Interventions to help coral reefs under global change – a complex decision challenge

Climate change is impacting coral reefs now. Recent pan-tropical bleaching events driven by unprecedented global heat waves have shifted the playing field for coral reef management and policy. While best-practice conventional management remains essential, it may no longer be enough to sustain coral reefs under continued climate change. Nor will climate change mitigation be sufficient on its own. Committed warming and projected reef decline means solutions must involve a portfolio of mitigation, best practice conventional management and coordinated restoration and adaptation measures involving new and perhaps radical interventions. We propose that proactive research and development to expand the reef management toolbox fast but safely, combined with expedient trialling of promising interventions is now urgently needed, whatever emissions trajectory the world follows. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of embracing new interventions in a race against time, including their risks and uncertainties. Ultimately, solutions to the climate challenge for coral reefs will require consideration of what society wants, what can be achieved technically and economically, and what opportunities we have for action in a rapidly closing window. Finding solutions that work for coral reefs and people will require exceptional levels of coordination of science, management and policy, and open engagement with society. It will also require compromise, because reefs will change under climate change despiteour best interventions. We argue that being clear about society’s priorities, and understanding both the opportunities and risks that come with an expanded toolset, can help us make the most of a challenging situation

Data-driven recommendations for enhancing real-time natural hazard warnings, communication, and response

The effectiveness and adequacy of natural hazard warnings hinges on the availability of data and its transformation into actionable knowledge for the public. Real-time warning communication and emergency response therefore need to be evaluated from a data science perspective. However, there are currently gaps between established data science best practices and their application in supporting natural hazard warnings. This Perspective reviews existing data-driven approaches that underpin real-time warning communication and emergency response, highlighting limitations in hazard and impact forecasts. Four main themes for enhancing warnings are emphasised: (i) applying best-practice principles in visualising hazard forecasts, (ii) data opportunities for more effective impact forecasts, (iii) utilising data for more localised forecasts, and (iv) improving data-driven decision-making using uncertainty. Motivating examples are provided from the extensive flooding experienced in Australia in 2022. This Perspective shows the capacity for improving the efficacy of natural hazard warnings using data science, and the collaborative potential between the data science and natural hazards communities

Operationalizing marketable blue carbon

The global carbon sequestration and avoided emissions potentially achieved via blue carbon is high (∼3% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions); however, it is limited by multidisciplinary and interacting uncertainties spanning the social, governance, financial, and technological dimensions. We compiled a transdisciplinary team of experts to elucidate these challenges and identify a way forward. Key actions to enhance blue carbon as a natural climate solution include improving policy and legal arrangements to ensure equitable sharing of benefits; improving stewardship by incorporating indigenous knowledge and values; clarifying property rights; improving financial approaches and accounting tools to incorporate co-benefits; developing technological solutions for measuring blue carbon sequestration at low cost; and resolving knowledge gaps regarding blue carbon cycles. Implementing these actions and operationalizing blue carbon will achieve measurable changes to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, provide multiple co-benefits, and address national obligations associated with international agreements

Morphology and development in Aspergillus nidulans: A complex puzzle

11 páginas, 2 figuras, 4 tablas -- PAGS nros. S82-S92Like other filamentous fungi, Aspergillus nidulans forms a multitude of cell types that facilitate colonization and development. The molecular basis of cellular morphogenesis in A. nidulans is not well understood. Here, we summarize results obtained from detailed annotation of the A. nidulans genome sequence for genes with predicted roles in morphogenesis, with primary focus on polarized growth, calcium signaling, and development. We draw three broad conclusions from our results. First, the components of the signal transduction pathways and morphogenetic machinery as defined in the model yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe are largely conserved in A. nidulans. Second, A. nidulans possesses many additional genes implicated in morphogenesis that are not conserved in these yeasts. Third, the number of A. nidulans genes involved in morphogenesis is likely to be rather large; based on our annotation, we estimate that as many as 2000 A. nidulans genes encode proteins that may participate at some level in morphogenesis during vegetative growth and developmentE.A.E is grateful to the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (D.G.I.C.Y.T) for support through Grant BFU2006-04185Peer reviewe

Prioritizing eradication actions on islands: It's not all or nothing

1. Many highly diverse island ecosystems across the globe are threatened by invasive species. Eradications of invasive mammals from islands are being attempted with increasing frequency, with success aided by geographical isolation and increasing knowledge of eradication techniques. There have been many attempts to prioritize islands for invasive species eradication; however, these coarse methods all assume managers are unrealistically limited to a single action on each island: either eradicate all invasive mammals, or do nothing

Abiotic and biotic interactions determine whether increased colonization is beneficial or detrimental to metapopulation management

Increasing the colonization rate of metapopulations can improve persistence, but can also increase exposure to threats. To make good decisions, managers must understand whether increased colonization is beneficial or detrimental to metapopulation persistence. While a number of studies have examined interactions between metapopulations, colonization, and threats, they have assumed that threat dynamics respond linearly to changes in colonization. Here, we determined when to increase colonization while explicitly accounting for non-linear dependencies between a metapopulation and its threats. We developed patch occupancy metapopulation models for species susceptible to abiotic, generalist, and specialist threats and modeled the total derivative of the equilibrium proportion of patches occupied by each metapopulation with respect to the colonization rate. By using the total derivative, we developed a rule for determining when to increase metapopulation colonization. This rule was applied to a simulated metapopulation where the dynamics of each threat responded to increased colonization following a power function. Before modifying colonization, we show that managers must understand: (1) whether a metapopulation is susceptible to a threat; (2) the type of threat acting on a metapopulation; (3) which component of threat dynamics might depend on colonization, and; (4) the likely response of a threat-dependent variable to changes in colonization. The sensitivity of management decisions to these interactions increases uncertainty in conservation planning decisions

Beyond expected values: Making environmental decisions using value of information analysis when measurement outcome matters

In ecological and environmental contexts, management actions must sometimes be chosen urgently. Value of information (VoI) analysis provides a quantitative toolkit for projecting the improved management outcomes expected after making additional measurements. However, traditional VoI analysis reports metrics as expected values (i.e. risk-neutral). This can be problematic because expected values hide uncertainties in projections. The true value of a measurement will only be known after the measurement's outcome is known, leaving large uncertainty in the measurement's value before it is performed. As a result, the expected value metrics produced in traditional VoI analysis may not align with the priorities of a risk-averse decision-maker who wants to avoid low-value measurement outcomes. In the present work, we introduce four new VoI metrics that can address a decision-maker's risk-aversion to different measurement outcomes. We demonstrate the benefits of the new metrics with two ecological case studies for which traditional VoI analysis has been previously applied. In the first case study concerning a test for disease presence at a potential frog translocation site, traditional VoI analysis predicts the test yields an additional expected gain of approximately 10 frogs. However, our new VoI metrics also highlight a 40% risk that the test is valueless; this knowledge may deter a risk-averse decision-maker from doing the test. In the second case study concerning the design of a trial release prior to a large-scale turtle reintroduction, traditional and new VoI metrics have consistent predictions of which design to choose. However, whilst the best trial release design will increase expected turtle survival in the wild by only 3%, the new VoI metrics find that this trial design has a 94\% probability of improving the design of the large-scale turtle reintroduction. Using the new metrics, we also demonstrate a clear mathematical link between the often-separated environmental decision-making disciplines of VoI and optimal design of experiments. This mathematical link has the potential to catalyse future collaborations between ecologists and statisticians to work together to quantitatively address environmental decision-making questions of fundamental importance. Overall, the introduced VoI metrics complement existing metrics to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive view of the value of, and risks associated with, a proposed monitoring or measurement activity. This is critical for improved environmental outcomes when decisions must be urgently made