Showing papers by "Scottish Association for Marine Science published in 2016"

Responses of Marine Organisms to Climate Change across Oceans

Abstract: Climate change is driving changes in the physical and chemical properties of the ocean that have consequences for marine ecosystems. Here, we review evidence for the responses of marine life to recent climate change across ocean regions, from tropical seas to polar oceans. We consider observed changes in calcification rates, demography, abundance, distribution and phenology of marine species. We draw on a database of observed climate change impacts on marine species, supplemented with evidence in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We discuss factors that limit or facilitate species’ responses, such as fishing pressure, the availability of prey, habitat, light and other resources, and dispersal by ocean currents. We find that general trends in species responses are consistent with expectations from climate change, including poleward and deeper distributional shifts, advances in spring phenology, declines in calcification and increases in the abundance of warm-water species. The volume and type of evidence of species responses to climate change is variable across ocean regions and taxonomic groups, with much evidence derived from the heavily-studied north Atlantic Ocean. Most investigations of marine biological impacts of climate change are of the impacts of changing temperature, with few observations of effects of changing oxygen, wave climate, precipitation (coastal waters) or ocean acidification. Observations of species responses that have been linked to anthropogenic climate change are widespread, but are still lacking for some taxonomic groups (e.g., phytoplankton, benthic invertebrates, marine mammals).

Climate velocity and the future global redistribution of marine biodiversity

Abstract: Ocean warming will cause widespread changes in species richness and assemblage composition over coming decades, with important implications for both conservation management and international ocean governance.

Marine harmful algal blooms, human health and wellbeing: challenges and opportunities in the 21st century.

Abstract: Microalgal blooms are a natural part of the seasonal cycle of photosynthetic organisms in marine ecosystems. They are key components of the structure and dynamics of the oceans and thus sustain the benefits that humans obtain from these aquatic environments. However, some microalgal blooms can cause harm to humans and other organisms. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) have direct impacts on human health and negative influences on human wellbeing, mainly through their consequences to coastal ecosystem services (fisheries, tourism and recreation) and other marine organisms and environments. HABs are natural phenomena, but these events can be favoured by anthropogenic pressures in coastal areas. Global warming and associated changes in the oceans could affect HAB occurrences and toxicity as well, although forecasting the possible trends is still speculative and requires intensive multidisciplinary research. At the beginning of the 21st century, with expanding human populations, particularly in coastal and developing countries, mitigating HABs impacts on human health and wellbeing is becoming a more pressing public health need. The available tools to address this global challenge include maintaining intensive, multidisciplinary and collaborative scientific research, and strengthening the coordination with stakeholders, policymakers and the general public. Here we provide an overview of different aspects of the HABs phenomena, an important element of the intrinsic links between oceans and human health and wellbeing.

Ecological and methodological drivers of species' distribution and phenology responses to climate change

Abstract: Climate change is shifting species’ distribution and phenology. Ecological traits, such as mobility or reproductive mode, explain variation in observed rates of shift for some taxa. However, estimates of relationships between traits and climate responses could be influenced by how responses are measured. We compiled a global data set of 651 published marine species’ responses to climate change, from 47 papers on distribution shifts and 32 papers on phenology change. We assessed the relative importance of two classes of predictors of the rate of change, ecological traits of the responding taxa and methodological approaches for quantifying biological responses. Methodological differences explained 22% of the variation in range shifts, more than the 7.8% of the variation explained by ecological traits. For phenology change, methodological approaches accounted for 4% of the variation in measurements, whereas 8% of the variation was explained by ecological traits. Our ability to predict responses from traits was hindered by poor representation of species from the tropics, where temperature isotherms are moving most rapidly. Thus, the mean rate of distribution change may be underestimated by this and other global syntheses. Our analyses indicate that methodological approaches should be explicitly considered when designing, analysing and comparing results among studies. To improve climate impact studies, we recommend that (1) reanalyses of existing time series state how the existing data sets may limit the inferences about possible climate responses; (2) qualitative comparisons of species’ responses across different studies be limited to studies with similar methodological approaches; (3) meta-analyses of climate responses include methodological attributes as covariates; and (4) that new time series be designed to include the detection of early warnings of change or ecologically relevant change. Greater consideration of methodological attributes will improve the accuracy of analyses that seek to quantify the role of climate change in species’ distribution and phenology changes.

Shared values and deliberative valuation: Future directions

Abstract: Valuation that focuses only on individual values evades the substantial collective and intersubjective meanings, significance and value from ecosystems. Shared, plural and cultural values of ecosystems constitute a diffuse and interdisciplinary field of research, covering an area that links questions around value ontology, elicitation and aggregation with questions of participation, ethics, and social justice. Synthesising understanding from various contributions to this Special Issue of Ecosystem Services, and with a particular focus on deliberation and deliberative valuation, we discuss key findings and present 35 future research questions in eight topic areas: 1) the ontology of shared values; 2) the role of catalyst and conflict points; 3) shared values and cultural ecosystem services; 4) transcendental values; 5) the process and outcomes of deliberation; 6) deliberative monetary valuation; 7) value aggregation, meta-values and ‘rules of the game’; and 8) integrating valuation methods. The results of this Special Issue and these key questions can help develop a more extensive evidence base to mature the area and develop environmental valuation into a more pluralistic, comprehensive, robust, legitimate and effective way of safeguarding ecosystems and their services for the future.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework

Abstract: The ecosystem services concept (ES) is becoming a cornerstone of contemporary sustainability thought. Challenges with this concept and its applications are well documented, but have not yet been systematically assessed alongside strengths and external factors that influence uptake. Such an assessment could form the basis for improving ES thinking, further embedding it into environmental decisions and management.The Young Ecosystem Services Specialists (YESS) completed a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis of ES through YESS member surveys. Strengths include the approach being interdisciplinary, and a useful communication tool. Weaknesses include an incomplete scientific basis, frameworks being inconsistently applied, and accounting for nature's intrinsic value. Opportunities include alignment with existing policies and established methodologies, and increasing environmental awareness. Threats include resistance to change, and difficulty with interdisciplinary collaboration. Consideration of SWOT themes suggested five strategic areas for developing and implementing ES.The ES concept could improve decision-making related to natural resource use, and interpretation of the complexities of human-nature interactions. It is contradictory - valued as a simple means of communicating the importance of conservation, whilst also considered an oversimplification characterised by ambiguous language. Nonetheless, given sufficient funding and political will, the ES framework could facilitate interdisciplinary research, ensuring decision-making that supports sustainable development.

Ecosystem services and the idea of shared values

Abstract: Ecosystem services conceptualise the diverse values that ecosystems provide to humanity. This was recognised in the United Kingdom's National Ecosystem Assessment, which noted that appreciation of the full value of ecosystem services requires recognition of values that are shared. By operationalising the shared values concept, it is argued that the contribution of ecosystem services to human well-being can be represented more holistically. This paper considers current understanding of shared values and develops a new metanarrative of shared values beyond the aggregated utilities of individuals. This metanarrative seeks to conceptualise how values can be held both individually and communally, and what this means for identifying their scale and means of enumeration. The paper poses a new reading of the idea of shared values that reconciles the elicitation of pre-formed individual values with the formation and expression of shared social values. The implication is that shared values need to be conceived as normative constructs that are derived through social processes of value formation and expression. Shared values thus do not necessarily exist a priori; they can be deliberated through formal and informal processes through which individuals can separate their own preferences from a broader metanarrative about what values ought to be shared.

The impact of information, value-deliberation and group-based decision-making on values for ecosystem services : integrating deliberative monetary valuation and storytelling

Abstract: Monetary valuation quantifies exchange values, but broader approaches are needed to understand the meaning of those monetary values and the shared, plural and cultural values that underpin them. In this study, we integrated deliberative monetary valuation, storytelling, subjective well-being and psychometric approaches to comprehensively elicit cultural ecosystem service values for proposed UK marine protected areas. We elicit and compare five valuation stages: individual values from an online survey; individual and group values following deliberation on information in workshops; and individual and group values following storytelling and a ‘transcendental values compass’ deliberation. Deliberated group values significantly differed from non-deliberated individual values, with reduced willingness to pay and increased convergence with subjective wellbeing; deliberated individual values fell between the two. Storytelling played an important role in revealing values that were previously implicit. Participants were more confident about values elicited in the workshops than the online survey and felt that deliberated values should be used in decision-making. The results of this study (albeit with a limited sample size) suggest that shared values may be a better reflection of welfare implications than non-deliberated individual values, while at the same time more reflective of participants' transcendental values: their broader life goals and principles.

A Simple Shelf Circulation Model: Intrusion of Atlantic Water on the West Spitsbergen Shelf

Abstract: Barotropic flow along depth contours is found in accordance with standard geostrophic theory. A numerical model is developed that studies the deviation from such a flow. The model gives a good approximation of the dynamical processes on the West Spitsbergen Shelf (WSS) and shows that the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC), the main gateway of Atlantic water (AW) toward the Arctic, connects more easily to the Isfjorden Trough than anywhere else along the shelf. The circulation of AW in the troughs along the WSS is here named the Spitsbergen Trough Current (STC). From hydrographical and ocean current observations it is evident that the STC is primarily barotropic and driven by the sea surface height. A connection between the along-coast wind stress and the STC is established, and it is demonstrated how the increased occurrence of winter cyclones in Fram Strait during January–February accelerates and widens the WSC. Ultimately, this results in a strengthened STC and dominance of AW on the WSS. The STC re...

Transcendental values and the valuation and management of ecosystem services

Abstract: Despite the wealth of studies assessing values in relation to the management of ecosystem services, few studies have assessed transcendental values (TVs). TVs include ethical principles and desirable end states, such as ‘a world at peace’ or ‘unity with nature’ that transcend specific situations. We argue that TVs are important to consider in relation to ecosystem services because they: are implicit within ecosystem service valuations; directly and indirectly affect behaviour; influence the way we view knowledge and evidence; may be shared when more superficial values conflict; and underpin social representations. We demonstrate through case examples from the United Kingdom, Solomon Islands and Australia how they can be applied to the assessment of pro-environmental behaviour, how they might influence monetary valuations, and be affected by deliberative processes. TVs had direct effects on behavioural intention and significantly influenced willingness to pay. In contrast to conceptions of TVs as stable, in some cases deliberation led to significant change in TVs. We also observed indirect effects between TVs and constructs that mediate between TVs and behaviour, including beliefs and norms about conservation actions. We discuss the implications of the results for ecosystem valuation and management, including directions for future research.

Editorial: Shared, plural and cultural values

Abstract: • This Special Issue develops an understanding of values as complex, intersubjective, relational, and multidimensional.

Integrating deliberative monetary valuation, systems modelling and participatory mapping to assess shared values of ecosystem services

Abstract: There is increasing recognition of the need to unite analytical and participatory methodologies to establish more comprehensive valuations of ecosystem services and move beyond individual conceptions of value. This research integrates a three-stage choice experiment with participatory systems modelling, participatory mapping and psychometric analysis in a coastal case study in Scotland. It aimed to explore contrasts between individual willingness to pay and shared values expressed as group-deliberated fair prices, how deliberation on social-ecological systems would impact on value formation, and how participatory mapping might elicit distinct values not reflected in the monetary valuation. Results indicated marked differences between individual and deliberated group values, with deliberated individual values falling between the two. The systems modelling intervention combined with explicit discussion of transcendental values (life goals and guiding principles) generated significant learning and helped to better reflect transcendental values in monetary values. The deliberations and fair price framing shifted participants towards a public policy perspective, balancing benefit trade-offs with questions of fairness and responsibility. The highly localised nature of many values expressed through participatory mapping suggests that many of these places-based values would have been under-recognised by monetary valuation alone.

Understanding the structure and functioning of polar pelagic ecosystems to predict the impacts of change.

Abstract: The determinants of the structure, functioning and resilience of pelagic ecosystems across most of the polar regions are not well known. Improved understanding is essential for assessing the value of biodiversity and predicting the effects of change (including in biodiversity) on these ecosystems and the services they maintain. Here we focus on the trophic interactions that underpin ecosystem structure, developing comparative analyses of how polar pelagic food webs vary in relation to the environment. We highlight that there is not a singular, generic Arctic or Antarctic pelagic food web, and, although there are characteristic pathways of energy flow dominated by a small number of species, alternative routes are important for maintaining energy transfer and resilience. These more complex routes cannot, however, provide the same rate of energy flow to highest trophic-level species. Food-web structure may be similar in different regions, but the individual species that dominate mid-trophic levels vary across polar regions. The characteristics (traits) of these species are also different and these differences influence a range of food-web processes. Low functional redundancy at key trophic levels makes these ecosystems particularly sensitive to change. To develop models for projecting responses of polar ecosystems to future environmental change, we propose a conceptual framework that links the life histories of pelagic species and the structure of polar food webs.

Fishing impact and environmental status in European seas: A diagnosis from stock assessments and ecosystem indicators

Abstract: Stock-based and ecosystem-based indicators are used to provide a new diagnosis of the fishing impact and environmental status of European seas. In the seven European marine ecosystems covering the Baltic and the North-east Atlantic, (i) trends in landings since 1950 were examined; (ii) syntheses of the status and trends in fish stocks were consolidated at the ecosystem level; and (iii) trends in ecosystem indicators based on landings and surveys were analysed. We show that yields began to decrease everywhere (except in the Baltic) from the mid-1970s, as a result of the over- exploitation of some major stocks. Fishermen adapted by increasing fishing effort and exploiting a wider part of the ecosystems. This was insufficient to compensate for the decrease in abundance of many stocks, and total landings have halved over the last 30 years. The highest fishing impact took place in the late 1990s, with a clear decrease in stock-based and ecosystem indicators. In particular, trophic-based indicators exhibited a continuous decreasing trend in almost all ecosystems. Over the past decade, a decrease in fishing pressure has been observed, the mean fishing mortality rate of assessed stocks being almost halved in all the considered ecosystems, but no clear recovery in the biomass and ecosystem indicators is yet apparent. In addition, the mean recruitment index was shown to decrease by around 50% in all ecosystems (except the Baltic). We conclude that building this kind of diagnosis is a key step on the path to implementing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

XBT Science: Assessment of Instrumental Biases and Errors

Abstract: Expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data were the major component of the ocean temperature profile observations from the late 1960s through the early 2000s, and XBTs still continue to provide critical data to monitor surface and subsurface currents, meridional heat transport, and ocean heat content. Systematic errors have been identified in the XBT data, some of which originate from computing the depth in the profile using a theoretically and experimentally derived fall-rate equation (FRE). After in-depth studies of these biases and discussions held in several workshops dedicated to discussing XBT biases, the XBT science community met at the Fourth XBT Science Workshop and concluded that XBT biases consist of 1) errors in depth values due to the inadequacy of the probe motion description done by standard FRE and 2) independent pure temperature biases. The depth error and temperature bias are temperature dependent and may depend on the data acquisition and recording system. In addition, the depth bia...

Deliberative Democratic Monetary Valuation to implement the Ecosystem Approach

Abstract: The potential for developing the participatory dimensions of the Ecosystem Approach are examined through the work of Habermas to guide the design of Deliberative Democratic Monetary Valuation (DDMV) and elicit social willingness to pay. DDMV is contrasted with Deliberated Preferences approaches, which are a deliberative adaptation of stated preference techniques and comprise almost all Deliberative Monetary Valuation studies so far. In a detailed case study where coastal and marine cultural ecosystem services were set within a broader societal context, DDMV was undertaken through three iterative workshops involving a single group of participants representing local residents and different interests across the public, private and third sectors. The use of DDMV generates insights into its potential for securing a socially sustainable route to environmental management: sustainable development that brings together values for ecosystem services with other social priorities, is more inclusive of diverse user needs and values, and is sensitive to issues of environmental justice. As well as highlighting the benefits and challenges that a more democratic deliberative valuation presents, we highlight the practical strengths and vulnerabilities of this approach and indicate directions for further methodological evolution of DDMV.

Linking environmental variables with regional-scale variability in ecological structure and standing stock of carbon within UK kelp forests

Abstract: Kelp forests represent some of the most productive and diverse habitats on Earth. Understanding drivers of ecological patterns at large spatial scales is critical for effective management and conservation of marine habitats. We surveyed kelp forests dominated by Laminaria hyperborea (Gunnerus) Foslie 1884 across 9° latitude and >1000 km of coastline and measured a number of physical parameters at multiple scales to link ecological structure and standing stock of carbon with environmental variables. Kelp density, biomass, morphology and age were generally greater in exposed sites within regions, highlighting the importance of wave exposure in structuring L. hyperborea populations. At the regional scale, wave-exposed kelp canopies in the cooler regions (the north and west of Scotland) were greater in biomass, height and age than in warmer regions (southwest Wales and England). The range and maximal values of estimated standing stock of carbon contained within kelp forests was greater than in historical studies, suggesting that this ecosystem property may have been previously undervalued. Kelp canopy density was positively correlated with large-scale wave fetch and fine-scale water motion, whereas kelp canopy biomass and the standing stock of carbon were positively correlated with large-scale wave fetch and light levels and negatively correlated with temperature. As light availability and summer temperature were important drivers of kelp forest biomass, effective management of human activities that may affect coastal water quality is necessary to maintain ecosystem functioning, while increased temperatures related to anthropogenic climate change may impact the structure of kelp forests and the ecosystem services they provide.

The ripple effect: Institutionalising pro-environmental values to shift societal norms and behaviours

Abstract: Contemporary markets and societal norms externalise many ecosystem services important for a sustainable future. A range of external legal, market, social protocol and other mechanisms, referred to as ‘societal levers’, constrain or otherwise influence the behaviour of resource managers, and the expectations and assumptions of the society within which they operate. These ‘societal levers’ have progressively institutionalised evolving societal values, influencing markets and other choices. We use the STEEP (social, technological, economic, environmental and political) framework to explore case studies of societal transitions, analysing how emergent concerns become shared and ultimately transformed into ‘levers’, shifting societal norms. Emerging concerns become influential only when they are shared across societal sectors, and when broader implications are realised across multiple dimensions of the STEEP framework. We propose and advocate use of a ‘ripple effect’ of values as a means to direct and accelerate the pace at which environmental concerns shape mainstream societal norms and structures, and become institutionalised in the form of ‘societal levers’.