Marine Resources Assessment for the Marianas Operating ... - SPREP

AUGUST 2005 FINAL REPORT
Endangered species—any animal or plant species in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant
portion of its range; the authority to list a species is shared by the USFWS (plants and animals on land)
and NMFS (most marine species) under provisions of the ESA
Endemic—occurring in a specific area
Endolithic—living inside rock
Environmental impact statement (EIS)—a detailed written statement that helps public officials make
decisions that are based on understanding of environmental consequences and to take actions that
protect, restore, and enhance the environment
Epibenthic—refers to organisms living on the ocean floor
Epifauna⎯animals living on the surface of the ocean floor; any encrusting fauna
Epipelagic—the oceanic zone from the surface to 200 m
Epizoically⎯living on the surface of another organism
Equidistant line or equidistance—a median line, every point of which is the same distance from the
nearest points on the baselines of two countries
Essential fish habitat (EFH)—those habitats necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or
growth to maturity; designated by the NMFS
Estuary—a semi-enclosed body of water where freshwater mixes with saltwater; often an area of high
biological productivity and important as nursery areas for many marine species
Euryhaline—an organism that can tolerate living in waters with a wide range of salinity
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)—all waters from the low-tide line outwards to 200 NM (except for
those that are close together, i.e., Mediterranean countries) in which the inner boundary of that zone is a
line coterminous with the seaward boundary of each of the coastal states; the country has the power to
manage all natural resources
Existence value⎯value that individuals may attach to the mere knowledge of the existence of
something, as opposed to having direct use of that thing; synonymous with non-use value
Exogenous—originating or produced outside the body
Expected occurrence—an area encompassing the expected distribution of a protected species that is
indicative of where one would expect to encounter that species; areal designation of this occurrence
estimate is based on sightings per unit effort (SPUE) data for all years of line-transect surveys averaged
by season and this category is representative of the middle half or two quartiles of the SPUE data
frequency distribution
Extent—coordinate pairs that define the rectangular boundary (xmin, ymin and xmax, ymax) of a data
source and in which all the coordinates for that data source fall
Extirpated—species that no longer exists in the wild
Extralimital—outside the normal limits of an animal’s distributional range
Extrapolate—to estimate a value that falls outside a range of known values
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