Towards incorporation of blue carbon in Falkland Islands marine spatial planning: a multi-tiered approach

Ecosystem-based conservation that includes carbon sinks, alongside a linked carbon credit system, as part of a nature-based solution to combating climate change, could help reduce greenhouse gas levels and therefore the impact of their emissions. Blue carbon habitats and pathways can also facilitate biodiversity retention, aiding sustainable fisheries and island economies. However, robust blue carbon research is often limited at the scale of regional governance and management, lacking both incentives and facilitation of policy-integration. The remote and highly biodiverse coastal ecosystems and surrounding continental shelf can be used to better inform long-term ecosystem-based management in the vast South Atlantic Ocean and sub-Antarctic, to synergistically protect both unique biodiversity and inform on the magnitude of nature-based benefits they provide. Understanding key ecosystem information such as their location, extent, and condition of habitat types, will be critical in understanding carbon pathways to sequestration, threats to this, and vulnerability. This paper considers the current status of blue carbon data and information available, and what is still required before blue carbon can be used as a conservation management tool integrated in national Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) initiatives. Our research indicates that the data and information gathered has enabled baselines for a number of different blue carbon ecosystems, and indicated potential threats and vulnerability that need to be managed. However, significant knowledge gaps remain across habitats, such as salt marsh, mudflats and the mesophotic zones, which hinders meaningful progress on the ground where it is needed most

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Data from: Flat and complex temperate reefs provide similar support for fish: evidence for a unimodal species-habitat relationship

Structural complexity, a form of habitat heterogeneity, influences the structure and function of ecological communities, generally supporting increased species density, richness, and diversity. Recent research, however, suggests the most complex habitats may not harbor the highest density of individuals and number of species, especially in areas with elevated human influence. Understanding nuances in relationships between habitat heterogeneity and ecological communities is warranted to guide habitat-focused conservation and management efforts. We conducted fish and structural habitat surveys of thirty warm-temperate reefs on the southeastern US continental shelf to quantify how structural complexity influences fish communities. We found that intermediate complexity maximizes fish abundance on natural and artificial reefs, as well as species richness on natural reefs, challenging the current paradigm that abundance and other fish community metrics increase with increasing complexity. Naturally occurring rocky reefs of flat and complex morphologies supported equivalent abundance, biomass, species richness, and community composition of fishes. For flat and complex morphologies of rocky reefs to receive equal consideration as essential fish habitat (EFH), special attention should be given to detecting pavement type rocky reefs because their ephemeral nature makes them difficult to detect with typical seafloor mapping methods. Artificial reefs of intermediate complexity also maximized fish abundance, but human-made structures composed of low-lying concrete and metal ships differed in community types, with less complex, concrete structures supporting lower numbers of fishes classified largely as demersal species and metal ships protruding into the water column harboring higher numbers of fishes, including more pelagic species. Results of this study are essential to the process of evaluating habitat function provided by different types and shapes of reefs on the seafloor so that all EFH across a wide range of habitat complexity may be accurately identified and properly managed

Fish data

Fish dat

Fish community metrics by morphological category for natural reefs (blue; N_{pavement&rubble} = 38, N_ledge = 29) and artificial reefs (red; N_concrete = 17, N_ship = 39).

<p>A) Fish abundance (fishes per 120 m²). B) Fish biomass (kg / 120 m²). C) Fish species richness. Data displayed are untransformed, whereas ANOVAs were conducted on log-transformed data for abundance and biomass to meet assumptions of homogeneity of variance.</p

GLM results for the relationship between fish community metrics (abundance, biomass, richness) and environmental predictor variables by reef type.

<p>Environmental variables include digital reef rugosity (DRR (m)), squared digital reef rugosity (DRR ^<i>2</i> (m)), average reef depth (m), average water temperature (°C), and standard deviation of sediment cover (m) approximating sediment dynamics. Coefficients, standard error (SE), Z-values and <i>P</i>-values are provided for each environmental parameter. Bold values indicate significance or marginal significance. Interpretation of the pattern (unimodal or non-significant (NS)) between rugosity and the fish community metric are displayed for each model. Model results displayed here were from the best models that we evaluated.</p

Biplot of nonmetric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) ordination for fish community at the family level overlaid with indicators of reef morphologies.

<p>Ellipses are 50% confidence intervals for samples classified by each reef morphology. Family names correspond to weighted averages of indicator families, colored according to morphology or reef type (artificial or natural).</p

Relationship between digital reef rugosity (DRR) and fish community metrics on natural (blue) and artificial (red) temperate reefs.

<p>A) Kernel density of digital reef rugosity (DRR) by reef type (N_{<i>natural</i>} = 67, N_{<i>artificial</i>} = 56). B-G) Three-dimensional surface plot of GLM between fish community metrics and environmental predictor variables for natural reefs (left column) and artificial reefs (right column). Perspective grid surface represents GLM predictions. Points are raw data. Perpendicular segments attached to points depict whether the raw data are above (positive, dark color) or below (negative, light color) the surface predicted by GLM. Abundance (fishes / 120 m^<i>2</i>) was modeled with a negative-binomial error distribution (b-c), biomass (kg / 120 m^<i>2</i>) with a gamma distribution (d-e), and species richness with a Poisson distribution (f-g).</p

Thirty temperate reefs, including natural (blue circles) and artificial (red triangles) reefs, surveyed on the continental shelf of NC.

<p>Point size is proportional to mean digital reef rugosity (DRR) from transects on the particular reef. Symbols overlap for two artificial reefs located in northern Onslow Bay.</p