Coral reef ecosystems are declining worldwide, yet regional differences in the trajectories, timing and extent of degradation highlight the need for in-depth regional case studies to understand the factors that contribute to either ecosystem sustainability or decline. We reconstructed social-ecological interactions in Hawaiian coral reef environments over 700 years using detailed datasets on ecological conditions, proximate anthropogenic stressor regimes and social change. Here we report previously undetected recovery periods in Hawaiian coral reefs, including a historical recovery in the MHI (~AD 1400–1820) and an ongoing recovery in the NWHI (~AD 1950–2009+). These recovery periods appear to be attributed to a complex set of changes in underlying social systems, which served to release reefs from direct anthropogenic stressor regimes. Recovery at the ecosystem level is associated with reductions in stressors over long time periods (decades+) and large spatial scales (>103 km2). Our results challenge conventional assumptions and reported findings that human impacts to ecosystems are cumulative and lead only to long-term trajectories of environmental decline. In contrast, recovery periods reveal that human societies have interacted sustainably with coral reef environments over long time periods, and that degraded ecosystems may still retain the adaptive capacity and resilience to recover from human impacts.
Increasing concerns regarding oil spills, air pollution, and climate change associated with fossil fuel use have increased the urgency of the search for renewable, clean sources of energy. This assessment describes the potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) to produce not only clean energy but also potable water, refrigeration, and aquaculture products. Higher oil prices and recent technical advances have improved the economic and technical viability of OTEC, perhaps making this technology more attractive and feasible than in the past. Relatively high capital costs associated with OTEC may require the integration of energy, food, and water production security in small island developing states (SIDSs) to improve cost-effectiveness. Successful implementation of OTEC at scale will require the application of insights and analytical methods from economics, technology, materials engineering, marine ecology, and other disciplines as well as a subsidized demonstration plant to provide operational data at near-commercial scales.
The Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) is highly endangered, but relatively little is known about how human societies interacted with the species in the past. We reviewed historical documents to reconstruct past human–monk seal relationships in the Hawaiian archipelago and describe ongoing efforts to understand the significance of the species in Native Hawaiian culture. Though the prehistoric period remains poorly understood, our findings suggest that monk seals were likely rare but not unknown to Hawaiian communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. References are made to monk seals in Hawaiian-language newspapers, and oral history research with Native Hawaiian practitioners and community elders reveals new words for the species that were previously unknown. This information may prove useful in crafting culturally appropriate management plans for the species and for developing more effective outreach activities to engage with coastal communities and ocean users. Our research may also aid in establishing long-term ecological baselines that can inform modern efforts to recover the species.
The effect of Ocean Acidification (OA) on marine biota is quasi-predictable at best. While perturbation studies, in the form of incubations under elevated pCO2, reveal sensitivities and responses of individual species, one missing link in the OA story results from a chronic lack of pH data specific to a given species' natural habitat. Here, we present a compilation of continuous, high-resolution time series of upper ocean pH, collected using autonomous sensors, over a variety of ecosystems ranging from polar to tropical, open-ocean to coastal, kelp forest to coral reef. These observations reveal a continuum of month-long pH variability with standard deviations from 0.004 to 0.277 and ranges spanning 0.024 to 1.430 pH units. The nature of the observed variability was also highly site-dependent, with characteristic diel, semi-diurnal, and stochastic patterns of varying amplitudes. These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100. Our data provide a first step toward crystallizing the biophysical link between environmental history of pH exposure and physiological resilience of marine organisms to fluctuations in seawater CO2. Knowledge of this spatial and temporal variation in seawater chemistry allows us to improve the design of OA experiments: we can test organisms with a priori expectations of their tolerance guardrails, based on their natural range of exposure. Such hypothesis-testing will provide a deeper understanding of the effects of OA. Both intuitively simple to understand and powerfully informative, these and similar comparative time series can help guide management efforts to identify areas of marine habitat that can serve as refugia to acidification as well as areas that are particularly vulnerable to future ocean change.
The Annual Report for fiscal year 2011 is the first for the Center for Ocean Solutions, and marks a new level of growth and development for the relatively young organization. Over 50 pages highlight progress on the Center’s three Strategic Initiatives, delve into work on a lengthy strategic planning process, and catalog outreach and communication on the part of the organization over the previous 12 months, ending in September.
In 2010, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (“Foundation”) Staff and Board of Trustees initiated a process to look beyond their ongoing ocean conservation efforts and gain a sense of the greater context of needs and opportunities in ocean philanthropy. The Trustees gathered at a meeting in early June 2010 to review and discuss these opportunities. In preparation for the meeting, Foundation staff commissioned a discussion paper that presents trends and future issues, surveys various ocean conservation strategies, and provides a qualitative analysis of opportunities, barriers to implementation, and potential for conservation results. This paper was first prepared to help inform and stimulate discussion among the Trustees at the June 2010 meeting. This final version has since been updated and expanded, and is meant to fuel lively discussion into the future.
The first step in processing olfactory information, before neural filtering, is the physical capture of odor molecules from the surrounding fluid. Many animals capture odors from turbulent water currents or wind using antennae that bear chemosensory hairs. We used planar laser-induced fluorescence to reveal how lobster olfactory antennules hydrodynamically alter the spatiotemporal patterns of concentration in turbulent odor plumes. As antennules flick, water penetrates their chemosensory hair array during the fast downstroke, carrying fine-scale patterns of concentration into the receptor area. This spatial pattern, blurred by flow along the antennule during the downstroke, is retained during the slower return stroke and is not shed until the next flick.
This study quantifies dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), soluble reactive phosphorous (SRP), and microbial pollutant inputs to a tropical embayment, Hanalei Bay, Kaua'i, Hawai'i from rural watersheds during two field excursions during non-storm conditions. We employ land cover analysis and a suite of nucleic acid fecal source tracking markers (host-specific Bacteroidales and human enterovirus) to identify sources of pollutants to the bay. The highest concentrations of DIN and SRP are in streams draining watersheds with large areas of cultivated land, suggesting fertilizer is a source of these nutrients to the streams and coastal waters. Pollutant areal loading correlates with the fractions of urban and cultivated land cover. Microbial source tracking indicates the presence of human, pig, and ruminant feces in the streams. This work provides preliminary evidence that human development affects loading of DIN, SRP, and microbial pollutants to tropical coastal waters; further study is needed to confirm this. Additionally, results point to a mix of microbial pollutant sources.
Large, regional-scale marine protected areas (MPAs) and MPA networks face different challenges in governance systems than locally managed or community-based MPAs. An emerging theme in large-scale MPA management is the prevalence of governance structures that rely on institutional collaboration, presenting new challenges as agencies with differing mandates and cultures work together to implement ecosystem-based management. We analyzed qualitative interview data to investigate multi-level social interactions and institutional responses to the surprise establishment of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (monument) in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). The governance arrangement for the monument represents a new model in US MPA management, requiring two federal agencies and the State of Hawai‘i to collaboratively manage the NWHI. We elucidate the principal barriers to institutional cotrusteeship, characterize institutional transformations that have occurred among the partner agencies in the transition to collaborative management, and evaluate the governance arrangement for the monument as a model for MPAs. The lessons learned from the NWHI governance arrangement are critical as large-scale MPAs requiring multiple-agency management become a prevalent feature on the global seascape.
Coastal and marine spatial planning (“CMSP”) is an evolving tool to help support ecosystem-based management through coordinated management and integrated ocean governance. CMSP is a process that proactively manages the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities and provides a means of managing potentially conflicting activities and accounting for cumulative impacts to ensure sustainable use of marine resources. From a fisheries management perspective, the role of the Regional Fishery Management Councils (“RFMCs” or “Councils”) in the broader CMSP framework remains an outstanding question. Understanding the nature and extent of their authority under existing laws, the types of information and data that are useful to spatial planning efforts, and what opportunities exist for them to contribute and influence the process can help federal fishery managers engage constructively in these types of coordinated planning processes.
There are numerous ways in which Councils can contribute constructively to multi-sector spatial planning and plenty of benefits that fisheries management may derive from a more coordinated marine management system. The first part of the paper considers the origins and drivers of CMSP and contemplates the potential role and value of Councils within a regional CMSP framework.
Recognizing that user-user and user-ecosystem conflicts will continue to persist in the marine environment regardless of whether a formal CMSP is developed and implemented, the second part of this paper explores existing tools and strategies to engage the fisheries sector in broader ocean planning efforts. Examining the current legal framework, we highlight incentives and avenues for Council involvement and identify ways that Councils can capitalize on their existing authority to influence and coordinate with other ocean users.
The analysis focuses on the relevant statutes and associated regulations of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act; however there are a range of other legal instruments that may provide Councils with some authority to engage in multi-sector spatial planning and decision making. The statutory and/or regulatory provisions highlighted here contain area-based mechanisms, tools for establishing activity restrictions, provisions supporting ecosystem-based management approaches, coordination and consultation requirements, and/or permitting and licensing processes in the marine environment.
With input from current fishery managers including Council members and staff as well as representatives of NOAA Fisheries, this report also explores some of the current challenges and opportunities associated with multi-sector spatial planning and outlines some potential strategies by which Councils can play a more active role in spatial planning in our oceans – with or without the development and implementation of a regional CMSP.
