Precautionary spatial protection to facilitate the scientific study of habitats and communities under ice shelves in the context of recent, rapid, regional climate change
01 Jan 2013-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight why commercial fishing activities should not be permitted in these habitats, and suggest that areas under existing ice shelves in Subareas 88.3, 48.1 and 48.5 should be preserved and protected for scientific study.
Abstract: Recent rapid climate change is now well documented in the Antarctic, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula region. One of the most evident signs of climate change has been
ice-shelf collapse; overall, 87% of the Peninsula’s glaciers have retreated in recent decades. Further ice-shelf collapse will lead to the loss of existing marine habitats and to the creation of new habitats, with consequent changes in both ecological processes and in community structure. Habitats revealed by collapsed ice shelves therefore offer unique scientific opportunities. Given the complexity of the possible interactions, and the need to study these in the absence of any other human-induced perturbation, this paper highlights why commercial fishing activities should not be permitted in these habitats, and suggests that areas under existing ice shelves in Subareas 88.3, 48.1 and 48.5 should be preserved
and protected for scientific study. The boundaries of these areas should henceforth remain fixed, even if the ice shelves recede or collapse in the future. Designation of areas under ice shelves as areas for scientific study would fulfil one of the recommendations made by the Antarctic Treaty Meeting of Experts in 2010.
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23 Mar 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience and de la capacite d'adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socioecologique (socio-ecologigal systems -SES) afin de comprendre and anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme.
Abstract: Cet article analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience et de la capacite d’adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socio-ecologique (socio-ecologigal systems – SES) afin de comprendre et anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme. Une serie de questions est proposee par l’auteur sur la specification de ces termes afin de developper une structure conceptuelle qui inclut les dimensions naturelles et so...
1,133 citations
TL;DR: The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has managed the ecosystems of the high seas of the Southern Ocean since 1982 as discussed by the authors, and is seen as an example of best practice in managing marine resources in international waters.
19 citations
TL;DR: The assessment identifies South Georgia and sub-Antarctic islands in the Indian Ocean as being the most critical data gaps for this species and suggests that the global population has increased by approximately 11% since 2013, with even greater increases along the WAP.
Abstract: Though climate change is widely known to negatively affect the distribution and abundance of many species, few studies have focused on species that may benefit. Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) populations have grown along the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), a region accounting for ~ 30% of their global population. These trends of population growth in Gentoo Penguins are in stark contrast to those of Adelie and Chinstrap Penguins, which have experienced considerable population declines along the WAP attributed to environmental changes. The recent discovery of previously unknown Gentoo Penguin colonies along the WAP and evidence for southern range expansion since the last global assessment in 2013 motivates this review of the abundance and distribution of this species. We compiled and collated all available recent data for every known Gentoo Penguin colony in the world and report on previously unknown Gentoo Penguin colonies along the Northwestern section of the WAP. We estimate the global population of Gentoo Penguins to be 432,144 (95th CI 338,059 – 534,114) breeding pairs, with approximately 364,359 (95th CI 324,052 – 405,132) breeding pairs (85% of the population) living in the Atlantic sector. Our estimates suggest that the global population has increased by approximately 11% since 2013, with even greater increases (23%) along the WAP. The Falkland Islands population, which comprises 30% of the global population, has remained stable, though only a subset of colonies have been surveyed since the last comprehensive survey in 2010. Our assessment identifies South Georgia and sub-Antarctic islands in the Indian Ocean as being the most critical data gaps for this species.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the extent to which these recommendations have been implemented in the global and regional legal frameworks, the flexibility and resilience to tackle climate change of the provisions can be assessed.
17 citations
TL;DR: The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is aware of the urgent need to develop climate-responsive options within its ecosystem approach to management.
14 citations
References
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TL;DR: For example, this paper found that the shallow mega-and macrobenthos is very sensitive to temperature change (stenothermal), being warmed to about 10 degrees C kills most species tested to date but even smaller experimental rises (just 2 or 3 degrees C above normal) drastically hinders their ability to perform critical functions, such as predator avoidance behaviour.
Abstract: Predictions of sensitivity to climate change of polar benthos vary markedly depending on whether physiological or ecological/biodiversity criteria are considered. A realistic consensus view must be achieved as soon as possible. Having been very cool and constant for several million years, polar hotspots such as the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) are now rapidly warming. The current rate of CO, increase and, with a lag phase, temperature, is unparalleled-maybe for 10s of millions of years. Experimental evidence suggests the shallow mega- and macrobenthos is very sensitive to temperature change (stenothermal). Being warmed to about 10 degrees C kills most species tested to date but even smaller experimental rises (just 2 or 3 degrees C above normal) drastically hinders their ability to perform critical functions, Such as predator avoidance behaviour. In contrast, new evidence of bathymetric and geographic distributions shows species ranges encompass localities with varying and warmer temperatures Such as the intertidal zone or the shelf of South Georgia. This suggests, at the species level, an unexpected ability to live in areas with significantly different and raised temperature regimes. Scientists have focused on potential responses of a few species in a few areas. However, these are often atypical of fauna on the whole. Distribution assessments suffer from not knowing the capacity differences between populations and how fast they, arise. To begin meaningful estimates of how shelf mega- and macrobenthos will respond to rapid warming, where and at what should we be looking? The AP continental shelf is probably amongst the most sensitive. A more widespread evaluation of the capabilities of different species and across life-history cycles is needed. We need to compare differences between communities in the more temperature-variable and -stable sites to predict ecological scale responses to future changes.
146 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: The Antarctic Peninsula region represents our best natural laboratory to investigate how earth's major climate systems interact and how such systems respond to rapid regional warming as discussed by the authors, and this volume provides the global change research and educational communities a framework in which to advance our knowledge of the causes behind regional warming, dramatic glacial and ecological responses, and the potential uniqueness of the event within the region's paleoclimate record.
Abstract: The Antarctic Peninsula region represents our best natural laboratory to investigate how earth's major climate systems interact and how such systems respond to rapid regional warming. The scale of environmental changes now taking place across the region is large and their pace rapid but the subsystems involved are still small enough to observe and accurately document cause and affect mechanisms. For example, clarification of ice shelf stability via the Larsen Ice Shelf is vital to understanding the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet, its climate evolution, and its response to and control of sea level. By encompassing the broadest range of interdisciplinary studies, this volume provides the global change research and educational communities a framework in which to advance our knowledge of the causes behind regional warming, the dramatic glacial and ecological responses, and the potential uniqueness of the event within the region's paleoclimate record. The volume also serves as a vital resource for public policy and governmental funding agencies as well as a means to educate the large number of ecotourists that visit the region each austral summer.
136 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that the loss of ice shelves and retreat of coastal glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula in the last 50 years has exposed at least 2.4 x 104 km2 of new open water.
Abstract: Feedbacks on climate change so far identified are predominantly positive, enhancing the rate of change. Loss of sea-ice, increase in desert areas, water vapour increase, loss of tropical rain forest and the restriction of significant areas of marine productivity to higher latitude (thus smaller geographical zones) all lead to an enhancement of the rate of change. The other major feedback identified, changes in cloud radiation, will produce either a positive feedback, if high level clouds are produced, or a negative feedback if low level clouds are produced. Few significant negative feedbacks have been identified, let alone quantified. Here, we show that the loss of ice shelves and retreat of coastal glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula in the last 50 years has exposed at least 2.4 x 104 km2 of new open water. We estimate that these new areas of open water have allowed new phytoplankton blooms containing a total standing stock of similar to 5.0 x 105 tonnes of carbon to be produced. New marine zooplankton and seabed communities have also been produced, which we estimate contain similar to 4.1 x 105 tonnes of carbon. This previously unquantified carbon sink acts as a negative feedback to climate change. New annual productivity, as opposed to standing stock, amounts to 3.5 x 106 tonnes yr-1 of carbon, of which 6.9 x 105 tonnes yr-1 deposits to the seabed. By comparison the total aboveground biomasses of lowland American tropical rainforest is 160-435 tonnes ha-1. Around 50% of this is carbon. On this basis the carbon held in new biomass described here is roughly equivalent to 6000-17 000 ha of tropical rainforest. As ice loss increases in polar regions this feedback will become stronger, and eventually, over thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, over 50 Mtonnes of new carbon could be fixed annually in new coastal phytoplankton blooms and over 10 Mtonnes yr-1 locked in biological standing stock around Antarctica.
133 citations
"Precautionary spatial protection to..." refers background in this paper
...Peck et al. (2010) showed that the loss of ice shelves and retreat of coastal glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula in the last 50 years has exposed at least 2.4 × 104 km2 of new open water (see also Vaughan and Doake, 1996)....
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...This has now resulted in around 900 × 103 tonnes of new carbon being taken up by biological systems every year, which is around 10% of that taken up by new Arctic forests, but 10 times greater than any other identified natural feedback reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide (Peck et al., 2010)....
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TL;DR: DNA sequencing and morphology indicate the lithodid is Neolithodes yaldwyni Ahyong & Dawson, previously reported only from Ross Sea waters, and this population provides an important model for the potential invasive impacts of crushing predators on vulnerable Antarctic shelf ecosystems.
Abstract: Lithodid crabs (and other skeleton-crushing predators) may have been excluded from cold Antarctic continental shelf waters for more than 14 Myr. The west Antarctic Peninsula shelf is warming rapidly and has been hypothesized to be soon invaded by lithodids. A remotely operated vehicle survey in Palmer Deep, a basin 120 km onto the Antarctic shelf, revealed a large, reproductive population of lithodids, providing the first evidence that king crabs have crossed the Antarctic shelf. DNA sequencing and morphology indicate the lithodid is Neolithodes yaldwyni Ahyong & Dawson, previously reported only from Ross Sea waters. We estimate a N. yaldwyni population density of 10 600 km−2 and a population size of 1.55 × 106 in Palmer Deep, a density similar to lithodid populations of commercial interest around Alaska and South Georgia. The lithodid occurred at depths of more than 850 m and temperatures of more than 1.4°C in Palmer Deep, and was not found in extensive surveys of the colder shelf at depths of 430–725 m. Where N. yaldwyni occurred, crab traces were abundant, megafaunal diversity reduced and echinoderms absent, suggesting that the crabs have major ecological impacts. Antarctic Peninsula shelf waters are warming at approximately 0.01°C yr−1; if N. yaldwyni is currently limited by cold temperatures, it could spread up onto the shelf (400–600 m depths) within 1–2 decades. The Palmer Deep N. yaldwyni population provides an important model for the potential invasive impacts of crushing predators on vulnerable Antarctic shelf ecosystems.
111 citations
TL;DR: Investigations in recent years of the ecological structure and processes of the Southern Ocean have almost exclusively taken a bottom-up, forcing-by-physical-processes approach relating various species' population trends to climate change, prompting questions about the almost complete shift in paradigms that has occurred and whether it is leading Southern Ocean marine ecological science in an instructive direction.
Abstract: Investigations in recent years of the ecological structure and processes of the Southern Ocean have almost exclusively taken a bottom-up, forcing-by-physical-processes approach relating various species' population trends to climate change. Just 20 years ago, however, researchers focused on a broader set of hypotheses, in part formed around a paradigm positing interspecific interactions as central to structuring the ecosystem (forcing by biotic processes, top-down), and particularly on a "krill surplus" caused by the removal from the system of more than a million baleen whales. Since then, this latter idea has disappeared from favour with little debate. Moreover, it recently has been shown that concurrent with whaling there was a massive depletion of finfish in the Southern Ocean, a finding also ignored in deference to climate- related explanations of ecosystem change. We present two examples from the literature, one involving gelatinous organisms and the other involving penguins, in which climate has been used to explain species' population trends but which could better be explained by including species interactions in the modelling. We conclude by questioning the almost complete shift in paradigms that has occurred and discuss whether it is leading Southern Ocean marine ecological science in an instructive direction.
105 citations
"Precautionary spatial protection to..." refers methods in this paper
...If CCAMLR is to disentangle the potentially confounding effects of climate change and harvesting (Ainley et al., 2007; Nicol et al., 2007), manage ment methods should be structured in a manner that incorporates an experimental approach, setting aside reference areas of the ocean so that processes…...
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