IMBeR is delighted to announce its latest endorsed project: NUTS&BOLTS – Importance of Physico-Chemical Cycling of Nutrients and Carbon in Marine Transitional Zones.
NUTS&BOLTS is a four-year project undertaken by Prof. Peter Croot and colleagues at the National University of Ireland Galway, funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Marine Institute.
Marine Ecosystem Ecology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, has a renewed scope. The Specialty Chief Editor and the Associate Editors of the journal, have discussed the main challenges in marine ecosystems ecology for coming decade, deserving research and have identified six main challenges, ranging from understanding of interaction among diversity and ecosystem processes, structure and function, to ecosystem shifts, biodiversity and habitat loss, restoration, sustainability strategies for human activities in the ocean, including the assessment of ocean health, cumulative human impacts and climate change, as drivers of shifts, or marine conservation.
Eight secondary challenges include the links between ocean health with human health, impacts of alien species, loss of natural coastlines and ecosystem services, impacts on the deep ocean, impacts in the land-ocean continuum, the ‘holobiont’ paradigm, ecosystem-based management, and emerging pollutants. As governance and social priorities, the editors identified some major challenges: meeting UN Sustainable Development Goals, new methods into decision support tools for policy frameworks, climate-ready Marine Spatial Planning and MPAs, transnational observation strategies, engaging society more effectively in ocean science, and the role of fake news. Finally, some methodological priorities are: developing molecular tools for marine applications, addressing problems multidimensionally, promoting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies, use of big data and machine learning, modelling and developing thresholds/targets to assess current and future ecosystems health. Download the paper
It is with great sadness that IMBeR, and particularly the CLIOTOP community, received the news of the passing of Dr. Ron O’Dor. Many came to know Ron during his time as Chief Scientist of the Census of Marine Life and leader of the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN). Our thoughts are with his family and friends in this very sad time. A memoriam has been posted on the OTN’s website.
Great progress has been made in measuring and monitoring the ocean, understanding of ocean and ecosystem processes and their role in maintaining the climate and food systems, forecasting and predicting ocean related impacts to coastal communities and implementing management and conservation frameworks that reduce threats and restore some key ecosystems. However, the basic benefits that people derive from a healthy ocean are in decline.
In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CLIOTOP Co-chair Karen Evans and colleagues Linwood Pendleton and Martin Visbeck argue that a transformation in ocean science is needed in order to arrest this decline and achieve the ocean we need for the sustainable future we want. The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) provides an opportunity to create a new movement that brings together the many disciplines of science, other disciplines (e.g. arts, humanities, engineering, law) and stakeholders from all relevant ocean sectors to generate new processes for informing policies that ensure a well-functioning, resilient and sustainable ocean that continues to provide benefits for all. They argue that the success of the Ocean Decade in achieving a sustainable future ocean will require an approach that is inclusive, participatory, and global in its ability to plan, implement, and deliver the required science in innovative ways that makes it accessible to and useable by all.
The oceans’ twilight zone is the area just below 200m from the surface ocean down to 1000m. It plays a major role in removing and storing CO2 from the atmosphere, and is home to the largest and least exploited ocean fish stocks. It is also the zone through which the massive migration of fish and zooplankton move towards the surface to feed each night, before retreating back down at dawn. Yet despite its importance, the zone is physically, biogeochemically and ecologically poorly understood. It is a difficult region to study for a variety of substantial reasons, leaving many critics to suggest that coastal and near-shelf waters are more deserving of study, because of the significant environmental impacts there, and their importance to societies. Unfortunately, widespread environmental damage to these inshore regions can often not be avoided, so research efforts and local policies must aim to mitigate the worst effects. By contrast, the twilight zone is almost pristine, and as much of it lies beyond national jurisdiction, it is of common interest and responsibility, and global agreement is necessary to manage it.
This paper outlines the steps needed to ensure that enough is known about this complex global ecosystem to inform decisions about the impacts of climate change and potential future exploitation. We call on the international marine research community to focus its attention on the twilight zone during the upcoming United Nations Decade of the Ocean, and to seize the opportunity to establish a global policy that will protect this vast ecosystem for present and future generations.
Biodiversity offsets, as the last stage of the mitigation hierarchy, provide an opportunity to promote a more sustainable basis for development by addressing residual impacts and achieving “no net loss” for biodiversity. Despite debate around their effectiveness, biodiversity offsets are seeing increasing application on land but remain a rarely used tool in the marine environment. In this paper, we assess how offsets can be applied in the marine environment to achieve better biodiversity outcomes, and identify implications for conservation policy and practice.
Developing shared goals within interdisciplinary marine research teams can enhance success, both in terms of knowledge production processes, and efforts to link that knowledge to decision-making processes. However, there is very little guidance available for how best to develop shared goals that reflect the values and perspectives of all team members. In a new Perspective Paper just published in One Earth, Chris Cvitanovic and colleagues explore the utility of an organisational psychology model – the ASPIRe model – for developing shared goals within interdisciplinary marine research teams. They do so by applying the model to the Centre for Marine Socioecology in Tasmania, Australia – a group that brings together marine experts from a number of organisations and with varied disciplinary expertise including physics, law, economics, biology, sociology and governance. The full paper is Open Access and can be found here
We are very pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 7th IMBeR 'Climate and Ecosystems' Summer School that will be held at UBC in Vancouver, Canada from 17-21 August 2020.
Numbers are limited to between 60-70 ClimEco7 participants to ensure good discussions and interactions between participants and the amazing lecturers. So when you apply, tell us why you should be selected to attend. We look forward to receiving applications from a wide range of ocean science disciplines.
The registration fee is still to be confirmed. No payment is necessary at this stage. Successful applicants will be informed of the deadline for payments later.
Last week, Carol Robinson, the Chair of the IMBeR Scientific Steering Committee, joined the IMBeR project office staff - John Claydon and Lisa Maddison from the International Project Office in Norway, and Fang Zuo and Kai Qin from the Regional Project Office in China - at a ceremony to mark the inauguration of the new International Project Office (IPO) in Shanghai, China.
A Memorandum of Understanding to support the IMBeR IPO-China for the next five years was signed by Carol Robinson and the ECNU President Prof. Qian Xuhong. The office is also supported by a consortium of supporting marine institutions and projects.
Research by the CLIOTOP Marine Predator Isotopes Task Team was recently published in Global Change Biology. The study compiled more than 5000 stable isotope values from 2000 to 2015 of three tuna species sampled globally. Their analyses, unprecedented in scope and spatial range, found a decline in tuna δ13C values of up to 2.5‰ which was up to five-fold larger than expected from the Suess effect alone, i.e. fossil fuel-derived and isotopically-light carbon incorporated into marine food webs. The team used time-series analysis and Bayesian modelling to relate the observed temporal trend to various processes known to influence ocean carbon cycling in the global oceans. The study concluded that tuna isotope signatures are not only indicating changes in fossil-fuel derived carbon emissions but also a substantial shift in phytoplankton communities (from a likely dominance of larger diatoms to smaller coccolithophorids, flagellates or cyanobacteria).
More than 90% of the heat associated with global warming, and more than 30% of the fossil-fuel carbon emissions have been absorbed by the oceans. While such processes are predicted to impact marine biota through changes in ocean stratification and ocean acidification, current estimates of trends are based on localized ocean time series or satellite observations with significant uncertainties.
The findings from this CLIOTOP study could have broad ramifications for marine food webs. Such shifts in phytoplankton could decrease the availability of energy and some essential macro and micro nutrients to fish and human consumers. The study represents a heretofore unrecognized application of stable isotope analyses to reveal decadal changes in the ocean carbon cycle. Such empirical data will be invaluable in calibrating and validating global earth system models used by the IPCC to project the effects of climate change on oceanic productivity.
The 2019 “global carbon budget” was published on 4 December. It provides an assessment of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and their distribution in the atmosphere, ocean, and land. This is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. It shows that emissions are still increasing, but have slowed due to the global decrease in coal burning. Continued and increased global action is needed to reverse the trends.
IMBeR´s ESSAS Regional Programme will hold its 2020 Annual Science Meeting at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan from 1–3 June 2020
ESSAS´s goal is to compare, quantify and predict the impact of climate variability on the productivity and sustainability of Subarctic and Arctic marine ecosystems. The theme of the 2020 meeting is Linking past and present marine ecosystems to inform future fisheries and aquaculture. This builds on a Belmont Forum-funded project that examined the resilience and adaptive capacity of Arctic and Subarctic marine systems, and aims to gain greater understanding of the mechanisms by which climate change will affect aquaculture and capture fisheries, how these changes will affect resource-dependent communities, and how management can foster resilience in these systems.
Registration and abstract submission are now open. We invite you to submit abstracts that address these themes to help inform our understanding of future changes affecting fisheries and aquaculture in high-latitude marine ecosystems. We welcome contributions from different marine science fields, including paleoecology, contemporary ecology and the social sciences. In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, presentations can be delivered via a video conference system if you cannot atttend the meeting.
If you would like to join the optional excursion to the UPOPOY National Ainu Museum and Park on 5 June, please sign up for it when you register.
Deadline for abstract submission: 31 January, 2020
The ability of flow cytometry to sort hundreds of thousands of phytoplankton cells in minutes has been used in marine science for over 30 years. However, the differentiation of these cells into different types and then further into size distributions and optical properties still requires the manual interpretation of skilled analysts.
We have developed and implemented an automated scheme on the large Atlantic Meridional Transect flow cytometric database consisting of around 104 samples and 109 cells. This unique, well-calibrated dataset covers 100° of latitude between the UK and the Falklands, and has multiple samples between the surface and 200m. The results clearly show that Prochlorococcus, which are very small marine cyanobacteria, are consistently larger (>0.65 µm) than previously thought and have a distinctive double peak (0.75 µm and 1.75 µm) in their size distribution, which varies strongly with depth. This is coupled with changes in their optical properties: a term we have coined as “opto-types”. Synechococcus by contrast are strongly monodispersed and are typically 1.5 µm in diameter.
This work has uncovered new information regarding the size distribution of the smallest phytoplankton and has implications for how energy is transferred between different biological organisms.
Tim Smyth, Glen Tarran and Shubha Sathyendranath from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK
Jess Melbourne-Thomas was recently named as the Australian of the Year by her home state of Tasmania.
Jess is an ecosystem modeller and much of her research focused on how underwater ecosystems respond to climate change and other human impacts. In her current position at CSIRO, she is working on bridging the science-policy-society divide, and how best to communicate and engage regarding change and management for marine social-ecological systems.
Jess´s passion for the ocean and her desire to help women in science led her to co-found the Homeward Bound project, that took 78 female scientists to Antarctica in 2016. She also co-founded the Women in Polar Science network, which has well over 4000 members worldwide.
IMBeR has been very lucky to have Jess involved in its Integrated Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics in the Southern Ocean (ICED) regional programme in various capacities.
Amazing work! Well done, Jess. This is a very well-deserved accolade!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC; published 25 Sept 2019). The SROCC further illustrates the urgent need to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and carefully managing the use of natural resources, concluding that “choices made now are critical for the future of our ocean and cryosphere” and also for people.
Several of the SROCC authors have been heavily engaged in IMBeR –
Javier Arístegui 1,4, Jean-Pierre Gattuso 1,3, Niki Gruber 1,3, Nianzhi Jiao 4, Lisa Levin 3, Jess Melbourne-Thomas 2,4, Geir Ottersen5 and Carol Turley 1,3 (in alphabetical order)
have served or are currently serving as –
1IMBeR SSC members, 2 IMBeR Regional Programme SSC members or leaders of Regional Programme task teams, 3IMBeR Working Group SSC members, 4conveners of workshops at an IMBeR IMBIZO, 5 leader of an IMBeR-endorsed project
Management of marine ecosystems often seeks to maintain systems in stable states that are close to their historical pristine state, or a state where pressures and resource extraction does not degrade the system beyond a point of no return. When regime shifts occur these can therefore considered to be failures in management. Regime shifts should be recognisable as the system departs from the status quo or away from a desirable state and transgresses over some definitive reference points. However, Ingrid van Putten* and colleagues from CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) and the University of Tasmania found that there is limited consensus among marine scientists as to what actually constitutes a regime shift. Thus, the authors identified a fundamental ambiguity in a key concept for ecosystem based management.
See full paper:
Ingrid van Putten*, Fabio Boschetti, Scott Ling, and Shane A. Richards (2019) Perceptions of system-identity and regime shift for marine ecosystems. ICES Journal of Marine Science, fsz058
The idea for this research was first conceptualized at the marine regime shift workshop at the fourth IMBeR IMBIZO meeting: Marine and human systems: Addressing multiple scales and multiple stressors, hosted by the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia and Geofisica Sperimentale in Trieste, Italy, October 2015.
The long Brazilian coast encompasses most of the reef environments of the southwestern Atlantic, and are characterized by unique reef formations and high rates of endemism. Parrotfishes (Labridae: Scarinae) are among the most ubiquitous and dominant reef fish worldwide, and in Brazil, 60% of the group are comprised of six endemic species. It is known that parrotfishes can affect the physical structure and composition of benthic communities through grazing and bioerosion. Despite their ecological importance, parrotfishes have been intensively targeted in many regions of the world. In Brazil, four of the endemic species are now threatened to some degree due to overfishing, including the largest, Scarus trispinosus, which can reach a length of 90 cm. Signs of depletion of these species strengthen our need to inform conservation and management through a better understanding of their patterns of abundance, biomass, habitat preferences, and assemblage structure across different reef types. We assessed abundance and size class distributions of six parrotfishes in northeastern Brazil and identified habitat preferences based on reef attributes. Species’ distributions were variable and related to their respective feeding modes and reef types. Such heterogeneity in habitat use suggests functional complementarity rather than functional redundancy among Brazilian parrotfish assemblages. Outer-shelf reefs sustained larger individuals for most of the species, whereas inner-shelf reefs supported higher abundances of small individuals. Despite being nurseries or developing areas, shallow inshore reefs sustain intense artisanal fishing activities targeting parrotfishes. The ongoing fishing pressure in nursery habitats may be causing significant declines in adult numbers in deeper outer-shelf reefs that are yet to be quantified. Such information may have important implications for management and conservation in the face of increasing fishing pressure. Conservation of Brazilian endemic parrotfishes requires protection of reefs with diverse attributes in order to conserve functional diversity.
The “Experiencing China” series, initiated by the China Scholarship Council (CSC, www.csc.edu.cn), is designed to give its scholarship students the opportunity to explore academic and industrial possibilities, and give insight into the Chinese culture. As a part of the 2019 “Experiencing China” activities, a Doctoral Forum entitled “Dialogue on the Maritime Silk Road” will be hosted by East China Normal University (ECNU, www.ecnu.edu.cn) in Shanghai, China from 10-13 October 2019.
The Forum will cover “Culture and Civilization”, “Estuaries and Coast” and “Economics and Trade” and will consist of three concurrent but interacting sessions. The sessions are: 1) The Maritime Silk Road and cultural exchange across regions, 2) Estuarine and coastal science and technology and sustainable ecosystems, and 3) Building a world of common prosperity through win-win cooperation. The Forum will include keynote lectures, presentations and discussions, as well as a workshop on career planning and a field trip to the Yangshan Deep Water Port or China Maritime Museum. After the Forum, students will be invited to submit a short paper for a special issue of the Journal of East China Normal University (Natural Sciences).
Global environmental changes are challenging the structure and functioning of ecosystems. However, a mechanistic understanding of how global environmental changes will affect ecosystems is still lacking. The complex and interacting biological and physical processes spanning vast temporal and spatial scales that constitute an ecosystem make this a formidable problem. There is thus the need to combine the study of evolution, together with metabolism and climate change. To study these interactions, a framework based on theoretical ecology that considers fundamental and realized niches, appears to be a promising approach.
This paper arose from the fifth IMBeR IMBIZO meeting: Marine biosphere research for a sustainable ocean: Linking ecosystems, future states and resource management, hosted by the Ocean, Carbon & Biogeochemistry Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in October 2017, with a format of three concurrent, interacting workshops. In particular, this work was generated from the working group from Workshop 2: Metabolic diversity and evolution in marine biogeochemical cycling and ocean ecosystem processes.
IMBeR officially launched its latest programme dedicated to students and early career researchers. The Interdisciplinary Marine Early Career Network (IMECaN) provides a networking platform, training programmes, and leadership opportunities for early career marine researchers. The official launch happened at a workshop at the Future Oceans2 Open Science Conference in Brest, France on 16 June 2019. The workshop focused on career development paths for marine researchers, and using infographics in research outputs.
IMECaN has lots of plans for the future, and will be providing training and development in areas not traditionally provided through formal curricula.
IMECaN currently has members in 59 countries and we hope to encourage more people to join up – so help us spread the news. More info about IMECaN and sign up to receive updates on activities and events organised by IMECaN.
The North Pacific western boundary Kuroshio current, transports large amounts of heat, chemicals, and organisms, but is known to be nutrient-poor. Despite the low-nutrient concentration of Kuroshio water, the Kuroshio is an important spawning and nursery ground for various fish species, and a productive fishing ground. To understand the mechanisms of how this high fisheries productivity results from the oligotrophic conditions, i.e., the Kuroshio Paradox, and to determine how to use the ecosystem services sustainably, the Study of Kuroshio Ecosystem Dynamics for Sustainable Fisheries (SKED) started in October 2011. This ten-year project was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT). This recently published book is based largely on the results from the SKED project. Physical, chemical, and biological aspects of the Kuroshio are described and compared to those of the Gulf Stream, the western boundary current of the North Atlantic Ocean, to understand the similarity and differences between them.
Volume highlights include:
New insights into the role of the Kuroshio as a nutrient stream
The first interdisciplinary examination of the Kuroshio Paradox
Reflections on the influence of the Kuroshio on Japanese culture
Research results on both the lower and higher trophic levels in the Kuroshio ecosystem
Comparisons of nutrient dynamics in the Kuroshio and Gulf Stream
Predictions of ecosystem responses to future climate variability
The Surface Ocean-Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) held its 7th open science conference in Sapporo, Japan from 21-25 April 2019. Members of IMBeR Japan Committee, Jun Nishioka, Koji Suzuki and Masahiko Fujii from Hokkaido University, and Atsushi Tsuda from the University of Tokyo, attended the conference and presented an IMBeR poster highlighting the collaboration between IMBeR and SOLAS, including new research successes and trends.
The ocean is an important sink for anthropogenic CO2. From the beginning of the industrial revolution to the mid-1990s roughly 30% of our emissions have been absorbed by the oceans. This process is an important moderator of climate change, but can we count on it to remain as strong in the future? Gruber et al. calculated the ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2 for the interval from 1994 to 2007, which continued as expected. They also observed clear regional deviations from this pattern, suggesting that there is no guarantee that uptake will remain as robust going forward
Marine heatwaves (MHW) are periods of above average temperatures (above the expected 90th percentile) that persist for more than 5 days in a region. They provide an unwanted look at how the ocean might respond to temperatures that exceed the 2C target for limiting global warming. A study by an international team of researchers including IMBeR SSC member Alistair Hobday published a global review of the impact of MHW on species and habitats. damage marine heatwaves are causing to the marine environment wherever they occur. The research in Nature Climate Change demonstrates periods of extreme temperatures can cause rapid loss of marine habitat, local extinctions, reduced fisheries catches and altered ocean food webs. Regardless of where MHW had occurred, they had negative and often detrimental effects on all kinds of marine organisms, including plankton, seaweed, coral, fish, birds and mammals. Impacts on marine life were more severe at the warm part of the species range, as heatwaves elevate already relatively warm temperatures. Studies like this one contribute to addressing IMBeR Grand Challenge 1 – understanding and quantifying the state and variability of marine ecosystems. Learn more about MHWs at www.marineheatwaves.org
IMBeR and the East China Normal University (ECNU) jointly established a regional office, the IMBeR Regional Project Office (IMBeR RPO), to promote IMBeR in the Asia-Pacific region and support the implementation of the IMBeR Science Plan. IMBeR and ECNU are looking to appoint an enthusiastic, organised, Administrative Assistant to work at the IMBeR RPO located at ECNU, Shanghai, China.
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) that was developed by the international marine carbon research community, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2017. It provides a synthesis of quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO₂ (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations, and is a milestone for biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy. SOCAT data is readily available and can be used to quantify ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification, and to evaluate ocean biogeochemical models.
SOCAT data are released in versions, with each succeeding version containing new data sets and updates of the previous one. SOCAT version 1 was released in 2011. The most recent, version SOCAT version 6, comprises 23.4 million global oceans and coastal seas observations from 1957 to 2017, as well as calibrated sensor data.
A team led by Siv Lauvset (Bergen, Norway) recently released an updated “cookbook” of quality control procedures for SOCAT data. This update will be used from SOCAT version 7 onward. The revised quality control criteria will not be retrospectively applied to data sets in SOCAT versions 1-6. The “cookbook” is useful for quality control and to give those who wish to submit data to SOCAT an indication of what is required to achieve the highest quality rating. New data can be submitted at any time, and will be included in the next SOCAT release. The deadline for quality control of SOCAT version 7 is 31 March 2019.
This paper synthesis of current knowledge of microbial plankton respiration in relation to deoxygenation, including the drivers of its variability and possible constraints to our ability to project future scenarios.
Microbial plankton respiration is key to the balance between the storage of organic carbon in the oceans or its conversion to CO2 with accompanying consumption of dissolved oxygen. Many areas of the world´s oceans have experienced reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations for the past 50 years, and this ocean deoxygenation trend it seems set to continue. Despite its central role in ocean deoxygenation, microbial respiration is one of the least constrained microbial metabolic processes. There is thus the need for improved understanding of the magnitude and variability of respiration, and the attribution to component plankton groups. This, together with the quantification of the respiratory quotient, would enable better predictions, and projections of the intensity and extent of ocean deoxygenation and of the integrative impact of ocean deoxygenation, ocean acidification, warming, and changes in nutrient concentration and stoichiometry on marine carbon storage
Deadline for the fully funded international Master programme in Water and Coastal Management is January the 15th, 2019 at 12:00 Central European Time (CET)
The Global Science Opera (GSO) is the brain-child of Oded Ben-Horin. The goal of this initiative is to boost scientific interest in learners through a combination of curiosity-driven education and artistic expression in the form of digital interactions and live-streaming.
The 8th IMBeR China-Japan-Korea (CJK) Symposium was held at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, China last month. The theme was Marine Biogeochemical Sciences for the Sustainability of the West Pacific Biosphere. In addition to participants from China, Japan and Korea, the symposium attracted researchers and students from Thailand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Canada.
Following the symposium, the IMBeR Human Dimensions Working Group held a training course. These meetings are held every second year and the next one will be in Thailand in 2020.
Although ecosystem services are increasingly embedded in policy agendas, it is largely unknown if and how policy actors are considering them. This paper features a retrospective analysis of interviews with key policy actors involved in the strategic decision-making process leading to an innovative large-scale Dutch coastal management project, the Sand Motor mega beach nourishment. The interviews were analysed to ascertain which ecosystem services were considered and how they were described by policy actors. The findings suggest that broad, unspecified ecosystem services were adopted highly by the policy actors, while specific ecosystem service categories were rarely considered. Also, relatable and easy to understand cultural ecosystem services also constituted critical arguments for policy actors in their strategic decision making. The study suggests a ‘translation step’ between ecosystem services research and decision making for ecosystem services to truly align with relevant aspects of decision making.
Alexander van Oudenhven et al, 2018, ’Mind the Gap’ between ecosystem services classification and strategic decision making. Ecosystem Services. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.09.003
We are now accepting abstracts for Future Oceans2. We welcome abstracts for oral and poster presentations. Abstracts must be submitted for specific sessions or workshops, and so it is advised to consult the session and workshop details prior to submission. The deadline for abstract submission is 1st December 2018. Abstracts must be submitted via the registration and abstract submission portal. There is no fee for abstract submission.
IMBeR´s regional programme, CLIOTOP’s largest Task Team ‘Marine Predator Isotopes’ recently published an article in Global Ecology and Biogeography. The paper presents a global spatial and comparative analysis of nitrogen stable isotopes for three species of tuna: yellowfin, albacore and bigeye. Predictive models were employed to assess broad-scale spatial patterns and environmental drivers of oceanic food webs. The analyses highlighted that while there are regional differences in the trophic structure of oceanic ecosystems, globally, tunas share similar functional trophic roles. Their work suggests that habitat compression resulting from the predicted global expansion of oxygen minimum zones with ocean warming will impact marine food webs and the corresponding foraging habits of marine predators.
Pethybridge, H., Choy, C.A., Logan, J.M., Allain, V., Lorrain, A., Bodin, N., Somes, C.J., Young, J., Ménard, F., Langlais, C. & Duffy, L., (2018) A global meta‐analysis of marine predator nitrogen stable isotopes: Relationships between trophic structure and environmental conditions. Global Ecology and Biogeography. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12763
The sixth IMBeR ClimEco summer school was held at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia last month. It brought together 60 participants and lecturers from a range of natural, social and economic marine science disciplines, to consider Transdisciplinary approaches for sustainable oceans.
Scientists are increasingly required to demonstrate the real world tangible impacts arising from their research. Despite significant advances in scholarship dedicated to understanding and improving the relationships between science, policy and practice, much of the existing literature remains high level, theoretical, and not immediately accessible to early career researchers (ECRs) who work outside of the policy sciences. In this new paper, Megan Evans and Chris Cvitanovic draw on the literature and their own experiences working in the environmental sciences to provide an accessible resource for ECRs seeking to achieve policy impact in their chosen field. They (i) describe key concepts in public policy to provide sufficient background for the non-expert, (ii) articulate a number of practical steps and tools that can help ECRs to identify and enhance the policy relevance of their research, and (iii) highlight some of the key personality traits that ECRs can foster to operate more effectively at the interface of science, policy and practice.
The Global Ocean Summit 2018 (GOS 2018) was organised by the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Thchnology (QNLM) at Oceantec Valley, Qingdao from 3-5 July 2018, with the aim of enhancing partnerships on ocean observations and research. The Department of Science and Technology of Shandong Province and the Science/American Association for the Advancement of Science co-hosted the event. GOS 2018 was attended by over 150 delegates including leaders and scientists from 118 marine-related institutions and universities, from 24 countries representing Asia, North America, Oceania, Europe and Africa, as well as delegates from five international organisations/programmes.
Making good decisions requires good data. An excellent collaborative IMBeR paper maps the way for building an integrated system of observations of life in the sea which can be harnessed to influence regional and global ocean governance. To read the paper, go to: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00211
SOCAT scientists proudly announce the release of Version 6 of the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas.
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT, www.socat.info) is a synthesis activity by international marine carbon scientists (>100 contributors) with annual public releases. SOCAT version 6 has 23.4 million quality-controlled in situ surface ocean fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) measurements from 1957 to 2017 for the global oceans and coastal seas, as well as additional calibrated sensor fCO2 measurements.
We are delighted to introduce, John Claydon, IMBeR’s new Executive Officer!
John has a background as a marine ecologist focusing on tropical marine systems, and has worked in a range of roles that includes research, teaching, management, policy, and governance. His most recent position was Director of the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources for the Turks and Caicos Islands Government.
Originally from the UK, after studying at St Andrews University in Scotland, John moved to Australia for postgraduate studies and finished up with a PhD from James Cook University focused on spawning aggregations of coral reef fishes. During much of this time he lived in Papua New Guinea collecting data and helping deliver environmental education programs to local school children.
Mary Mackay, Sarah Jennngs, Ingrid van Putten, Hugh Silby and Satoshi Yamazaki
Enforcing compliance with rules and regulations in recreational fisheries has proved difficult due to factors such as the high number of participants and costs of enforcement, the absence of regular monitoring of recreational fishing activity, and the inherent difficulties in accurately determining catch levels. The effectiveness of traditional punitive deterrence is limited, yet current management is heavily reliant on this compliance approach. In this paper, the potential of behavioural based management is considered through a narrative review of the relevant literature; specifically, exploring the use of nudges, which aim through subtle changes and indirect suggestion to make certain decisions more salient, thereby improving voluntary compliance. A number of potential nudges for compliance management in recreational fisheries are suggested, but caution is advised. As with any novel management approach, nudges must be rigorously tested to demonstrate their cost-effectiveness and to avoid unintended consequences.
In the past few decades, unsustainable activities and increasing demands on marine resources have compromised the future use of the marine environment. Within this context, Romania has initiated efforts to incorporate a Maritime Spatial Planning Directive into the national legislative framework; and, in 2017, established a competent authority to undertake its implementation, so that marine spatial plans can be enacted by 31 March 2021. The authors reviewed Romania’s legal regime on MSP and developed a first approach for a MSP framework in Romania. The paper identified key challenges and concerns that are anticipated from the incorporation of MSP into the national spatial planning framework in its current form: a) Romanian stakeholders have a relatively poor understanding of European, national and regional sea planning regulations, b) concerns related to MSP implementation at regulatory level, c) huge need for sharing of MSP-relevant information for coherent planning, d) challenges of assessing the needs of interconnected ecosystems (including relevant EU and international legislation). Public engagement in marine spatial planning design is not commonplace. The study considered very specific aspects of how the marine spatial planning process evolves and will contribute to providing a coherent approach to reduce conflicts in the Romanian marine environment, appropriate MSP implementation, as well as minimizing the pressures and impacts on the marine resources.
IMBeR is a multidisciplinary global environmental change research initiative sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and Future Earth.
It began in 2005 and has advanced understanding about potential marine environmental effects of global change, and the impacts and linkages to human systems at multiple scales. It is apparent that the complex environmental issues and associated societal/sustainability choices operate at and across the interfaces of natural and social sciences and the humanities, and require both basic, curiosity-driven research and problem-driven, policy-relevant research. This underpins IMBeR's vision: “Ocean sustainability under global change for the benefit of society”.
The IMBeR International Project Office (IPO) provides management support for the planning and implementation of IMBeR activities, coordination between the international network of IMBeR scientists, and collaboration with related international projects and programmes.
The IPO is currently hosted at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, Norway until the end of March 2020. IMBeR is soliciting offers for a new host arrangement from April 2020 onwards, for a period of at least three, and preferably five years.
Alistair Hobday, Claire M. Spillman, J. Paige Eveson, Jason R. Hartog, Xuebin Zhang and Stephanie Brodie. Frontiers in Marine Science April 2018, 5(137): 1-9
A changing climate, in particular a warming ocean, will very likely impact marine industries. For example, aquaculture businesses may not be able to maintain production in their current location into the future, or area-restricted fisheries may need to follow the fish as their distribution shifts. Preparation for these potential climate impacts can be improved with information about the future.. The authors suggest risk management in a globally changing environment can be improved by combining seasonal forecasting to manage short-term variability, while using climate scale projections to plan transformative change, such as when to relocate a seafood business. Use of seasonal forecasts can reduce the costs and increase the profits at a location, thus extending the time that the business can operate.
A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that if atmospheric CO2 continues to increase, the differences in extremes in surface-ocean acidity between summer and winter will roughly double by the end of the century. The amplified seasonality in acidity is projected to occur in all ocean regions. In the tropics and subtropics, associated impacts on organisms are likely to worsen during summer when acidity is highest and improve during winter when acidity is lowest; in colder ocean regions, these summer-winter tendencies are reversed. Future projections of these seasonal extremes come from nine Earth System Models that participated in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report. Projections were made not only for acidity (hydrogen ion concentration) but also for a saturation index that indicates how suitable conditions are for calcification, a process by which corals and shell builders produce hard skeletal material. The seasonal amplitude of that index (the aragonite saturation state) was found to generally decline as atmospheric CO2 increases. With time this could affect the ability of shell forming organisms to grow, with summer seawater conditions becoming less suitable for growth over most of the ocean.
Article: Kwiatkowski, L., & Orr, J. C. (2018). Diverging seasonal extremes for ocean acidification during the twenty-first century. Nature Climate Change, 8(2), 141-145. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0054-0
IMBeR will hold its 8th China-Japan-Korea (CJK) Symposium at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, China from 17-19 September 2018.
The theme of this regional IMBeR symposium is Marine Biogeochemical Sciences for the Sustainability of the West Pacific Biosphere.
The focus will be on analyzing the impact of climate change and anthropogenic forcing on physical processes and biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem structure and functions, and fisheries in the West Pacific region, and how these combined complex interactions, in turn, influence marine ecosystems and human society.
The session themes are:
* Advances in observation and modelling of physical and biogeochemical processes in the West Pacific region
* The response of marine ecosystems to natural and anthropogenic forcing: past, present and future
* Responses of society to global change in marine systems: ways forward (this session will be expanded upon in a training course on the 3rd day)
The number of participants will be limited to 100, so you are encouraged to register soon and submit an abstrac, at: http://mform.imr.no/view.php?id=78294
Deadline for applications is 15 June 2018.
More information on the CJK symposium is available at:
http://imber.info/en/events/china-japan-korea-imber-symposia/cjk8
IMBeR is pleased to announce its endorsement of the Marine Ecosystem Modelling and Forecasting System in the China Seas and Northwestern Pacific (MEMFiS) project.
China´s coastal regions are under increasing pressure from both climate change and intensive human activity. The ecology of the coastal regions are particularly threatened by eutrophication, red tides and hypoxia events, etc. This raises the question of whether, and to what extent, ecological changes in coastal regions can be predicted, in order to preserve and retain their function and economic value.
Focusing on the ecology of the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas, and the Northwestern Pacific, the MEMFis project aims to develop an integrated modelling and forecasting framework, using high-resolution physical-ecosystem models and data from multiple sources. By investigating ecosystem variability at different temporal and spatial scales, several key scientific questions will be tackled. Marine ecosystem variability will be addressed at the interface of different systems, parameterizations optimized for biogeochemical processes in different regions, data assimilation and ecosystem forecasting using multiple observations not only from moorings, buoys and ships, but also from bio-Argo, gliders and high-resolution satellite imagery.
More than 15 research institutes are involved in MEMFiS including the Second Institute of Oceanography, Tianjin University, the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, and the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center.
IMBeR is pleased to welcome Richard Bellerby and Su Mei Liu, the two new IMBeR co-Chairs of the IMBeR-Future Earth Coasts (FEC) Continental Margins Working Group (CMWG).
Climate change is impacting global fisheries and societies that depend on them. Identifying climate adaptation measures requires understanding of how environmental changes and management policies interact in driving fishery productivity. Coincident with the recent exceptional warming of the northwest Atlantic Ocean and removal of large predatory fish, the American lobster has become the most valuable fishery resource in North America. A new PNAS paper by Arnault Le Bris et al. shows that interactions between warming waters, ecosystem changes, and differences in conservation efforts led to the simultaneous collapse of the lobster fishery in southern New England and record-breaking landings in the Gulf of Maine. The results demonstrate that sound, widely adopted fishery conservation measures based on fundamental biological principles can help capitalize on gains and mitigate losses caused by global climate change.
