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Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 Revisiting a Vanishing WorldThe 2005 expedition also revealed to the researchers that one visit wasn't enough. Following the expedition, the scientists immediately decided that sharks would be a focal point of any future Line Islands research as part of a concerted effort to understand more about the predators' critical role in coral reef ecosystems. Another team of scientists returned in 2006 to focus on Palmyra and Kiritimati. They conducted experiments and collected samples to further pursue questions related to the growth rates of algae and fish and the associated dynamics of the coral food web. In August 2007 the original science team will return to Kingman for a comprehensive examination of the entire island in the hopes of learning more about the ecological processes involved in this extraordinary showcase of the undisturbed. 
Another major expedition is in the planning stages for 2009, this time targeting the southern chain in the Line Islands archipelago. The researchers will start in Tahiti and steam north through the southern islands, covering 2,000 miles through destinations virtually untouched directly by humans. "These are islands that people have no information about," said Sandin. "Essentially this is getting into the unknown." 
With knowledge acquired from the initial Line Islands Expedition and its subsequent voyages, Sandin and Sala hope "the unknown" becomes "the known," and in the process provides an understanding of the ecological past of coral reefs to help guide their fate in the future. We learned that it is impossible to have islands
completely excluded from human influence. We accepted that the coral
reefs of the future will be different than those of the past, except for
maybe a few places such as Kingman reef. Our next challenge is to decide
what we are going to be happy with, to identify a place along the
gradient of human disturbance where both we and reefs will thrive. For part one of Paradise Redefined, "Exploration in Tropical Seas," see: Paradise Redefined: Part I Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 |
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:: © 2009 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. All Rights Reserved.
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