Constantine Alexander's Journal

IMPASEA: a new framework to assess marine protected areas

By Science for Environment Policy

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have well-reported ecological benefits, but may also have important socioeconomic effects on local communities. Existing methods to assess these effects have been hampered by a number of limitations. This paper describes a new framework to monitor and assess the socioeconomic effects of MPAs, which overcomes many of these limitations to provide greater value for decision makers.

The ongoing decline of marine biodiversity has spurred efforts to conserve marine ecosystems. MPAs have become an important method of achieving this and now cover 3.4% of marine area across the globe. In addition to their ecological benefits, MPAs may have social, economic and cultural effects on local communities, such as increased costs for fishermen or restrictions on tourism. It is important to understand what the consequences of establishing a MPA may be, in order to maximise the positive effects and mitigate the negative repercussions.

There have been numerous attempts to assess the effects of MPAs on local communities, but these have been limited by a number of factors. For example, most have focused on narrow groups of stakeholders, which neglects the impact on the broader community. Furthermore, indicators tend to be qualitative, which are subjective and hard to verify. Combined with the fact that these tools are generally based on different approaches, assumptions and resources, they have had limited use for decision makers.

There is a need for a simple, cost-effective and robust technique to monitor and assess the socioeconomic effects of MPAs. This study aimed to develop such a framework, for use in management, decision making and reporting. The framework, called the Integrated MPA Socio-Economic Assessment (IMPASEA), was developed through the EU-funded PANACHE¹ project. It was created through a mixed-method approach, including both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Development began with a literature review. Using a web search, the researchers identified marine and coastal stakeholder categories relevant to Europe and a list of socioeconomic variables likely to be influenced by MPAs. To reduce result bias, they aimed to find a balance of variables and categories representing both positive and negative effects.

In the second stage, the researchers identified national or regional (intra-national) organisations belonging to the stakeholder categories. As the initial proof of concept was focused on the English Channel, those organisations were in the UK and France. Representatives were surveyed using an online questionnaire in order to identify social and economic variables important to their organisations, such as visitor satisfaction and maritime activity.

In the final stage, the researchers assessed the effect of a small sample of multiple-use MPAs in the English Channel on the selected socioeconomic variables applying a geo-statistical, Multiple-Paired-Before-After-Control-Impact research design (MPBACI). This is a robust variation on BACI, a common method for assessing environmental impacts. In this study, it was used to assess the impact of MPAs by comparing data before and after the implementation at both potentially impacted and control sampling units. The authors analysed data from multiple coastal municipalities within and adjacent to MPAs using official statistics, which were easy to access, objective, consistent and cost-effective.

In addition to its cost-effectiveness, the tool overcomes several other limitations of existing methods for MPA socioeconomic assessment:

• Representation is improved due to participation of a broad and balanced set of relevant stakeholder categories and organisations within each category
• Objectivity is enhanced via structured questionnaires with both closed- and open-ended responses representing organisational stances
• Salience is promoted by focusing on the analysis of the variables considered most important for the set of stakeholder organisations
• Accuracy is increased thanks to IMPASEA’s MPBACI design
• Robustness is enhanced as three different methods (evidence from the literature, survey and geo-statistical analysis) are used to validate the results

IMPASEA is also versatile. It can be applied to individual MPAs or MPA networks (provided they have similar levels of legal protection and management effort), and in any context with consistent, fine-scale socioeconomic data (which includes some European countries).

However, IMPASEA does have its limitations. In testing, a scarcity of consistent official data on mostly social variables made quantitative analysis difficult and limited IMPASEA’s salience for end users. Although there is room for improvement, the authors say IMPASEA represents a robust, balanced, participative and meaningful tool to assess the socioeconomic impact of MPAs.

The authors say the tool should be trialled on a larger number of MPAs to confirm the applicability of the framework. Looking ahead, the framework could be extended for assessments on land, where environmental and socioeconomic statistics are generally more abundant.

1. Protected Area Network Across the Channel Ecosystem (PANACHE) is funded by the European Union INTERREG IVA France – England Programme.

Citation: Rodríguez-Rodríguez, D., Rees, S., Rodwell, L. & Attrill, M. (2015). IMPASEA: A methodological framework to monitor and assess the socioeconomic effects of marine protected areas. An English Channel case study. Environmental Science & Policy, 54, pp.44-51. DOI:10.1016/j.envsci.2015.05.019

Contact: David Rodriguez

 

Can Paris pledges avert severe climate change?

Paris emissions reduction pledges reduce risks of severe warming, study shows.

Image courtesy of NASA.

More than 190 countries are meeting in Paris next week to create a durable framework for addressing climate change and to implement a process to reduce greenhouse gases over time. A key part of this agreement would be the pledges made by individual countries to reduce their emissions.

A study published in Science today shows that if implemented and followed by measures of equal or greater ambition, the Paris pledges have the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming, and increase the probability of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

In the lead up to the Paris meetings, countries have announced the contributions that they are willing to make to combat global climate change, based on their own national circumstances. These Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs, take many different forms and extend through 2025 or 2030.

Examples of these commitments include the United States' vow to reduce emissions in 2025 by 26-28 percent of 2005 levels and China's pledge to peak emissions by 2030 and increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent. In the study, the scientists tallied up these INDCs and simulated the range of temperature outcomes the resulting emissions would bring in 2100 under different assumptions about possible emissions reductions beyond 2030.

"We wanted to know how the commitments would play out from a risk management perspective," said economist Allen Fawcett of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the lead author of the study. "We analyzed not only what the commitments would achieve over the next ten to fifteen years, but also how they might lay a foundation for the future."

Although many researchers have focused on the importance of the 2 degree limit, Fawcett and colleagues assessed uncertainty in the climate change system from an overall risk management perspective. They analyzed the full range of temperatures the INDCs might attain, and determined the odds for achieving each of those temperatures. To determine odds, they modeled the future climate hundreds of times to find the range of temperatures these various conditions produce.

"It's not just about 2 degrees," said Gokul Iyer, the study's lead scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration between the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. "It is also important to understand what the INDCs imply for the worst levels of climate change."

In the study, the scientists compare the Paris commitments to a world in which countries don't act at all or start reducing greenhouse gas emissions only in 2030.

The team found that if countries do nothing to reduce emissions, the earth has almost no chance of staying under the 2 degree limit, and it is likely that the temperature increase would exceed 4 degrees. They went on to show that the INDCs and the future abatement enabled by Paris introduce a chance of meeting the 2 degree target, and greatly reduce the chance that warming exceeds 4 degrees. The extent to which the odds are improved depends on how much emissions limits are tightened in future pledges after 2030.

"Long-term temperature outcomes critically hinge on emissions reduction efforts beyond 2030," said Iyer. "If countries implement their INDCs through 2030 and ramp up efforts beyond 2030, we'll have a much better chance of avoiding extreme warming and keeping temperature change below 2 degrees Celsius. It's important to know that the INDCs are a stepping stone to what we can do in the future."

To perform the analysis, the team incorporated the INDCs along with assumptions about future emissions reductions into a global, technologically detailed model of the world called the Global Change Assessment Model or GCAM that includes energy, economy, agriculture and other systems. The GCAM model produced numbers for global greenhouse gas emissions, which the team then fed into a climate model called Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change or MAGICC. Running the simulations for each scenario 600 times resulted in a range of temperatures for the year 2100, which the team converted into probabilities.

Iyer said the next thing to look at was the question of the kinds of policies and institutional frameworks that could pave the way for a robust process that enables emissions reduction efforts to progressively increase over time.

Citation: Allen A. Fawcett, Gokul Iyer, Leon E. Clarke, James A. Edmonds, Nathan E. Hultman, Haewon C. McJeon, Joeri Rogelj, Reed Schuler, Jameel Alsalam, Ghassem R. Asrar, Jared Creason, Minji Jeong, James McFarland, Anupriya Mundra, Wenjing Shi. Can Paris Pledges Avert Severe Climate Change, Science, November 26, 2015, DOI: 10.1126/science.aad5761.

This work was supported by the Global Technology Strategy Program, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Contact: Tom Rickey
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

 

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Increased carbon dioxide enhances plankton growth, opposite of what was expected

Science study reports that coccolithophores' abundance has increased by an order of magnitude since 1960s, significantly changing ocean garden.

Aqua/MODIS image of Barents Sea phytoplankton bloom, August 17, 2011. Credit: NASA

Coccolithophores--tiny calcifying plants that are part of the foundation of the marine food web--have been increasing in relative abundance in the North Atlantic over the last 45 years, as carbon input into ocean waters has increased. Their relative abundance has increased 10 times, or by an order of magnitude, during this sampling period. This finding was diametrically opposed to what scientists had expected since coccolithophores make their plates out of calcium carbonate, which is becoming more difficult as the ocean becomes more acidic and pH is reduced.

These findings were reported in the November 26th edition of Science and based on analysis of nearly a half century of data collected by the long-running Sir Alister Hardy Foundation (SAHFOS) Continuous Plankton Recorder sampling program.

"The results show both the power of long-term time-series of ocean observations for deciphering how marine microbial communities are responding to climate change and offer evidence that the ocean garden is changing," said Dr. William Balch, senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and a co-author of the paper. "We never expected to see the relative abundance of coccolithophores to increase 10 times in the North Atlantic over barely half a century. If anything, we expected that these sensitive calcifying algae would have decreased in the face of increasing ocean acidification (associated with increasing carbon dioxide entering the ocean from the burning of fossil-fuels). Instead, we see how these carbon-limited organisms appear to be using the extra carbon from CO2 to increase their relative abundance by an order of magnitude.

"This provides one example on how marine communities across an entire ocean basin are responding to increasing carbon dioxide levels. Such real-life examples of the impact of increasing CO2 on marine food webs are important to point out as the world comes together in Paris next week at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change," Balch added.

"Something strange is happening here, and it's happening much more quickly than we thought it should," said Anand Gnanadesikan, associate professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins and one of the study's five authors.

Gnanadesikan said the Science report certainly is good news for creatures that eat coccolithophores, but it's not clear what those are. "What is worrisome," he said, "is that our result points out how little we know about how complex ecosystems function." The result highlights the possibility of rapid ecosystem change, suggesting that prevalent models of how these systems respond to climate change may be too conservative, he said.

Coccolithophores are often referred to as "canaries in the coal mine." Some of the key coccolithophore species can outcompete other classes of phytoplankton in warmer, more stratified and nutrient-poor waters (such as one might see in a warming ocean). Until this data proved otherwise, scientists thought that they would have more difficulties forming their calcite plates in a more acidic ocean. These results show that coccolithophores are able to use the higher concentration of carbon derived from CO2, combined with warmer temperatures, to increase their growth rate.

When the percentage of coccolithophores in the community goes up, the relative abundance of other groups will go down. The authors found that at local scales, the relative abundance of another important algal class, diatoms, had decreased over the 45 years of sampling.

The team's analysis was of data taken from the North Atlantic Ocean and North Sea since the mid-1960s compiled by the Continuous Plankton Recorder survey. The CPR survey was launched by British marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy in the early 1930s. Today it is carried on by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Sciences and is conducted by commercial ships trailing mechanical plankton-gathering gear through the water as they sail their regular routes. Dr. Willie Wilson, formerly a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory, is now director of SAHFOS.

"In the geological record, coccolithophores have been typically more abundant during Earth's warm interglacial and high CO2 periods. The results presented here are consistent with this and may portend, like the "canary in the coal mine," where we are headed climatologically," said Balch.

Citation: Sara Rivero-Calle, Anand Gnanadesikan, Carlos E. Del Castillo, William Balch, Seth D. Guikema ; Multidecadal increase in North Atlantic coccolithophores and the potential role of rising CO2; Science (26 November 2015); DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa8026. 

Contact: Darlene Trew Crist
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

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Big data reveals glorious animation of Antarctic bottom water

Ocean model reveals movement of deep ocean currents in extraordinary detail.

A scene of an animation taken from data drawn from an ocean model run on the Australian super computer, Raijin, shows movement of Antarctic bottom water in the Weddell Sea. Credit: NCI / ANU / ARCCSS.

A remarkably detailed animation of the movement of the densest and coldest water in the world around Antarctica has been produced using data generated on Australia's most powerful supercomputer, Raijin.

Chief Investigator Dr Andy Hogg from the ANU hub of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science worked with the National Computational Infrastructure's Vizlab team, using a high-resolution ocean model, to produce the animation.

So much data was used, that it took seven hours to process just one second of the animation.

The visualization has revealed underwater ocean storms generated by eddies, waterfalls of cold dense water that plummet two kilometres off the Antarctic Continental Shelf into the abyss and underwater waves hundreds of metres high.

"Scientists who have seen the visualization have been astonished at the level of detail," said Associate Prof Dr Andy Hogg.

"But this visualization is about more than communicating the wonder of science to the public. Being able to actually see how the bottom water moves in three dimensions rather than just looking at numerical, two dimensional outputs has already opened new areas for scientific research."

 

This latest animation peels back much of the surface layer of the ocean to explore how the cold dense water produced on the Antarctic continental shelf spreads out into every ocean basin in the world.

The movement of this dense water is vital. It is the most oxygenated water in the deep ocean and its extreme density and coldness drive many of the significant currents in the major ocean basins connected to the Southern Ocean.

The distinctly different densities of water that move around Antarctica also make it important in regards to climate change. Because the most dense water forms near the surface, close to Antarctica, before descending to the ocean floor, any warming that occurs near the surface can be drawn down into the deep ocean.

Importantly, this drives heat and carbon into the deep ocean, which would otherwise have returned to the atmosphere.

"The inhospitable climate of Antarctica and the lack of sustained observations of the ocean in this region over a significant period of time adds to the importance of using ocean models to create visualizations like these," Dr Hogg said.

"It helps us understand what is happening in locations that are difficult to observe and may explain why Antarctic bottom water is disappearing, becoming less saline and warmer. It may also give us important insights into a future under climate change."

Contact: Alvin Stone
University of New South Wales

No substantive evidence for 'pause' in global warming, study finds

The new NASA global data set combines historical measurements with data from climate simulations using the best available computer models to provide forecasts of how global temperature (shown here) and precipitation might change up to 2100 under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The NASA Climate Projection Dataset. Credits: NASA

There is no substantive evidence for a 'pause' or 'hiatus' in global warming and the use of those terms is therefore inaccurate, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has found.

The researchers, led by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, examined 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 2009 and 2014 that specifically addressed the presumed 'hiatus' and found no consistent or agreed definition of such a 'hiatus', when it began and how long it lasted.

The researchers then compared the distribution of decadal warming trends during the 'hiatus' - as defined by the same scientific articles - against other trends of equivalent length in the entire record of modern global warming. The analysis showed that all definitions of the 'hiatus' in the literature were found to be unexceptional in the context of other trends.

The researchers also found that, if sample size is small, the 'hiatus' will always appear to be present. For example, anyone making a claim for a 'hiatus' of 12 years or below (a claim made by a third of the articles studied) will find one, not because something new and different is happening, but because small sample sizes provide insufficient statistical power for the detection of trends.

Professor Lewandowsky said: "Our study raises the question: why has so much research been framed around the concept of a 'hiatus' when it does not exist? The notion of a 'pause' or 'hiatus' demonstrably originated outside the scientific community, and it likely found entry into the scientific discourse because of the constant challenge by contrarian voices that are known to affect scientific communication and conduct."

Discussing climate change using the terms 'pause' or 'hiatus' creates hazards for the public and the scientific community, the study concludes.

Professor Lewandowsky said: "Scientists may argue that when they use the terms 'pause' or 'hiatus' they know - and their colleagues understand - that they do not mean to imply global warming has stopped.

"But while scientists might tacitly understand that global warming continues notwithstanding the alleged 'hiatus', or they may intend the 'pause' to refer to differences between observed temperatures and expectations from theory or models, the public is not privy to that tacit understanding.

"Therefore, scientists should avoid the use of 'pause' or hiatus' when referring to fluctuations of global mean surface temperature around the longer-term warming trend. There is no evidence for a pause in global warming."

Citation: Stephan Lewandowsky, James S. Risbey and Naomi Oreskes; On the definition and identifiability of the alleged "hiatus" in global warming; Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 16784 (2015); DOI: 10.1038/srep16784.

Contact: Hannah Johnson
University of Bristol

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Climate study finds evidence of global shift in the 1980s

Anthropogenic warming and volcanic eruption sparked biggest change in 1,000 years.

Photo credit: Jan Smith

Planet Earth experienced a global climate shift in the late 1980s on an unprecedented scale, fuelled by anthropogenic warming and a volcanic eruption, according to new research published this week.

Scientists say that a major step change, or 'regime shift', in the Earth's biophysical systems, from the upper atmosphere to the depths of the ocean and from the Arctic to Antarctica, was centred around 1987, and was sparked by the El Chichón volcanic eruption in Mexico five years earlier.

Their study, published in Global Change Biology, documents a range of associated events caused by the shift, from a 60% increase in winter river flow into the Baltic Sea to a 400% increase in the average duration of wildfires in the Western United States. It also suggests that climate change is not a gradual process, but one subject to sudden increases, with the 1980s shift representing the largest in an estimated 1,000 years.

Philip C. Reid, Professor of Oceanography at Plymouth University's Marine Institute, and Senior Research Fellow at the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS), is the lead author of the report, Global impacts of the 1980s regime shift.

"We demonstrate, based on 72 long time series, that a major change took place in the world centred on 1987 that involved a step change and move to a new regime in a wide range of Earth systems," said Professor Reid.

"Our work contradicts the perceived view that major volcanic eruptions just lead to a cooling of the world. In the case of the regime shift it looks as if global warming has reached a tipping point where the cooling that follows such eruptions rebounds with a rapid rise in temperature in a very short time. The speed of this change has had a pronounced effect on many biological, physical and chemical systems throughout the world, but is especially evident in the Northern temperate zone and Arctic."

Over the course of three years, the scientists - drawing upon a range of climate models, using data from nearly 6,500 meteorological stations, and consulting innumerable scientists and their studies round the world - found evidence of the shift across a wide range of biophysical indicators, such as the temperature and salinity of the oceans, the pH level of rivers, the timing of land events, including the behaviour of plants and birds, the amount of ice and snow in the cryosphere (the frozen world), and wind speed changes.

They detected a marked decline in the growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere after the regime shift, coinciding with a sudden growth in land and ocean carbon sinks - such as new vegetation spreading into polar areas previously under ice and snow. And they found that the annual timing of the regime shift appeared to have moved regionally around the world from west to east, starting with South America in 1984, North America (1985), North Atlantic (1986), Europe (1987), and Asia (1988).

These dates coincide with significant shifts to an earlier flowering date for cherry trees around the Earth in Washington DC, Switzerland, and Japan and coincided with the first evidence of the extinction of amphibians linked to global warming, such as the harlequin frog and golden toad in Central and South America.

Second author Renata E. Hari, Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland, said: "The 1980s regime shift may be the beginning of the acceleration of the warming shown by the IPCC. It is an example of the unforeseen compounding effects that may occur if unavoidable natural events like major volcanic eruptions interact with anthropogenic warming."

Citation: Philip C. Reid, Renata E. Hari, Grégory Beaugrand, David M. Livingstone, Christoph Marty, Dietmar Straile, Jonathan Barichivich, Eric Goberville, Rita Adrian, Yasuyuki Aono, Ross Brown, James Foster, Pavel Groisman, Pierre Hélaouët, Huang-Hsiung Hsu, Richard Kirby, Jeff Knight, Alexandra Kraberg, Jianping Li, Tzu-Ting Lo, Ranga B. Myneni, Ryan P. North, J. Alan Pounds, Tim Sparks, René Stübi, Yongjun Tian, Karen H. Wiltshire, Dong Xiao and Zaichun Zhu; Global impacts of the 1980s regime shift; Global Change Biology (23 November 2015); DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13106.

Contact: Andrew Merrington
University of Plymouth

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Launch of new Peatland Code could save more than 200 million tons of carbon dioxide

A new United Kingdom (UK) Government-backed code which could slash UK carbon dioxide emissions by 220 million tonnes and protect rare wildlife by restoring moors, bogs and mires has been launched.

The Peatland Code is unveiled at the World Forum for Natural Capital in Edinburgh on the morning of 23 November following a successful two-year trial, which has seen businesses fund peatland restoration projects in southwest England, the Lake District and Wales.

The Code is based on research by academics at Birmingham City University and the University of Leeds which revealed that sustainable business investment could reverse the degradation of peatlands and significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions.

UK peatlands, which are wetlands made up of decomposed plants, currently lock away more than three billion tonnes of carbon, are the habitat of rare wildlife and act as a natural filter to drinking water -- but over 80 per cent have been damaged.

The Peatland Code sets out key environmental guidelines and has been drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) UK Peatland Programme.

It targets the restoration of one million hectares of peatlands over the next five years and these restored sites alone could save 220 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050.

It also offers detailed carbon reduction statistics for organisations investing in pre-approved projects so they know the real-world environmental benefits of their funding.

Professor Mark Reed, who led research at Birmingham City University, said: "The call of a curlew or cotton grass quivering in the wind are sights many of us may associate with our often solitary, yet beautiful moorland landscape.

"But we remain blissfully unaware or unappreciative of the many benefits we derive from these unique peatland habitats."

The research has won awards for its impact, including a commendation earlier this year from the Higher Education Funding Council for England as part of its Research Excellence Framework, for demonstrating "very considerable impacts in terms of [its] reach and significance".

 

Prof Joseph Holden, who led research at the University of Leeds, said: "The peatlands of the UK are our own version of the Amazon rainforest. They need to be protected. They are home to some of our rare and endangered wildlife.

"They also act as a huge store of carbon, with perhaps as much as 3.2 billion tonnes, greater than the amount of carbon soaked up every year by all of the world's oceans combined.

"The UK's peatlands are also important source areas for the provision of clean drinking water while protection of many of our peatlands may reduce flood risk."

Peatlands cover around 10 per cent of the UK and store more than 20 times the amount of carbon as all the country's forests.

Clifton Bain, Director for the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, said: "The Peatland Code provides the business community with a chance to lead on a sustainable approach to our planet.

"Currently the Code has been stringently designed with carbon benefits in mind, but it is very much a flexible approach, with the ability to later adapt to showcase the additional benefits of peatland restoration as knowledge in this area grows, and if required, fit with future Government work on natural capital and greenhouse gas accounting."

The Peatland Code:

• Peatland Code 1.0.pdf (1.15 MB)
• Peatland Code Summary Leaflet.pdf (287.09 KB)
• Peatland Code for Landowners and Managers.pdf (681.21 KB)

Births down and deaths up in Gulf dolphins

NOAA study looks at impacts of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Dolphin Y01 pushes a dead calf in March, 2013. This behavior is sometimes observed in female dolphins when their newborn calf does not survive. Credit: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

A NOAA-led team of scientists is reporting a high rate of reproductive failure in dolphins exposed to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill. The team has monitored these bottlenose dolphins in heavily-oiled Barataria Bay for five years following the spill. Their findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society today, suggest that the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will be long-lasting.

The study assessed reproductive success and survival rate for Barataria Bay dolphins. These dolphins had been sampled for health assessments in 2011, and were found to have a high prevalence of lung disease and adrenal dysfunction. Now the team is reporting that only 20% of the sampled dolphins that were pregnant produced viable calves. This is compared to a previously-reported pregnancy success rate of 83% from a similar study in a dolphin population in Sarasota Bay, which was not affected by the spill.

After nearly four years of monitoring, scientists were also able to estimate the survival rate of the dolphins sampled in 2011. They found that only 86.8% of the dolphins survived each year, as compared to other populations where roughly 95% of the dolphins survived. The reduced reproductive potential, along with decreased survival, will have long-term consequences for the Barataria Bay dolphin population.

What they saw happening

In August of 2011, a team of independent and NOAA scientists evaluating the health of bottlenose dolphins in Louisiana's Barataria Bay gave dolphin Y35 a good health outlook. Based on the ultrasound, she was in the early stages of pregnancy, but unlike many of the other dolphins examined that summer day, Y35 was in pretty good shape. She wasn't extremely underweight or suffering from moderate-to-severe lung disease, conditions connected to exposure to Deepwater Horizon oil in the heavily impacted Barataria Bay.

Veterinarians did note, however, that she had alarmingly low levels of important stress hormones responsible for behaviors such as the fight-or-flight response. Normal levels of these hormones help animals cope with stressful situations. This rare condition--known as hypoadrenocorticism--had never been reported before in dolphins, which is why it was not used for Y35 and the other dolphins' health prognoses.

Less than six months later, researchers spotted Y35 for the last time. It was only 16 days before her expected due date. She and her calf are now both presumed dead, a disturbingly common trend among the bottlenose dolphins that call Barataria Bay their year-round home.

This trend of reproductive failure and death in Gulf dolphins over five years of monitoring after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill is outlined in a November 2015 study led by NOAA and published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Of the 10 Barataria Bay dolphins confirmed to be pregnant during the 2011 health assessment, only two successfully gave birth to calves that have survived. This unusually low rate of reproductive success--only 20%--stands in contrast to the 83% success rate in the generally healthier dolphins being studied in Florida's Sarasota Bay, an area not affected by Deepwater Horizon oil.

Baby Bump in Failed Pregnancies

While hypoadrenocorticism had not been documented previously in dolphins, it has been found in humans. In human mothers with this condition, pregnancy and birth--stressful and risky enough conditions on their own--can be life-threatening for both mother and child when left untreated. Wild dolphins with this condition would be in a similar situation.

Mink exposed to oil in an experiment ended up exhibiting very low levels of stress hormones, while sea otters exposed to the Exxon Valdez oil spill experienced high rates of failed pregnancies and pup death. These cases are akin to what scientists have observed in the dolphins of Barataria Bay after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Among the pregnant dolphins being monitored in this study, at least two lost their calves before giving birth. Veterinarians confirmed with ultrasound that one of these dolphins, Y31, was carrying a dead calf in utero during her 2011 exam. Another pregnant dolphin, Y01, did not successfully give birth in 2012, and was then seen pushing a dead newborn calf in 2013. Given that dolphins have a gestation of over 12 months, this means Y01 had two failed pregnancies in a row.

The other five dolphins to lose their calves after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, excluding Y35, survived pregnancy themselves but were seen again and again in the months after their due dates without any young. Dolphin calves stick close to their mothers' sides in the first two or three months after birth, indicating that these pregnant dolphins also had calves that did not survive.

At least half of the dolphins with failed pregnancies also suffered from moderate-to-severe lung disease, a symptom associated with exposure to petroleum products. The only two dolphins to give birth to healthy calves had relatively minor lung conditions.

Survival of the Least Oiled

Dolphin Y35 wasn't the only one of the 32 dolphins being monitored in Barataria Bay to disappear in the months following her 2011 examination. Three others were never sighted again in the 15 straight surveys tracking these dolphins. Or rather, they were never seen again alive. One of them, Y12, was a 16-year-old adult male whose emaciated carcass washed up in Louisiana only a few weeks before the pregnant Y35 was last seen. In fact, the number of dolphins washing up dead in Barataria Bay from August 2010 through 2011 was the highest ever recorded for that area.

Survival rate in this group of dolphins was estimated at only 86%, down from the 95-96% survival seen in dolphin populations not in contact with Deepwater Horizon oil. The marshy maze of Barataria Bay falls squarely inside the footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and its dolphins and others along the northern Gulf Coast have repeatedly been found to be sick and dying in historically high numbers. Considering how deadly this oil spill has been for Gulf bottlenose dolphins and their young, researchers expect recovery for these marine mammals to be a long time coming.

Citation: Suzanne M. Lane, Cynthia R. Smith, Jason Mitchell, Brian C. Balmer, Kevin P. Barry, Trent McDonald, Chiharu S. Mori, Patricia E. Rosel, Teresa K. Rowles, Todd R. Speakman, Forrest I. Townsend, Mandy C. Tumlin, Randall S. Wells, Eric S. Zolman, Lori H. Schwacke. Reproductive outcome and survival of common bottlenose dolphins sampled in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, USA, following theDeepwater Horizonoil spill. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2015; 282 (1818): 20151944 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1944.

This study was conducted as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The complete results from the NRDA are documented in the Draft Programmatic Assessment and Restoration Plan, which is currently out for public comment. The NOAA will accept comments on the plan through December 4, 2015. This research was conducted under the authority of Scientific Research Permit nos. 779-1633 and 932-1905/MA-009526 issued by NOAA Fisheries pursuant to the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act. Protocols for the dolphin health assessments were reviewed and approved by the NOAA Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Contact: Ben Sherman
NOAA

 

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Sea traffic pollutes our lungs more than previously thought

New data presented by researchers at Lund University and others in the journal Oceanologia show that the air along the coasts is full of hazardous nanoparticles from sea traffic. Almost half of the measured particles stem from sea traffic emissions, while the rest is deemed to be mainly from cars but also biomass combustion, industries and natural particles from the sea.

"This is the first time an attempt has been made to estimate the proportion of nanoparticles stemming from sea traffic. The different types of nanoparticles have previously not been distinguished, but this new method makes it possible", says Adam Kristensson, researcher in Aerosol Technology at the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden.

"Previously, we thought that land-based pollution from northern European countries and emissions of natural particles from the surface of the sea accounted for a much larger proportion", he says.

Nanoparticles can be hazardous to our health as they, because of their small size, can penetrate deeper into the lungs than larger particles contributing to both cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. A cubic centimetre can contain several thousand nanoparticles.

To arrive at these results, he and his colleagues have studied the air flow from their measuring station in southern Sweden as it passes over the Baltic Sea, all the way to the measuring station on the Lithuanian coast. The wind often travels towards the east, and the particles can travel long distances before they are trapped in our lungs or washed away by the rain. They have also studied the air flow from a station in the Finnish archipelago towards the Lithuanian station.

By comparing levels of nanoparticles, the researchers can draw conclusions about the respective proportions that stem from cars and other emissions, and sea traffic.

Particles from sea traffic in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are expected to contribute to 10 000 premature deaths every year, but Adam Kristensson stresses that this estimate is very uncertain, and believes that it is important to continue to conduct these types of measurements.

He also advocates stricter legislation. "It is especially important to continue to set stricter caps on nitrogen oxides and sulphate content from ship fuel."

"It is especially important to continue to raise the caps on emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulphate content from ship fuel.

 

Future regulations will hopefully reduce the emissions of harmful nanoparticles, especially soot particles, which are considered the most hazardous.

"This year a new regulation was introduced for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea that limits the sulphate content in fuel to 0.1%. As researchers, we still have to look at what positive effects this has had so far with regard to the particle levels."

Citation: Simonas Kecorius, Niku Kivekäs, Adam Kristensson, Thomas Tuch, David S. Covert, Wolfram Birmili, Heikki Lihavainen, Antti-Pekka Hyvärinen, Johan Martinsson, Moa K. Sporre, Erik Swietlicki, Alfred Wiedensohler, Vidmantas Ulevicius. Significant increase of aerosol number concentrations in air masses crossing a densely trafficked sea area. Oceanologia, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.oceano.2015.08.001.

Contact: Cecilia Schubert
Lund University

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Half of Amazonian tree species may be threatened

A James Cook University scientist says a new study shows more than half of all tree species in the world's most diverse forest -- the Amazon -- may be globally threatened.

Long-time Amazon researcher, Professor William Laurance from JCU, is a co-author of the study, published this week in the journal Science Advances.

It compared data from forest surveys across the Amazon with maps of current and projected deforestation to estimate how many tree species have been lost, and where.

Professor Laurance said the study suggests existing Amazonian parks and reserves, if properly managed, could protect many of the threatened species. But it was not a forgone conclusion.

"It's a battle we're going to see play out in our lifetimes," he said. "Either we stand up and protect these critical parks and indigenous reserves, or deforestation will erode them until we see large-scale extinctions."

The findings were announced by a research team comprising 158 researchers from 21 countries, led by Hans ter Steege of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and Nigel Pitman of the Field Museum in Chicago, USA.

The authors say protected areas and indigenous territories now cover over half of the basin, and are likely to contain sizeable populations of most threatened species.

"This is good news from the Amazon that you don't hear enough of," said ter Steege.

"In recent decades Amazon countries have made major strides in expanding parks and strengthening indigenous land rights," he said. "And our study shows this could have big benefits for biodiversity."

However, the authors caution that Amazonian forests and reserves still face a barrage of threats, from dam construction to wildfires and droughts intensified by global warming.

Citation: H. ter Steege, N. C. A. Pitman, T. J. Killeen, W. F. Laurance, C. A. Peres, J. E. Guevara, R. P. Salomao, C. V. Castilho, I. L. Amaral, F. D. de Almeida Matos, L. de Souza Coelho, W. E. Magnusson, O. L. Phillips, D. de Andrade Lima Filho, M. de Jesus Veiga Carim, M. V. Irume, M. P. Martins, J.-F. Molino, D. Sabatier, F. Wittmann, D. C. Lopez, J. R. da Silva Guimaraes, A. M. Mendoza, P. N. Vargas, A. G. Manzatto, N. F. C. Reis, J. Terborgh, K. R. Casula, J. C. Montero, T. R. Feldpausch, E. N. Honorio Coronado, A. J. D. Montoya, C. E. Zartman, B. Mostacedo, R. Vasquez, R. L. Assis, M. B. Medeiros, M. F. Simon, A. Andrade, J. L. Camargo, S. G. W. Laurance, H. E. M. Nascimento, B. S. Marimon, B.-H. Marimon, F. Costa, N. Targhetta, I. C. G. Vieira, R. Brienen, H. Castellanos, J. F. Duivenvoorden, H. F. Mogollon, M. T. F. Piedade, G. A. Aymard C., J. A. Comiskey, G. Damasco, N. Davila, R. Garcia-Villacorta, P. R. S. Diaz, A. Vincentini, T. Emilio, C. Levis, J. Schietti, P. Souza, A. Alonso, F. Dallmeier, L. V. Ferreira, D. Neill, A. Araujo-Murakami, L. Arroyo, F. A. Carvalho, F. C. Souza, D. D. d. Amaral, R. Gribel, B. G. Luize, M. P. Pansonato, E. Venticinque, P. Fine, M. Toledo, C. Baraloto, C. Ceron, J. Engel, T. W. Henkel, E. M. Jimenez, P. Maas, M. C. P. Mora, P. Petronelli, J. D. C. Revilla, M. Silveira, J. Stropp, R. Thomas-Caesar, T. R. Baker, D. Daly, M. R. Paredes, N. F. da Silva, A. Fuentes, P. M. Jorgensen, J. Scho ngart, M. R. Silman, N. C. Arboleda, B. B. L. Cintra, F. C. Valverde, A. Di Fiore, J. F. Phillips, T. R. van Andel, P. von Hildebrand, E. M. Barbosa, L. C. de Matos Bonates, D. de Castro, E. de Sousa Farias, T. Gonzales, J.-L. Guillaumet, B. Hoffman, Y. Malhi, I. P. de Andrade Miranda, A. Prieto, A. Rudas, A. R. Ruschell, N. Silva, C. I. A. Vela, V. A. Vos, E. L. Zent, S. Zent, A. Cano, M. T. Nascimento, A. A. Oliveira, H. Ramirez-Angulo, J. F. Ramos, R. Sierra, M. Tirado, M. N. U. Medina, G. van der Heijden, E. V. Torre, C. Vriesendorp, O. Wang, K. R. Young, C. Baider, H. Balslev, N. de Castro, W. Farfan-Rios, C. Ferreira, C. Mendoza, I. Mesones, A. Torres-Lezama, L. E. U. Giraldo, D. Villarroel, R. Zagt, M. N. Alexiades, K. Garcia-Cabrera, L. Hernandez, I. Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, W. Milliken, W. P. Cuenca, S. Pansini, D. Pauletto, F. R. Arevalo, A. F. Sampaio, E. H. Valderrama Sandoval, L. V. Gamarra. Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species. Science Advances, 2015; 1 (10): e1500936 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500936.

Contact: Alistair Bone
James Cook University

 

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