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Ecosystem indicators to measure the effectiveness of marine nature-based solutions on society and biodiversity under climate change
Get PDFAn assessment framework of marine ecosystem services (ES) indicators to quantify the socio-ecological effectiveness of nature-based solutions (NBS) and nature-inclusive harvesting (NIH) under climate-driven changes was developed. It creates a common understanding about the health status of ecosystems, their services (ES), and the impact of implementing NBS&NIH to inform policymakers and the public. The two NBS considered were restoration and conservation which need to be performed considering the sustainable harvesting of marine resources (NIH). The interaction between the biodiversity indicators with the socioeconomic, response and pressure indicators was established using the ES cascade. However, it was also linked to other environmental (e.g., DAPSI(W)R(M)) and economic frameworks such as the Standard National Account (SNA) and the System of Environment Economic Accounting (SEEA). A set of 155 multidisciplinary indicators were identified through a literature review and their effectiveness in measuring ES under changing climate. Biodiversity & environmental as well as Pressure indicators are the most numerous in the list representing 34 % and 23 % of the total respectively, while only 12 % of the used Indicators below to the economic dimension. Socioeconomic indicators considering CC are rarely contemplated, except for a short list redefining output and demand approach indicators to aggregate a carbon footprint valuation. For cultural services economic indicators dominate, whereas sparse for provisioning and regulating. The 70 % of the selected indicators were also empirically verified with 27 European storylines. Storylines have high coverage of biodiversity, environmental indicators, and CC indicators (91 %), lower coverage of economic (71 %) and poorer related to social (31 %) indicators. Harvest, pressure and/or habitats are clearly the groups of indicators majority used when evaluating the ES on marine and coastal ecosystems both in terms of the number of used indicators but also, the frequency of use. Despite the increase of ES research, this study identifies 14 substantial gaps or weaknesses limiting the guidance for NBS&NIH implementation derived from the employment of an unbalanced (between dimensions and key groups) number of quantitative indicators
Radiometric assessment of OLCI, VIIRS, and MODIS using fiducial reference measurements along the Atlantic Meridional Transect
Get PDFHigh quality independent ground measurements that are traceable to metrology standards, with a full uncertainty budget, are required for validation over the lifetime of ocean-colour satellite missions. In this paper, we used radiometric Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) collected during four Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) field campaigns from 2016 to 2019 to assess the performance of radiometric products from the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) aboard Sentinel-3A (S-3A) and 3B (S‐3B), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument aboard Aqua (MODIS-Aqua), and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument aboard Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 (Suomi-VIIRS and NOAA-20 VIIRS). The AMT provides one of the few sampling platforms that make high-quality in situ radiometric measurements in oligotrophic, low chlorophyll-a oceanic waters for ocean colour satellite validation. In situ data were acquired and processed following established FRM protocols, calibrated to metrology standards, referenced to inter-comparison exercises and with a full uncertainty budget. From these we selected an uncertainty threshold, which we used as part of a matchup procedure that takes into account the temporal and spatial variability of both the in situ and satellite data. Three atmospheric correction models were compared for S-3A and S‐3B OLCI radiometric products; the standard OLCI IPF-OL-2, POLYMER and NASA SeaDAS l2gen. Based on the round-robin comparison, POLYMER provided the best performance in the retrieval of water-leaving radiances. The analysis showed that Suomi-VIIRS and MODIS-Aqua performed better than NOAA-20 VIIRS, and comparably with S‐3B OLCI standard products. The S-3A OLCI standard product outperformed the NASA products. The S-3A OLCI and S‐3B OLCI instruments were also compared during their tandem phase, which showed that S‐3B OLCI radiances were systematically higher than S-3A OLCI across the spectrum
The Expected Impacts of Climate Change on the Ocean Economy
Get PDFThe ocean is critically important to our global economy.
Collectively, it is estimated that ocean-based industries
and activities contribute hundreds of millions of jobs and
approximately US 428 billion/year by 2050 and $1.98 trillion/year by 2100.
• Climate change is reducing the productivities and changing the spatial distributions of economically important
marine species and their habitats. All countries stand to
gain signifcant benefts relative to a business-as-usual
trajectory by implementing climate-adaptive fsheries
management reforms that address both changes in species’ distributions and productivities due to climate
change. Many countries could maintain or improve profts
and catches into the future with effective adaptation.
• The potential of marine aquaculture (mariculture) is likely
to remain high under climate change and, with careful
planning, mariculture could offset losses in food and
income from capture fsheries in those countries that will
experience losses in that sector. Expanding the potential for
marine aquaculture will require enhancing technical capac�ities, defning best practices, easing undue regulatory bur�dens, increasing access to credit and insurance, breeding
stocks for faster growth and improving feed technology.
• The combined effects of ocean warming and acidifcation
result in predictions of negative impacts on coral reef
cover and tourism values for all countries, with magnitudes dependent on the strength of climate change. For a
high emissions scenario (Representative Concentration
Pathway 8.5), coral cover is expected to decline by
72–87%, causing on-reef tourism values to decrease by
over 90% in 2100.
• Climate change impacts will differ by country and sector
and solutions must be context-specifc. By exploring climate change impacts at the country level for fsheries,
aquaculture and reef tourism, countries can assess what
they stand to gain or lose due to climate change and
understand how they might capitalise on these predictions
to inform their investments and actions.
• Implementing certain key strategies will help build socio�ecological resilience to climate change and ensure the
continued, or improved, provision of functions and ser�vices from the ocean, especially for the most vulnerable
coastal nations. These strategies include the following:
– A focus on equity. Climate change is likely to cause
and exacerbate global inequities, reducing resilience
and thereby likely worsening outcomes under all climate change scenarios. It will thus be profoundly important to examine the equity implications of all new and existing management decisions across all three sectors.
Looking forward. The future of the ocean economy is expected to drastically change given climate change, and the nature and magnitude of these changes can be highly variable. Each of these three sectors will need to work to understand risks and anticipate changes, and build precautionary and adaptive strategies into their management decisions.
– Co-operating across boundaries. As suitable habitats
shift and change, marine species will move across
jurisdictional boundaries and regional, national and
international cooperative agreements will be necessary
to ensure that these species are well-managed, and that
the benefts are fairly distributed during and after the
transitions
OceanSODA-UNEXE: a multi-year gridded Amazon and Congo River outflow surface ocean carbonate system dataset
Get PDFLarge rivers play an important role in transferring water and all of its constituents, including carbon
in its various forms, from the land to the ocean, but the seasonal and inter-annual variations in these riverine
flows remain unclear. Satellite Earth observation datasets and reanalysis products can now be used to observe
synoptic-scale spatial and temporal variations in the carbonate system within large river outflows. Here, we
present the University of Exeter (UNEXE) Satellite Oceanographic Datasets for Acidification (OceanSODA)
dataset (OceanSODA-UNEXE) time series, a dataset of the full carbonate system in the surface water outflows
of the Amazon (2010–2020) and Congo (2002–2016) rivers. Optimal empirical approaches were used to generate gridded total alkalinity (TA) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) fields in the outflow regions. These
combinations were determined by equitably evaluating all combinations of algorithms and inputs against a reference matchup database of in situ observations. Gridded TA and DIC along with gridded temperature and salinity
data enable the calculation of the full carbonate system in the surface ocean (which includes pH and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide, pCO2). The algorithm evaluation constitutes a Type-A uncertainty evaluation
for TA and DIC, in which model, input and sampling uncertainties are considered. Total combined uncertainties for TA and DIC were propagated through the carbonate system calculation, allowing all variables to be
provided with an associated uncertainty estimate. In the Amazon outflow, the total combined uncertainty for
TA was 36 µmol kg−1
(weighted root-mean-squared difference, RMSD, of 35 µmol kg−1
and weighted bias of
8 µmol kg−1
for n = 82), whereas it was 44 µmol kg−1
for DIC (weighted RMSD of 44 µmol kg−1
and weighted
bias of −6 µmol kg−1
for n = 70). The spatially averaged propagated combined uncertainties for the pCO2 and
pH were 85 µatm and 0.08, respectively, where the pH uncertainty was relative to an average pH of 8.19.
In the Congo outflow, the combined uncertainty for TA was identified as 29 µmol kg−1
(weighted RMSD of
28 µmol kg−1
and weighted bias of 6 µmol kg−1
for n = 102), whereas it was 40 µmol kg−1
for DIC (weighted
RMSD of 37 µmol kg−1
and weighted bias of −16 µmol kg−1
for n = 77). The spatially averaged propagated
combined uncertainties for pCO2 and pH were 74 µatm and 0.08, respectively, where the pH uncertainty was
relative to an average pH of 8.21. The combined uncertainties in TA and DIC in the Amazon and Congo outflows
are lower than the natural variability within their respective regions, allowing the time-varying regional variability to be evaluated. Potential uses of these data would be the assessment of the spatial and temporal flow of
carbon from the Amazon and Congo rivers into the Atlantic and the assessment of the riverine-driven carbonate system variations experienced by tropical reefs within the outflow regions. The data presented in this work are
available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.946888 (Sims et al., 2023)
The Western Channel Observatory: a century of physical, chemical and biological data compiled from pelagic and benthic habitats in the western English Channel
Get PDFThe Western Channel Observatory (WCO) comprises a series of pelagic, benthic and atmospheric sampling sites within 40 km of Plymouth, UK, that have been sampled by the Plymouth institutes on a regular basis since 1903. This longevity of recording and the high frequency of observations provide a unique combi�nation of data; for example temperature data were first collected in 1903, and the reference station L4, where nearly 400 planktonic taxa have been enumerated, has been sampled on a weekly basis since 1988. While the
component datasets have been archived, here we provide the first summary database bringing together a wide suite of the observations. This provides monthly average values of some of the key pelagic and benthic measure�ments for the inshore site L4 (50◦15.000 N, 4◦13.020 W; approx. depth 55 m), the offshore site E1 (50◦02.000 N, 4 ◦22.000 W; approx. depth 75 m) and the intermediate L5 site (50◦10.800 N, 4◦18.000 W; approx. depth 58 m). In brief, these data include the following: water temperature (from 1903); macronutrients (from 1934); dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (from 2008); methane and nitrous oxide (from 2011); chlorophyll a (from 1992); high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-derived pigments (from 1999); <20 µm plankton by flow cytometry, including bacteria (8 functional groups from 2007); phytoplankton by microscopy (6 functional
groups from 1992); microplankton and mesozooplankton from FlowCam (6 groups from 2012); Noctiluca sp. dinoflagellate (from 1997); mesozooplankton by microscopy (8 groups from 1988); Calanus helgolandicus egg production rates (from 1992); fish larvae from the Young Fish Trawl survey (4 groups from 1924); benthic macrofauna (4 groups from 2008); demersal fish (19 families from 2008); blue shark, Prionace glauca (from 1958); and 16S alpha diversity for sediment and water column (from 2012). These data have varying coverage
with respect to time and depth resolution. The metadata tables describe each dataset and provide pointers to the
source data and other related Western Channel Observatory datasets and outputs not compiled here. We pro�vide summaries of the main trends in seasonality and some major climate-related shifts that have been revealed over the last century. The data are available from the Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH): https://doi.org/10.17031/645110fb81749 (McEvoy and Atkinson, 2023). Making these data fully accessible and including units of both abundance and biomass will stimulate a variety of uptakes. These may include uses as an educational resource for projects, for models and budgets, for the analysis of seasonality and long-term change in a coupled benthic–pelagic system, or for supporting UK and north-eastern Atlantic policy and management
Biological impacts of marine heatwaves
Get PDFClimatic extremes are becoming increasingly common against a background trend of global warming. In the oceans, marine heatwaves (MHWs)—discrete periods of anomalously warm water—have intensified and become more frequent over the past century, impacting the integrity of marine ecosystems globally. We review and synthesize current understanding of MHW impacts at the individual, population, and community levels. We then examine how these impacts affect broader ecosystem services and discuss the current state of research on biological impacts of MHWs. Finally, we explore current and emergent approaches to predicting the occurrence and impacts of future events, along with adaptation and management approaches. With further increases in intensity and frequency projected for coming decades, MHWs are emerging as pervasive stressors to marine ecosystems globally. A deeper mechanistic understanding of their biological impacts is needed to better predict and adapt to increased MHW activity in the Anthropocene
Composition and Patterns of Taxa Assemblages in the Western Channel Assessed by 18S Sequencing, Microscopy and Flow Cytometry
Get PDFPlankton monitoring by microscopy offers a long-term ecological perspective of plankton communities, but different detection approaches are uniquely biased. Genetic identification of marine plankton has become standard but is still not used in routine monitoring. This study assesses the value that genetic methods bring to microscopic and flow cytometry monitoring methods in the Western (English) Channel. An 18S high throughput sequencing (HTS) diversity survey of plankton taxa was performed on samples collected from an automated Water and Microplankton Sampler (WaMS) deployed on the Continuous Plankton Recorder platform (CPR) from 2011–2012. The 18S�HTS survey of WaMS samples detected contrasting but complementary taxa assemblages to that of
microscopic surveys, mostly composed of smaller or naked or thin-walled plankton taxa, with most phytoplankton being under 10 µm but most taxa in the survey being mixotrophic or heterotrophic but picking up rare phytoplankton. In comparison with microscopic phytoplankton counts from
the CPR survey and Western Channel Observatory station L4, only 8–12 taxonomic families were common to all three surveys, most of them dinoflagellates, with a bias towards larger diatoms and dinoflagellate taxa in microscopy surveys. Additional quantitative real-time PCR detection of two potentially harmful taxa, the pelagophyte, Aureococcus anophagefferens and four Pseudo-nitzschia from 2011–2013. This confirmed the elevated growth of A. anophagefferens in the Western Channel in the summer of 2011 and the early appearance of Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima in that year. Individual species’ occurrence or abundance was different from their genera or other same-sized groups. Smaller
phytoplankton measured by flow cytometry had distinct seasonality in the mid-Atlantic compared to coastal regions
DRAMA - a cybernetic approach for Plankton Digital Twins
Get PDFThis work describes the conceptual basis of a modelling structure to simulate the growth and activities of plankton: Dynamic Resource Assimilation Modulated Activity (DRAMA). The conceptual base of DRAMA is that the physiology and behaviour of real organisms is strongly affected by their current physiological status. For example, an organism that is well fed behaves in a different way and grows faster than one that is less well fed, or is starving. In essence, an organism functions to maximise growth and reproduction through maintaining or optimising homeostasis. This document describes the conceptual basis of the model, and provides some example model outputs. Specific application of DRAMA, with their allied explanations and equations (model code) will be published separately. The history of this work lays in a series of models developed from Flynn et al. (1997), Flynn (2001) and Flynn & Mitra (2009) which have been deployed in various studies (e.g., Fasham et al. 2006; Mitra & Flynn 2010; Flynn et al. 2012; Mitra et al. 2014, 2016). Developments of the Perfect Beast
model of Flynn & Mitra (2009), targeted at describing mixoplankton (protist plankton that engage in phototrophy, osmotrophy and phagotroph - Flynn et al. 2019), such as in Leles et al. (2018, 2021) revealed the potential and also the need for developing a revised plankton model that was at once
computationally more efficient, but also a model that could provide an improved description of reality. Initial attempts lead to a model that was deployed for describing commercial algal production in bioreactors (SAPPM; Flynn 2021), and was also implemented for describing protist plankton (Schneider et al. 2021). Revisions from SAPPM, with a radical overhaul of the conceptual and mathematical basis, resulted in DRAMA. The conceptual core of DRAMA has potential to provide a common platform for describing all plankton functional types; bacteria through to mesozooplankton, as well as protist plankton including mixoplankton. DRAMA is based on concepts from medium/coarse -grain systems biology, and thus lends itself for
the development of digital twins of plankton
Adult snow crab, Chionoecetes opilio, display body-wide exoskeletal resistance to the effects of long-term ocean acidification
No full textStructural and mechanical properties of the decapod exoskeleton affect foraging, defense, and locomotion. Ocean acidification (OA) poses a threat to marine biomes and their inhabitants, particularly calcifying organisms. Vulnerability of the snow crab, Chionecetes opilio, a commercially important, high-latitude species, to OA has not been explored. Although all oceans are experiencing acidification, abiotic factors in high-latitude areas increase the rate of acidification. We examined the effect of long-term (2 year) exposure to decreased seawater pH (7.8 and 7.5, PCO2 ~ 760 and 1550 µatm, respectively) on exoskeletal properties in post-terminal-molt female C. opilio. Since the effects of OA vary among body regions in decapods, exoskeletal properties (microhardness, thickness, and elemental composition) were measured in five body regions: the carapace, both claws, and both third walking legs. Overall, adult C. opilio exoskeletons were robust to OA in all body regions. Decreased pH had no effect on microhardness or thickness of the exoskeleton, despite a slight (~ 6%) reduction in calcium content in crabs held at pH 7.5. In contrast, exoskeletal properties varied dramatically among body regions regardless of pH. The exoskeleton of the claws was harder, thicker, and contained more calcium but less magnesium than that of other body regions. Exoskeleton of the legs was thinner than that of other body regions and contained significantly greater magnesium concentrations (~ 2.5 times higher than the claws). Maintenance of exoskeletal properties after long-term OA exposure, at least down to pH 7.5, in adult C. opilio suggests that wild populations may tolerate future ocean pH conditions