Preface 



The two volumes of The Natural History/ of Enewetak 

 Atoll summarize research done at the Mid-Pacific Research 

 Laboratory from 1954 to 1984 under the auspices of the 

 Department of Energy. The history of the laboratory and 

 the reasons for its support by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Energy are described in Chapter 1 of Volume 1 . 



Over a thousand persons — established scientists, their 

 assistants, and graduate students — conducted research at 

 the laboratory during the 30-year period. Their efforts 

 resulted in 223 publications. These have been collected in 

 four volumes of reprints entitled Mid-Pacific Marine Labora- 

 tory Contributions. 1955-1979, U. S. Department of 

 Energy, Publication NVO 628-1. The laboratory has con- 

 tinued operation on a limited scale to the present. A col- 

 lection of papers recently appeared in the Bulletin of 

 Marine Science, Volume 38, 1986. 



Much of the research conducted at the laboratory was 

 on the marine environment. The reason was that the 

 majority of scientists applying to work at Enewetak were 

 marine biologists. For many, this was the first opportunity 

 to study the biota of a coral atoll. Fewer studies were con- 

 ducted in the terrestrial environment and its biota. 

 Nevertheless, as these volumes attest, the coverage is 

 amazingly complete and thorough, and there are few, if 

 any, studies of an equivalent ecosystem that equal the 

 total research effort reported in these volumes. 



Volume I provides a synthesis of the research carried 

 out under the subject headings of the respective chapters. 

 Certain of the chapters, e.g., those on geology, subtidal 

 and intertidal environments and ecology, and those on reef 

 processes and trophic relationships, summarize a great 

 diversity of research carried out by many scientists for 

 many years. In contrast, the chapters on meteorology and 

 oceanography summarize research carried out under one 

 integrated program involving fewer scientists working over 

 a shorter period. 



Volume II of The Natural Historic of Enewetak Atoll 

 provides information on the taxonomy of animals and 

 plants known to occur at Enewetak Atoll. This taxonomy 

 represents a fulfillment of one of the first assignments to 

 the laboratory — to determine the scientific names of the 

 biota of the atoll. The collections on which the checklists 

 in each chapter are based are housed at the Bcrnice P. 



Bishop Museum in Honolulu and the U. S. National 

 Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



In addition to the sp>ecies checklists, each chapter in 

 Volume II provides a succinct summary of the biota with 

 respect to endemism, range extensions, and other features 

 that set the Enewetak biota apart from those one might 

 expect to find on equivalent Indo-Pacific islands. This com- 

 pendium of taxonomic information for an atoll should 

 prove of immense value to scientists interested in biogeog- 

 raphy and evolutionary biology of island ecosystems for 

 years to come. 



One of the problems of editing these volumes has been 

 the correct use of place names. In some cases authors 

 used the military code names for islands while others used 

 the native names. Even the native names have changed 

 from early phonetic spellings to the sp>ellings currently in 

 use and preferred by the Enewetak people. For example, 

 the name of the atoll has changed from Eniwetok to 

 Enewetak, and, although the correct current sf>elling is 

 used throughout, the old spelling occurs in older references 

 and maps which appear in these volumes. Maps giving the 

 military code names and the native names preferred by the 

 Enewetak people are located in Chapter 1 of Volume I. 

 Surprisingly, it is difficult to determine the exact number of 

 islands. Due to the effects of storms, small islands are 

 ephemeral, and two islands and part of a third were ob- 

 literated by nuclear explosions. Currently there arc 39 rec- 

 ognizable islands, and these are shown on the map used 

 throughout the book. 



These volumes do not report on the extensive radiolog- 

 ical surveys and studies which have been conducted by the 

 Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, University of California, 

 and the Radiation Laboratory, University of Washington, 

 also under the auspices of the U. S. Department of 

 Energy. 



Dennis M. Devaney, senior editor of this volume, disaf)- 

 peared while collecting specimens off the Island of Hawaii 

 on August 13, 1983. Dennis was doing what he loved 

 best, collecting marine invertebrates, at the time of his 

 death. He collected extensively at Enewetak, and he under- 

 took the task of organizing the systematic chapters of 

 Volume II. Beatrice L. Burch, Dcvaney's assistant at the 



XI 



