Academic literature on the topic 'Laucala Bay (Fiji)'

During the Pacific Science Inter-Congress in Fiji in July 2013, an integrated symposium on ‘Oceans and Nations: “Failed” states and the environment’ in the Pacific, was hosted at the University of the South Pacific. The brainchild of USP’s Dr Mohit Prasad and professors Victor Bascara, Keith Comacho and Elizabeth DeLoughrey of the University of California at Los Angeles, this drew its inspiration from another conference at Laucala Bay some two years earlier. The 2010 Oceans, Islands and Skies Symposium (OIS), with papers published in a special edition of the USP literary journal Dreadlocks (Prasad, 2010-11) in 2012, had established the disruption to the traditionally organic and fluid nature of relations between artists, writers and performers in the Pacific by the contemporary crisis of the environment. A follow-up Oceans and Nations Symposium explored relations between impacts on the environment, and crisis in political and related development, among the emerging nation-states of the Pacific.Cover cartoon from Rod Emmerson, New Zealand Herald.

Heavy rain events alter the biogeochemical outflows, affects water quality and ecosystem health within the coastal waters of small Pacific Islands. We characterized snapshots of the optical fingerprints of dissolved organic matter (DOM) sources together with the select nutrients, biogeochemical and physical variables for 10 stations in December 2017 in Laucala Bay, Fiji Islands. DOM absorption coefficients and fluorescence components were determined via spectrofluorometry and Parallel Factor Analysis identifying four components: Type M, two terrestrial (humic, fulvic) components, and a protein component linked to marine biological activity. Associations of DOM together with climate variables and the other tested variables were determined via principal component, hierarchical cluster, and cross-correlation (Pearson) analysis. All component s (together with most tested variables) displayed higher values (plumes) at the southwest coast consistent with surface currents outflow during the wet season. Type M component associated with two allochthonous fluorescent components signaling anthropogenic forcings via riverine outflows. Terrigenous inputs association with autochthonous chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is indicative of tidal mixing, dilution, and bottom resuspension processes. Positive correlations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) with nutrients (NOx, PO4) elucidates DOM being utilized as energy sources. The positive correlation of DON with nutrients (NOx, PO4, Si(OH)4) reflects the role of DON as a nutrient source consistent with chlorophyll plume formation.

Until the revision of the genus Manta in 2009, when a second manta species (Manta alfredi) was resurrected based on morphological and meristic data, all available records in Fijian literature were recorded as Manta birostris. Subsequently, documented sightings were recorded as M. alfredi. Another reclassification of the genus Manta was undertaken in 2018 when both manta ray species (Manta alfredi, Manta birostris) were moved to Mobula based on phylogenetic analysis. Here, we present the first unequivocal evidence of oceanic manta ray (Mobula birostris) occurrence in Fijian waters. In November 2018, two individuals were sighted foraging in Laucala Bay, a large lagoon adjacent to Suva, the capital city of Fiji. Subsequently, three more individuals were sighted in December 2018, two individuals in July 2020, at least six individuals were observed in November 2021, and eight individuals in May/June 2022, all foraging in the same geographical area. Unique ventral identification patterns could be obtained for nine individuals, and all nine individuals have been re-sighted since first identification, with one individual being documented in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Two additional individuals were recorded in the Yasawa Island Group in the west of Fiji while passing through and foraging in a channel between Drawaqa and Naviti Island in April and September 2020. We provide photographic identification of ten M. birostris individuals from two sites and discuss our findings in the context of local environmental parameters and other recorded sightings in the South Pacific region. In light of the global extinction risk of M. birostris and the recent reclassification from Vulnerable to Endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species, the expansion of their known distribution range to Fijian waters and the recurrence of individuals over consecutive years in the same location adds valuable information for the development of effective and data-driven conservation strategies.