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

AUGUST 2005 FINAL REPORT
Relief—the inequalities (elevations and depressions) of the sea bottom
Remigration interval—the amount of time between successive sea turtle nesting seasons
Robust—powerfully built
Rookery—an animal’s breeding ground; for sea turtles, it is the specific beach on which they nest
Rorqual—any of six species of baleen whales (the minke, blue, humpback, fin, Bryde’s, or sei whale)
belonging to the family Balaenopteridae; characterized by a variable number of pleats that run
longitudinally from the chin to near the umbilicus; the pleats expand during feeding to increase the
capacity of the mouth
Rostrum—the snout or beak of a cetacean; in fish, a forward projection of the snout
Saddle—a light-colored patch behind the dorsal fin of some cetaceans
Salinity—the concentration of salt in water, measured in practical salinity units (psu)
Salt marsh—coastal ecosystem that is inundated by seawater for some period of time. Plants in this
ecosystem have special adaptations to survive in the presence of high salinities. Generally, found in
temperate or subpolar climates
Sargassum—a genus of brown algae commonly found in temperate and tropical waters
School—a social group of fish, drawn together by social attraction, whose members are usually of the
same species, size, and age; the members of a school move in unison along parallel paths in the same
direction
Scleractinian—hard or stony corals known as true corals that dominate reef ecosystems; they have a
compact calcareous skeleton and polyps with no siphonoglyphs (grooves)
Sclerosponge—slow growing calcareous organisms who secrete their skeletons in carbon and oxygen
isotopic equilibrium with their environment and can provide proxy records of salinity and water
temperature over a 100 to 1000 year time range
Scutes—long, thickened scales that cover underlying bony plates of carapace and plastron of sea turtles
that are used for protection
Sea anemones⎯large, heavy, complex polyps that belong to the cnidarian class Anthozoa
Sea surface temperatures (SST)—the temperature of the layer of seawater (approximately 0.5 m deep)
nearest the atmosphere
Seamount⎯an undersea mountain that rises steeply from the ocean floor to an altitude greater than
1,000 meters above the ocean basin
Secondary production—organic material produced by processing organic material other than that from
primary production; consumers
Sediment—solid fragmented material, either mineral or organic, that is deposited by ice, water, or air
Semelparous—producing all offspring at one time; usually these fish die after reproduction
Serial spawner—a fish that spawns in bursts or pulses more than once in a spawning season in
response to an environment stimulus
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