Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve (KIMR)

Community structure and function and biogeography

The Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve is a collection of 11 small islands located at 30oS approximately 750 km northeast of Auckland. The KIMR is New Zealand's largest marine reserve, being 748,000 hectares in size. Because of its remoteness and the difficulty of getting to the reserve, not much is known about the community structure and function or the biogeography of the region. CMEER personnel are presently working on various aspects of the KIMR, including macro-invertebrate community structure and function, the population genetics of several Kermadec-endemic species, and the biogeographical affinities of the biota.

Population genetics of Kermadec Islands endemic species

 Species endemic to small isolated oceanic islands such as the Kermadec Islands are reliant on self-recruitment for continued existence. Population genetic studies in such isolated habitats can provide data on the extent to which dispersal limits the occurrence of organisms and determines their genetic structure. CMEER researcher Dr Ann Wood used randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers to examine genetic structuring and connectivity among populations of two intertidal limpets endemic to the Kermadec Islands: the giant Kermadec limpet Scutellastra kermadecensis and the pulmonate limpet Siphonaria raoulensis. The results showed significant genetic differentiation and limited connectivity among populations of these limpets separated by less than 1 km, which suggests that a large proportion of successfully recruiting larvae from these species do not disperse far from their population of origin. A paper from this work is currently ‘in press’ in Marine Ecology Progress Series.