Finding bridges between biodiversity research and ecosystem–based management

Today, it appears safe to say that in principle we know enough to improve management actions, but that existing and new knowledge is not applied to the extent needed. Adaptive policy and ecosystem-based management are considered ways forward for the future. To put things simple: this will require including more of what we know in policy and management and continuously reviewing and updating practices. The BONUS programme with projects bringing into contact integrative teams spanning broad areas of expertise from fundamental science to modellers and policy experts, but also ICES with its integrative working groups, foster a much needed basis for such adaptive management. They point the way towards a more generalised integration of the scientific, conservation, resource management and policy domains. These efforts are much needed and, if continued and expanded, will take us closer to a sustainable future for the Baltic Sea. In this article we give concrete examples based on research by three BONUS projects on how scientific information is integrated into adaptive fisheries management

The journeys of Wally and Wilma: how scientists reconstruct the movements of fish

Have you ever lost your phone and used its GPS function to locate it? To learn about fish, scientists are interested in where fish go and what they experience but GPS technology does not work underwater. Scientists therefore developed small electronic data loggers that can be attached to fish, to record conditions in a fish’s environment. When the fish is recaptured, this information can be downloaded and returned to the scientists. The fish’s movements can then be reconstructed by comparing the recorded measurements with the conditions in the sea. In this article, we explain how this method works and tell you the story of two cod with very dierent fates: Wally, who moved around to feed and to produce ospring, and Wilma, who went on an adventure with a surprising endi

Connectivity of larval cod in the transition area between North Sea and Baltic Sea and potential implications for fisheries management

Connectivity of pelagic, early life stages via transport by ocean currents may affect survival chances of offspring, recruitment success, and mixing of stocks across management units. Based on drift model studies, transport patterns of particles representing exogenously feeding cod larvae in the transition area between North Sea and Baltic were investigated to (i) determine long-term trends and variability in advective transport of larvae from spawning grounds to juvenile nursery areas, (ii) estimate the degree of exchange between different management areas, and (iii) compare the results with spatial distributions of juvenile cod. The transport of particles showed considerable intra- and interannual variability, but also some general patterns of retention within and dispersion to different management areas. Good spatial overlap of particle end positions, representing potential juvenile settlement areas, with observed distributions of juveniles in bottom trawl surveys suggests that the drift simulations provide reasonable estimates of early life stage connectivity between cod populations in the investigated areas. High exchange rates of particles between management areas of up to ca. 70% suggest that cod populations in the investigated areas are demographically correlated. Results are discussed in relation to their relevance for stock structure, fish stock assessment, and management

The journeys of Wally and Wilma: how scientists reconstruct the movements of fish

Have you ever lost your phone and used its GPS function to locate it? To learn about fish, scientists are interested in where fish go and what they experience but GPS technology does not work underwater. Scientists therefore developed small electronic data loggers that can be attached to fish, to record conditions in a fish’s environment. When the fish is recaptured, this information can be downloaded and returned to the scientists. The fish’s movements can then be reconstructed by comparing the recorded measurements with the conditions in the sea. In this article, we explain how this method works and tell you the story of two cod with very different fates: Wally, who moved around to feed and to endin

Influences of special driving situations on emissions of passenger cars

Emission factors and emission inventories are an im-portant source of data for compiling and modelling the emissions of traffic in different situations. There is in EU a continuous work and development of emission data inventories, [1–6]. Since the introduction (in 2017) of the road-testing (RDE – real driving emissions) as an obligatory element of the legal testing procedures, the increased amount of RDE-data can be used for different objectives, such as: further development of emission inventories, compliance with “In-Service Conformity” (ISC, EU regulation 2018/1832) and market surveillance activities (EU regulation 2018/858). Extensive activities of testing RDE by means of PEMS (portable emissions measuring systems) have been per-formed in the last years, aiming not only the emissions but also the improvements of instrumentation, of testing procedures and of evaluation [5–17]. A well-known fact is that the emissions at cold start, during the warm-up and at the low speed phases of urban operation, both in the laboratory and on the road, tend to be higher for all pollutants [13, 18–24]. This fact supports even the idea for future introduction of urban emission limits for the short trips, which are very frequent in Europe [5]. In order to enable an automatic co-evaluation of emissions from the special (non)driving situations, the necessary definitions were proposed in the present work. With these definitions, the RDE data of 7 vehicles were processed and the emissions in special driving situations were obtained (part 1). Additionally, some special situations like cold start, warm-up and stop&go were reproduced on the chassis dynamometer with cars of different ages and different tech-nology (part 2). This paper gives some new insights in the topic of emissions from special driving situations