Constantine Alexander's Journal

Scale of raptor deaths in Hungary shows need for LIFE 'HELICON' project

MME Birdlife Hungary, the beneficiary of the ongoing LIFE Nature ‘HELICON’ project, took part in an event in Hungary in February that revealed the scale of the problem of illegal raptor deaths in the country.

More than 100 professionals from Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and the UK attended the annual meeting of the Raptor Committee of Birdlife Hungary, which followed the 8th Hungarian Conservation-Biology Meeting (co-organised by MME with the Hungarian Biological Society, Bükk National Park Directorate and the European section of the Society for Conservation Biology).

The aims of the conference were to improve the effectiveness of actions against persecution incidents affecting birds and facilitate exchange of ideas between professionals from various countries. The participants discussed Birdlife’s Anti-poisoning Action Plan which is expected to provide a more efficient way in fighting crime against birds. 

One of the most startling things to emerge from the event was the extent of the problem of persecution of raptors in Hungary. It was announced that, since 2000, a total of 176 eagles have died in the country from poisoning, shooting or intentional damaging of nests (compared to 40 eagle deaths in Austria, 24 in the Czech Republic, 22 in Slovakia, 18 in Serbia and two in Romania).

Indeed, a further three incidents involving birds of prey were reported in the three days following the conference; just some of 21 incidents involving more than 50 protected raptors recorded for the first three months of 2013 in Hungary.

The goal of the LIFE ‘HELICON’ project, which runs until the end of 2016, is to significantly reduce the rate of non-natural mortality amongst Hungary’s imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca) population.

Sea turtles benefiting from protected areas

Study offers first look at green sea turtle habitat use in the Dry Tortugas

Nesting green sea turtles are benefiting from marine protected areas by using habitats found within their boundaries, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study that is the first to track the federally protected turtles in Dry Tortugas National Park.

Green turtles are listed as endangered in Florida and threatened throughout the rest of their range, and the habits of green sea turtles after their forays to nest on beaches in the Southeast U.S. have long remained a mystery. Until now, it was not clear whether the turtles made use of existing protected areas, and few details were available as to whether they were suited for supporting the green sea turtle's survival.

U.S. Geological Survey researchers confirmed the turtles' use of the protected areas by tracking nesting turtles with satellite tags and analyzing their movement patterns after they left beaches.

"Our goal was to better understand what types of habitats they used at sea and whether they were in fact putting these designated areas to use. This study not only shows managers that these designated protected areas are already being used by turtles, but provides insight into the types of habitats they use most," said the study's lead author, Kristen Hart, who works as a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hart's team made the discovery by fitting green sea turtle mothers with satellite tags after they came onto beaches within Dry Tortugas National Park to nest. After tracking their movements and analyzing their time at sea, the team located the areas turtles used between their nesting events and determined where turtles traveled after the nesting season was over.

They found green sea turtles spending much of their time in protected sites within both Dry Tortugas National Park and the surrounding areas of the Florida Keys Marine National Sanctuary.

"We were thrilled to find that these turtles used some areas already under 'protected' status. The ultimate goal is to help managers understand where these endangered turtles are spending their time both during the breeding period and then when they are at feeding areas. Given that worldwide declines in seagrasses – one of the most important habitats they rely on for food – has already been documented, this type of data is critical for managers," said Hart.

The team learned about the turtle's habitat needs during the nesting season by using ATRIS, a georeferenced, underwater camera system developed by the USGS to collect over 195,000 seafloor images. Researchers surveyed the areas frequented by turtles within Dry Tortugas National Park by photographing the seafloor in a series of parallel lines totaling 70 kilometers (over 43 miles). Using a habitat map derived from those images, they found that the turtles most commonly used shallow seagrass beds and degraded coral reefs that have been overgrown by a mixed assemblage of other organisms, such as sea fans, sponges, and fire coral.

"Our synergistic approach of combining satellite telemetry data with an extensive habitat map proved to be an effective way to find out exactly what habitats these nesting turtles were using in the Park," said Dave Zawada, a USGS research oceanographer and co-author on the study.

The Dry Tortugas' population made shorter migrations than that typically seen among other green turtle populations around the world; this was only the second published study showing green turtles taking up residence at feeding grounds located quite near their breeding grounds.

"We hope to keep pushing the frontier of what is known about in-water sea turtle habitat use, as this type of scientific information is vital for understanding whether conservation measures are effective," said Hart.

The study, "Habitat use of breeding green turtles Chelonia mydas tagged in Dry Tortugas National Park: Making use of local and regional MPAs," was published this week in the journal Biological Conservation.

Dry Tortugas National Park.

About Green Sea Turtles

Although their young feed on jellyfish and other invertebrates, adult green sea turtles feed on seagrasses and algae, making them the only herbivorous (vegetarian) species of sea turtle. In fact, their name comes from their greenish colored fat, which is thought to be caused by their diet.

Green sea turtles are found around the world in three main types of habitat: nesting beaches, open ocean, and shallow water such as lagoons and shoals where they feed on marine grasses and algae found on the seafloor ('benthic' habitat). Within the U.S., green sea turtles are found from North Carolina to Florida, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Their breeding populations in Florida are listed as endangered, but all other populations are listed as threatened.

The nesting season for green turtles lasts throughout the summer, but is most concentrated in June and July. During nesting season, females nest at roughly two-week intervals, producing an average of five nests or "clutches." Each clutch contains an average of 135 eggs, which will hatch after incubating for about 2 months.

Contact: Kristin Hart
[email protected]
954-236-1067
United States Geological Survey

US a surprisingly large reservoir of crop plant diversity

Known commonly as cucumber-leaf sunflower, Helianthus debilis Nutt. subsp. cucumerifolius is a wild relative of cultivated sunflower. Credit: Kasia Stepian

North America isn't known as a hotspot for crop plant diversity, yet a new inventory has uncovered nearly 4,600 wild relatives of crop plants in the United States, including close relatives of globally important food crops such as sunflower, bean, sweet potato, and strawberry.

The findings, which were published on April 29, 2013, in the journal Crop Science, are good news for plant breeders, who've relied increasingly in recent years on the wild kin of domesticated crops as new sources of disease resistance, drought tolerance, and other traits.

The not-so-good news is that many of these "crop wild relatives" are currently threatened by habitat loss, pollution, and climate change, says lead author Colin Khoury of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia. For instance, a wild sunflower species that breeders have used to restore fertility and create salt tolerance in cultivated sunflower is also globally imperiled. Another 62 taxa in the inventory are listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In fact, an estimated 30 percent of U.S. plant species are now of "conservation concern," says Khoury, who is also a doctoral student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. And crop wild relatives are possibly even more vulnerable because they've tended to be overlooked both by agricultural scientists and the conservation community.

He and his co-authors hope this will now begin to change with publication of their inventory—the first of its kind in the United States. "We always say that crop wild relatives are important and that they're threatened," he says. "I think what this study does is takes those general statements and puts some good evidence and documentation behind them."

Many countries in Europe and the Middle East have already completed inventories of their crop wild relatives and plans for their conservation, thanks largely to University of Birmingham plant scientist, Nigel Maxted, a long time champion for their protection and Khoury's master's degree adviser. The effort to tally the United States' crop wild relatives was started by Stephanie Greene of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, who recruited Khoury to the project with the help of Maxted.

Known commonly as wild sunflower, Helianthus annuus L. is a wild relative of cultivated sunflower. Credit: Kasia Stepian

Over the past four years, a team led by Khoury and Greene has been collecting as much information on U.S. crop wild relatives as it can, including who the species are, which crop plants they've been used to improve (if any), how closely related they are to their respective crops, and whether any of the genetic resources found in crop wild relatives are already conserved in gene banks.

Once an initial list was compiled, Khoury prioritized the species using several criteria. U.S. wild relatives of the world's most important food crops—including strawberry, sunflower, sweet potato, bean, stone fruits, and grape—form the bulk of the list. But it also contains relatives of forage crops like alfalfa; fiber crops such as flax and cotton; ornamental plants like roses and lilies; Echinacea, St. John's Wort and other medicinal herbs; and what Khoury calls "iconic U.S. crops," including sugar maple and wild rice.

The rich assortment of U.S. crop wild relatives came as something of a surprise to him and his colleagues, but Khoury says there are several possible reasons for it. For one, although North America is itself not a major center of crop plant diversity, it abuts one—Mesoamerica—where crops like corn, bean, squash, and chili pepper originated and whose relatives spill across the border. Many wild species in temperate parts of the United States also share close kinship with crops, like hops and strawberry, which were domesticated in other temperate regions of the globe.

More controversially, 12 percent of the taxa in the U.S. inventory are non-native plants, while nearly 5 percent are listed as federal or state noxious weeds. Despite being non-native and potentially invasive, however, these plants are still valuable genetic resources for breeding, Khoury says; it's just that protecting and managing them becomes more complicated.

Now that the inventory is completed, figuring out how to protect and manage valuable U.S. crop wild relatives is the next step. Over the coming year, Khoury will analyze the geographic distributions of the plants in the list, determine if they've been safeguarded in gene banks or in protected areas such as national parks; and then identify the priority places for collecting seed from species that haven't yet been secured.

The large number of U.S. crop wild relatives makes the task exciting but also daunting, especially since there is little time to lose.

"The window for securing these plants so that they're safe and can be used, it's narrowing for sure," Khoury says. "So it's really time to move forward and get these resources protected."

Citation: Colin K. Khoury, Stephanie Greene, John Wiersema, Nigel Maxted, Andy Jarvis, Paul C. Struik. An Inventory of Crop Wild Relatives of the United States. Crop Science, 2013; 0 (0): 0 DOI: 10.2135/cropsci2012.10.0585

In addition to Khoury, Greene, and Maxted, the study's authors include John Wiersema of USDA-ARS; Andy Jarvis of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change and Food Security; and Paul Struik, Wageningen University. Khoury's research was funded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Rome, Italy.

Contact: Madeline Fisher
608-268-3973
American Society of Agronomy

Researchers track singing humpback whales on a Northwest Atlantic feeding ground

Humpback whales in the Northwest Atlantic. Credit: NEFSC/NOAA

Male humpback whales sing complex songs in tropical waters during the winter breeding season, but they also sing at higher latitudes at other times of the year. NOAA researchers have provided the first detailed description linking humpback whale movements to acoustic behavior on a feeding ground in the Northwest Atlantic.

Findings from the study, published April 10 in the journal PLOS ONE, demonstrate the potential applications of passive acoustic tracking and monitoring for marine mammal conservation and management.

Co-author Sofie Van Parijs, who heads the passive acoustics group at the Woods Hole Laboratory of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), says this study is not so much about biology, but about acoustic methods.

"We have monitored and acoustically recorded whale sounds for years, and are now able to 'mine' these data using new computer software applications and methods, " said Van Parijs. "Passive acoustic tracking has enabled us to localize humpback whale song to study the movements of individual whales, and to relate the singing to specific behaviors. This has never before been accomplished for singing humpbacks on a northwest Atlantic feeding ground."

"Passive acoustic tracking of humpback whales and other cetacean species provides an opportunity to collect data on movement patterns that are difficult―or impossible―to obtain using other techniques," said lead author Joy Stanistreet, who worked with Van Parjis and co-author Denise Risch at the NEFSC's Woods Hole Laboratory at the time of the study. Stanistreet is currently a graduate student at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, N.C.

Map of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. CredIt: USGS.

Since 2007, NEFSC researchers have used year-round passive acoustic monitoring to study ocean noise in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a feeding ground for humpback whales and other marine mammal species in the southern Gulf of Maine. Humpback whales typically frequent the sanctuary between April and December and feed on sand lance and other small schooling fish. Humpback whale singing in the sanctuary usually occurs from April through May, following the spring migration from southern waters, and from August to December before the return fall migration. During the summer, humpbacks remain in the sanctuary but generally do not sing while they feed.

The researchers used data from acoustic recordings collected from an array of 10 bottom-mounted marine autonomous recording units (MARUs). Continuous 24-hour recordings units were deployed in the sanctuary for four consecutive three-month periods during 2009. The MARUs were placed three to six miles apart, and the arrays shifted seasonally to areas within the sanctuary having high whale concentrations.

Humpback whale songs were recorded in distinct time periods during spring and fall. No songs were recorded during summer and winter, although humpback whales remained in the area. Songs were most common in the spring, and occurrences of singing increased significantly before and after migration periods.

Forty-three song sessions, each lasting from 30 minutes to eight hours, were used to track individual singing whales. Most of the singers were actively swimming; the patterns and rates of their movement ranged from slow meandering to a faster directional movement. In one case, two singers were tracked at the same time, suggesting a potential reaction by one singer to the presence of the other.

Marine mammal researchers could also use passive acoustic localization and tracking methods to better understand the geographic distribution, abundance, and densities of cetacean species, many of which are threatened by human activities. These applications may help inform and enhance marine mammal conservation and management efforts.

The study was funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, a collaboration of federal agencies that provides leadership and coordination of national oceanographic research and education initiatives.

Citation: Stanistreet JE, Risch D, Van Parijs SM (2013) Passive Acoustic Tracking of Singing Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) on a Northwest Atlantic Feeding Ground. PLoS ONE 8(4): e61263. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061263

Contact: Shelley Dawicki
[email protected]
504-495-2378
NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center

The politics of climate change

U.S. residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.

However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.

The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.

"The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account," McCright said. "But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus."

McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.

The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the "denial machine" – an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.

McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.

He said both the government and industry should be involved in that effort.

"Certainly we can't solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations – in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse," McCright said. "And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations."

McCright's co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.

Citation:Perceived scientific agreement and support for government action on climate change in the USA. Springer Netherlands. 8 2013-02-01. A McCright, AaronM., A Dunlap, RileyE., A Xiao, Chenyang. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0704-9

Contact: Andy Henion
[email protected]
517-355-3294
Michigan State University

Genetically Engineered Trees - The Increasing Threat (Documentary Video)

Dr. David Suzuki has made it his life’s work to help humanity understand, appreciate, respect and protect nature. A gifted interpreter of science and nature, Dr. Suzuki provides audiences with a compelling look at the state of our environment, underscoring both the successes we have achieved in the battle for environmental sustainability, and the strides we still have to make if Earth will remain a welcoming home for all nature’s creatures. Both inspiring and realistic, he offers leading-edge insights into sustainable development and model for a world in which humanity can live well and still protect our environment.

An award-winning geneticist and broadcaster, Dr. Suzuki is the co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation with Tara Cullis. He is familiar to audiences around the world as host of CBC TV’s long-running series, The Nature of Things. From 1969 to 2001 he was a faculty member at the University of British Columbia, and is currently professor emeritus.

Dr. Suzuki has authored over 50 books, and is widely recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science, a United Nations Environment Program medal, and is a Companion of the Order of Canada. He has 22 honorary doctorates from universities in the US, Canada, and Australia. For his support of Canada’s First Nations people, Dr. Suzuki has been honored with six names and formal adoption by two tribes.

The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees is an Award winning documentary film which explores the growing global threat of genetically engineered trees to our environment and to human health. The film features Dr. David Suzuki, who explores the unknown and possibly disastrous consequences of improperly tested GE methods.

 

The Future of Arctic Research: A Long-Term Framework for International Cooperation and Coordination

Live webchat URL: https://conx.adobeconnect.com/canada Discuss global cooperation on the impact of climate change on our oceans.  Ask Commander Blake McBride, Associate Director of Meteorology/Oceanography and Arctic Technologies at the U.S. Navy, about research and simulation exercises the U.S. Navy has been conducting on climate change, the disappearance of sea ice, and the implications for marine safety and security.  The webchat will be moderated by Michelle Cook, U.S. Consulate General Calgary, and Magdalena Muir from the University of Calgary’s Arctic Institute of North America. Format: This program will be a video webchat in English.  Please click on the URL above to participate.
Speaker
Commander Blake McBride, Associate Director of Meteorology/Oceanography and Arctic Technologies, U.S. Navy
Moderators
Michelle Cook, U.S. Consulate General Calgary
Magdalena Muir, University of Calgary’s Arctic Institute of North America

Date	Monday, April 29, 2013
Time	12:00 (EDT) | 16:00 (UTC)
	Time Zone Converter
Duration	1h 0m
Language	English
Regions	Global, Western Hemisphere, WHA
Themes	Climate Change, Energy ,Environment, Science and Technology, Peace & Security

 

Plants moderate climate warming

Evening fog. Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. Photo by Autan

As temperatures warm, plants release gases that help form clouds and cool the atmosphere, according to research from IIASA and the University of Helsinki.

The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, identified a negative feedback loop in which higher temperatures lead to an increase in concentrations of natural aerosols that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.

"Plants, by reacting to changes in temperature, also moderate these changes," says IIASA and University of Helsinki researcher Pauli Paasonen, who led the study.

Scientists had known that some aerosols – particles that float in the atmosphere – cool the climate as they reflect sunlight and form cloud droplets, which reflect sunlight efficiently. Aerosol particles come from many sources, including human emissions. But the effect of so-called biogenic aerosol – particulate matter that originates from plants – had been less well understood. Plants release gases that, after atmospheric oxidation, tend to stick to aerosol particles, growing them into the larger-sized particles that reflect sunlight and also serve as the basis for cloud droplets. The new study showed that as temperatures warm and plants consequently release more of these gases, the concentrations of particles active in cloud formation increase.

"Everyone knows the scent of the forest," says Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher who also worked on the study. "That scent is made up of these gases." While previous research had predicted the feedback effect, until now nobody had been able to prove its existence except for case studies limited to single sites and short time periods. The new study showed that the effect occurs over the long-term in continental size scales.

The effect of enhanced plant gas emissions on climate is small on a global scale – only countering approximately 1 percent of climate warming, the study suggested. "This does not save us from climate warming," says Paasonen. However, he says, "Aerosol effects on climate are one of the main uncertainties in climate models. Understanding this mechanism could help us reduce those uncertainties and make the models better."

The study also showed that the effect was much larger on a regional scale, counteracting possibly up to 30% of warming in more rural, forested areas where anthropogenic emissions of aerosols were much lower in comparison to the natural aerosols. That means that especially in places like Finland, Siberia, and Canada this feedback loop may reduce warming substantially.

The researchers collected data at 11 different sites around the world, measuring the concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, along with the concentrations of plant gases, the temperature, and reanalysis estimates for the height of the boundary layer, which turned out to be a key variable. The boundary layer refers to the layer of air closest to the Earth, in which gases and particles mix effectively. The height of that layer changes with weather. Paasonen says, "One of the reasons that this phenomenon was not discovered earlier was because these estimates for boundary layer height are very difficult to do. Only recently have the reanalysis estimates been improved to where they can be taken as representative of reality."

Citation: Paasonen, P., et. al. 2013. Evidence for negative climate feedback: warming increases aerosol number concentrations. Nature Geoscience doi: 10.1038/NGEO1800

Contact: Katherine Leitzell
[email protected]
43-223-680-7316
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

A billion-dollar business puts species and people at risk

Nassau Grouper at The Pinnacle, Saba, Netherlands Antilles. Image taken by Clark Anderson/Aquaimages.

At least 12% of groupers – globally-important food fish species that live on coral and rocky reefs – face extinction, putting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people around the world at risk, finds a report published today by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission’s (IUCN SSC) Grouper and Wrasse Specialist Group.

The overall percentage of threatened groupers could be much higher as there is insufficient data for about 30% of the species, according to The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.

The study points to overfishing and the booming international luxury seafood trade as major threats to the survival of some grouper species, and to the livelihoods of those who depend on them for food and income. Its authors call for urgent conservation and management efforts to prevent further declines of these species.

“The declines in some grouper fisheries are alarming,” says Yvonne Sadovy, Co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Grouper and Wrasse Specialist Group and lead author of the study. “Most of them are not managed at all and their natural ability to reproduce can’t keep up with increasing demand. The rapidly growing international trade in groupers further reduces their populations.”

More than 300,000 tons of groupers – or 90 million individuals – were caught globally in 2009, mostly in Asia, where they are particularly sought-after for the luxury restaurant trade. Groupers are the foundation of the US$ 750 million international live reef fish market centered in Hong Kong and growing in mainland China, where consumers are ready to pay over US$ 200 per kilogram of the species. They are also important food fish in developing countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, where pressure to export reef fish is growing, according to the study.

Groupers are among those species that are most vulnerable to fishing because of their longevity, late sexual maturation and the fact that many form large mating groups known as ‘spawning aggregations’. Despite their economic importance, few grouper fisheries are regularly monitored or managed, and many are in decline.

In the US Caribbean, the Nassau Grouper (Epinephelus striatus), which is commonly fished during its brief aggregation periods, has been essentially wiped out. Of the several dozen well-documented breeding grounds, only two continue to support large numbers of the species, and these have also been considerably reduced. In Southeast Asia and the Pacific, several species are considered to be threatened by the international trade, including the Square-tailed Coral Grouper (Plectropomus areolatus), also often taken from its spawning aggregations.

“Overfishing is like mismanaging a bank account,” says Matthew Craig, Co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Grouper and Wrasse Specialist Group and one of the authors of the report. “The current fish population is our principle balance, hopefully earning interest in the form of new fish born. If those initial assets are continually withdrawn faster than the interest accumulates, the principle, that is the fish out there now, will be quickly depleted. It’s easy to see how rapidly we could lose all the money, or in this case, all of the fish.”

Improved management by source countries with priority given to local food security considerations, as well as better monitoring and control of international trade are urgently needed to reduce threats to these species, according to the authors.

The study, Fishing groupers towards extinction: a global assessment of threats and extinction risks in a billion dollar fishery, was published in the journal Fish and Fisheries. It is based on data accumulated by experts over a period of 20 years.

Citation: Sadovy de Mitcheson, Y., Craig, M. T., Bertoncini, A. A., Carpenter, K. E., Cheung, W. W. L., Choat, J. H., Cornish, A. S., Fennessy, S. T., Ferreira, B. P., Heemstra, P. C., Liu, M., Myers, R. F., Pollard, D. A., Rhodes, K. L., Rocha, L. A., Russell, B. C., Samoilys, M. A. and Sanciangco, J. (2013), Fishing groupers towards extinction: a global assessment of threats and extinction risks in a billion dollar fishery. Fish and Fisheries, 14: 119–136. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-2979.2011.00455.x

Sea surface temperatures reach highest level in 150 years

Sustainability is in our hands. Poster issued by the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service

Sea surface temperatures in the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem during 2012 were the highest recorded in 150 years, according to the latest Ecosystem Advisory issued by NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). These high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are the latest in a trend of above average temperature seen during the spring and summer seasons, and part of a pattern of elevated temperatures occurring in the Northwest Atlantic, but not seen elsewhere in the ocean basin over the past century.

The advisory reports on conditions in the second half of 2012.

Sea surface temperature for the Northeast Shelf Ecosystem reached a record high of 14 degrees Celsius (57.2°F) in 2012, exceeding the previous record high in 1951. Average SST has typically been lower than 12.4 C (54.3 F) over the past three decades.

Sea surface temperature in the region is based on both contemporary satellite remote-sensing data and long-term ship-board measurements, with historical SST conditions based on ship-board measurements dating back to 1854. The temperature increase in 2012 was the highest jump in temperature seen in the time series and one of only five times temperature has changed by more than 1 C (1.8 F).

The Northeast Shelf's warm water thermal habitat was also at a record high level during 2012, while cold water habitat was at a record low level. Early winter mixing of the water column went to extreme depths, which will impact the spring 2013 plankton bloom. Mixing redistributes nutrients and affects stratification of the water column as the bloom develops.

Temperature is also affecting distributions of fish and shellfish on the Northeast Shelf. The advisory provides data on changes in distribution, or shifts in the center of the population, of seven key fishery species over time. The four southern species - black sea bass, summer flounder, longfin squid and butterfish - all showed a northeastward or upshelf shift. American lobster has shifted upshelf over time but at a slower rate than the southern species. Atlantic cod and haddock have shifted downshelf."

"Many factors are involved in these shifts, including temperature, population size, and the distributions of both prey and predators," said Jon Hare, a scientist in the NEFSC's Oceanography Branch. A number of recent studies have documented changing distributions of fish and shellfish, further supporting NEFSC work reported in 2009 that found about half of the 36 fish stocks studied in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the past four decades.

The Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) extends from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The NEFSC has monitored this ecosystem with comprehensive sampling programs since1977. Prior to 1977, this ecosystem was monitored by the NEFSC through a series of separate, coordinated programs dating back decades.

Warming conditions on the Northeast Shelf in the spring of 2012 continued into September, with the most consistent warming conditions seen in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank. Temperatures cooled by October and were below average in the Middle Atlantic Bight in November, perhaps due to Superstorm Sandy, but had returned to above average conditions by December.

"Changes in ocean temperatures and the timing and strength of spring and fall plankton blooms could affect the biological clocks of many marine species, which spawn at specific times of the year based on environmental cues like water temperature," Kevin Friedland, a scientist in the NEFSC Ecosystem Assessment Program, said. He noted that the contrast between years with, and without, a fall bloom is emerging as an important driver of the shelf's ecology. "The size of the spring plankton bloom was so large that the annual chlorophyll concentration remained high in 2012 despite low fall activity. These changes will have a profound impact throughout the ecosystem."

Michael Fogarty, who heads the Ecosystem Assessment Program, says the abundance of fish and shellfish is controlled by a complex set of factors, and that increasing temperatures in the ecosystem make it essential to monitor the distribution of many species, some of them migratory and others not.

"It isn't always easy to understand the big picture when you are looking at one specific part of it at one specific point in time," Fogarty said, a comparison similar to not seeing the forest when looking at a single tree in it. "We now have information on the ecosystem from a variety of sources collected over a long period of time, and are adding more data to clarify specific details. The data clearly show a relationship between all of these factors."

"What these latest findings mean for the Northeast Shelf ecosystem and its marine life is unknown," Fogarty said. "What is known is that the ecosystem is changing, and we need to continue monitoring and adapting to these changes."

Ecosystem advisories have been issued twice a year by the NEFSC's Ecosystem Assessment Program since 2006 as a way to routinely summarize overall conditions in the region. The reports show the effects of changing coastal and ocean temperatures on fisheries from Cape Hatteras to the Canadian border. The advisories provide a snapshot of the ecosystem for the fishery management councils and also a broad range of stakeholders from fishermen to researchers. The Spring 2013 Ecosystem Advisory, covering the fall of 2012 with supporting information, is available online.

Contact: Shelley Dawicki
[email protected]
508-495-2378
NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center