-based interpretations of the life of a 16th–17th century Chamorro man, designated Taotao Tagga', who was buried on the island of Tinian. We focus on osteological changes that illuminate chapters of his life history, and additionally examine these changes in relation to his society and culture. An eventful, arduous, traumatic yet fortunate life is revealed by his physical remains. During the span of the late 17th century Spanish-Chamorro Wars, or perhaps an earlier period of inter-village skirmishing, he suffered a serious penetrating wound to his face, but complete healing of this wound suggests that he benefitted from effective traditional medical interventions, of which we suggest a few. We advance the proposition that work activities, likely initiated at a young age and focusing on megalithic stone processing and building, produced many of the activity-related changes to his skeleton, including the development of posterior cranial superstructures, adaptive remodeling and enthesopathic changes at tendon and ligament attachment sites on his appendicular skeleton, arthritic changes to his joints, and the development of extremely robust long bones, especially those of the upper limb. An index of his humeral robusticity, and related musculoskeletal strength, is close the upper end of the range of known variation for modern and archaic humans. As Taotao Tagga' was part of a cohort of other Chamorro “strong men,” we examine the quality of life and evolutionary underpinnings of their large body size and great strength. Additionally, we consider how and why Taotao Tagga''s skeletal changes may bear the signature of a semi-specialist stoneworker and builder, reflecting demographic and socio-political trends during his life, in his home district in Tinian.

Numerous independent analyses of climate change have suggested that changing weather patterns are resulting in increasing frequency or intensity of hurricanes and typhoons. We explore the relationship between cyclonic event frequency and severity on measures of bird abundance on the island of Rota, in the Northern Mariana Islands to determine if changes in cyclonic event pattern might be related to the local decline of avian species. We developed a database of Rota cyclonic event encounters since 1952 and three primary variables for analysis of cyclonic event behavior were then derived from this data: Time-Between-Typhoon-Encounters, Distance from Rota at closest approach, and Pressure at the center of the cyclonic event at the point of closest approach. Three similar smoothed variables were derived relative to each Breeding Bird and Variable Circle Plot census time point. Multivariate general linear models were constructed separately for each bird abundance data set with multiple species as dependent variables and smoothed cyclonic event time-between-encounter, distance-at-closest- point, and central-pressure-at-closest-point as independent variables. Cyclonic event behavior in relation to Rota did not exhibit an increase in frequency, as sometimes perceived, but did show a significant decrease in distance to the island and an increase in intensity as measured by central pressure. Several species abundances showed significant relationships with cyclonic event pressure or distance, including the Mariana Crow, Philippine Turtle Dove, and Rufous Fantail. It appears that changes in cyclonic event “behavior” could be impacting forest-bird populations on Rota. Overall, bird population declines may be due to a combined effect of habitat loss, introduced species pressure, and cyclonic events, where any one of the factors might be enough to tip a species into decline.

We conducted a 3-week field study of ectoparasites of humans and domestic animals throughout Guam. Thirteen species of ectoparasitic arthropods were collected. Ectoparasites of medical or veterinary significance included the ticks Rhipicephalus sanguineus and Rhipicephalus microplus, fleas Ctenocephalides felis and Xenopsylla cheopsis, and the head louse Pediculus humanus capitis. Polymerase chain reaction based screening for rickettsial and protozoan pathogens detected pathogens in eight arthropods. These included Anaplasma platys, Anaplasma marginale, Coxiella burnetii, Babesia canis vogeli, and Hepatozoon canis.

The marine diatom flora of the tropical western Pacific island of Guam is all but unknown. Following several taxonomic/systematic papers, this floristics paper documents 179 new records of diatoms identified from light microscopy and/or scanning electron microscopy. Samples were collected from diverse habitats for several research projects in the authors’ laboratories, but the majority reported here are epiphytic, especially from pomacentrid farmer-fish territories. While many of the species are well known from other regions, some recently named, rarely seen, or poorly-described taxa include Amphora decussata Grunow; Ardissonea fulgens var. fulgens (Greville) Grunow and var. gigantea (Lobarzewsky) De Toni; Campylodiscus humilis Greville; Falcula paracelsianus Voigt; Hyalosira interrupta (Ehrenberg) Navarro; Olifantiella pilosella Riaux-Gobin; and Triceratium pulchellum (Grunow) Grunow. A preliminary checklist incorporating the new records and our previous records totals 237 taxa, which is a step towards the development of the regional flora. Many taxa remain to be identified from the documentation so far and few samples have been analyzed from other habitats such as sediments and mangroves. Only 28–42% of the species in this checklist also occurred in lists from the Society Islands, Mahé, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas—but all regions remain seriously undersampled. We do, however note some apparent differences in common and distinctive species.