Ecological criteria for evaluation candidate sites for marine reserves

Several schemes have been developed to help select the locations of marine reserves. All of them combine social, economic, and biological criteria, and few offer any guidance as to how to prioritize among the criteria identified. This can imply that the relative weights given to different criteria are unimportant. Where two sites are of equal value ecologically, then socioeconomic criteria should dominate the choice of which should be protected. However, in many cases, socioeconomic criteria are given equal or greater weight than ecological considerations in the choice of sites. This can lead to selection of reserves with little biological value that fail to meet many of the desired objectives. To avoid such a possibility, we develop a series of criteria that allow preliminary evaluation of candidate sites according to their relative biological values in advance of the application of socioeconomic criteria. We include criteria that, while not strictly biological, have a strong influence on the species present or ecological processes. Our scheme enables sites to be assessed according to their biodiversity, the processes which underpin that diversity, and the processes that support fisheries and provide a spectrum of other services important to people. Criteria that capture biodiversity values include biogeographic representation, habitat representation and heterogeneity, and presence of species or populations of special interest (e.g., threatened species). Criteria that capture sustainability of biodiversity and fishery values include the size of reserves necessary to protect viable habitats, presence of exploitable species, vulnerable life stages, connectivity among reserves, links among ecosystems, and provision of ecosystem services to people. Criteria measuring human and natural threats enable candidate sites to be eliminated from consideration if risks are too great, but also help prioritize among sites where threats can be mitigated by protection. While our criteria can be applied to the design of reserve networks, they also enable choice of single reserves to be made in the context of the attributes of existing protected areas. The overall goal of our scheme is to promote the development of reserve networks that will maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning at large scales. The values of ecosystem goods and services for people ultimately depend on meeting this objective

Biological life-history and farming scenarios of marine aquaculture to help reduce wild marine fishing pressure

Aquaculture (freshwater and marine) has largely supplemented fisheries, but in theory could help reduce fishing pressure on wild stocks. Although not the sole factors, some potential benefits depend on aquaculture pressures on fished species, including collection of wild ‘seed’ material—earlier to later life stages—for rearing in captivity and the capacity of aquaculture to increase. Here we first classify 203 marine (saltwater and brackish) animal species as being produced by either open-cycle capture-based aquaculture (CBA) or closed-cycle domesticated aquaculture (DA)—based on their likely reliance on wild seed—and assess the extent to which these forms of aquaculture could support seafood production and greater wild biomass. Using a data-limited modelling approach, we find evidence that current aquaculture practices are not necessarily helping reduce fishing to sustainable levels for their wild counterparts—consistent with emerging scientific research. However, if some wild capture species (87 equivalent spp.) were instead produced through CBA, almost a million extra tonnes could theoretically be left in the wild, without reducing seafood production. Alternatively, if reliance on wild seed inputs is further reduced by shifting to DA production, then a little less than doubling of aquaculture of the overexploited species in our study could help fill the ‘production gap’ to support fishing at maximum sustainable levels. While other ecological (e.g. escapes), social and economic considerations (e.g. market substitution) are important, we focused on a critical biological linkage between wild fisheries and aquaculture that provides another aspect on how to improve management alignment of the sectors

Scenario analysis can guide aquaculture planning to meet sustainable future production goals

Marine aquaculture holds great promise for meeting increasing demand for healthy protein that is sustainably produced, but reaching necessary production levels will be challenging. The ecosystem approach to aquaculture is a framework for sustainable aquaculture development that prioritizes multiple-stakeholder participation and spatial planning. These types of approaches have been increasingly used to help guide sustainable, persistent, and equitable aquaculture planning, but most countries have difficulties in setting or meeting longer-term development goals. Scenario analysis (SA) for future planning uses similar approaches and can complement holistic methods, such as the ecosystem approach to aquaculture framework, by providing a temporal analogue to the spatially robust design. Here we define the SA approach to planning in aquaculture, outline how SA can benefit aquaculture planning, and review how this tool is already being used. We track the use of planning tools in the 20 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea member nations, with particular attention given to Norway’s development goals to 2050. We conclude that employing a combination of an ecosystem framework with scenario analyses may help identify the scale of development aquaculture goals over time, aid in evaluating the feasibility of the desired outcomes, and highlight potential social-ecological conflicts and trade-offs that may otherwise be overlooked.Versión del editor2,27

Applications of a New Proposal for Solving the "Problem of Time" to Some Simple Quantum Cosmological Models

We apply a recent proposal for defining states and observables in quantum gravity to simple models. First, we consider a Klein-Gordon particle in an ex- ternal potential in Minkowski space and compare our proposal to the theory ob- tained by deparametrizing with respect to a time slicing prior to quantiza- tion. We show explicitly that the dynamics of the deparametrization approach depends on the time slicing. Our proposal yields a dynamics independent of the choice of time slicing at intermediate times but after the potential is turned off, the dynamics does not return to the free particle dynamics. Next we apply our proposal to the closed Robertson-Walker quantum cosmology with a massless scalar field with the size of the universe as our time variable, so the only dynamical variable is the scalar field. We show that the resulting theory has the semi-classical behavior up to the classical turning point from expansion to contraction, i.e., given a classical solution which expands for much longer than the Planck time, there is a quantum state whose dynamical evolution closely approximates this classical solution during the expansion. However, when the "time" gets larger than the classical maximum, the scalar field be- comes "frozen" at its value at the maximum expansion. We also obtain similar results in the Taub model. In an Appendix we derive the form of the Wheeler- DeWitt equation for the Bianchi models by performing a proper quantum reduc- tion of the momentum constraints; this equation differs from the usual one ob- tained by solving the momentum constraints classically, prior to quantization.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX 3 figures (postscript file or hard copy) available upon request, BUTP-94/1

The trade-off between tidal-turbine array yield and impact on flow: A multi-objective optimisation problem

Abstract This paper introduces a new approach for investigating trade-offs between different societal objectives in the design of tidal-turbine arrays. This method is demonstrated through the trade-off between the yield of an array, and the extent to which that array alters the flow. This is posed as a multi-objective optimisation problem, and the problem is investigated using the array layout optimisation tool OpenTidalFarm. Motivated by environmental concerns, OpenTidalFarm is adapted to not only maximise array yield but also to minimise the effect of the array upon the hydrodynamics of the region, specifically the flow velocity. A linear scalarisation of the multi-objective optimisation problem is solved for a series of different weightings of the two conflicting objectives. Two idealised test scenarios are evaluated and in each case a set of Pareto solutions is found. These arrays are assessed for the power they generate and the severity of change they cause in the flow velocity. These analyses allow for the identification of trade-offs between these two objectives, while the methods proposed can similarly be applied to the two key societal objectives of energy production and conservation, thus providing information that could be valuable to stakeholders and policymakers when making decisions on array design

Marine conservation : towards a multi-layered network approach

Valuing, managing and conserving marine biodiversity and a full range of ecosystem services is at the forefront of research and policy agendas. However, biodiversity is being lost at up to a thousand times the average background rate. Traditional disciplinary and siloed conservation approaches are not able to tackle this massive loss of biodiversity because they generally ignore or overlook the interactive and dynamic nature of ecosystems processes, limiting their predictability. To conserve marine biodiversity, we must assess the interactions and impacts among biodiversity and ecosystem services (BD-ES). The scaling up in complexity from single species to entire communities is necessary, albeit challenging, for a deeper understanding of how ecosystem services relate to biodiversity and the roles species have in ecosystem service provision. These interactions are challenging to map, let alone fully assess, but network and system-based approaches provide a powerful way to progress beyond those limitations. Here, we introduce a conceptual multi-layered network approach to understanding how ecosystem services supported by biodiversity drive the total service provision, how different stressors impact BD-ES and where conservation efforts should be placed to optimize the delivery of ecosystem services and protection of biodiversity

Sugawara-type constraints in hyperbolic coset models

In the conjectured correspondence between supergravity and geodesic models on infinite-dimensional hyperbolic coset spaces, and E10/K(E10) in particular, the constraints play a central role. We present a Sugawara-type construction in terms of the E10 Noether charges that extends these constraints infinitely into the hyperbolic algebra, in contrast to the truncated expressions obtained in arXiv:0709.2691 that involved only finitely many generators. Our extended constraints are associated to an infinite set of roots which are all imaginary, and in fact fill the closed past light-cone of the Lorentzian root lattice. The construction makes crucial use of the E10 Weyl group and of the fact that the E10 model contains both D=11 supergravity and D=10 IIB supergravity. Our extended constraints appear to unite in a remarkable manner the different canonical constraints of these two theories. This construction may also shed new light on the issue of `open constraint algebras' in traditional canonical approaches to gravity.Comment: 49 page

Cultural keystone species as a tool for biocultural stewardship. A global review

The cultural keystone species (CKS) concept (i.e. ‘species that shape in a major way the cultural identity of a people’ as defined by Garibaldi and Turner in 2004) has been proposed as part of a common framing for the multiple entangled relationships between species and the socioecological systems in which they exist. However, the blurred and prolific definitions of CKS hamper its univocal application. This work examines the current use of the term CKS to reconcile a definition and explore its practical applications for biocultural stewardship. We ran a search for the words ‘cultural’ AND ‘keystone’ AND ‘species’. Our search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1994 and 2022 (inclusive) and was conducted using Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. We extracted and analysed bibliometric information as well as information on (i) the CKS components, (ii) humans' support for CKS and (iii) the definitions of CKS. From the 313 selected documents, the CKS concept appears to be increasingly accepted, as evidenced by a growing corpus of literature. However, the absence of a systematic and precise way of documenting CKS precludes global cross-cultural comparisons. The geographical distribution of authors using the concept is biased. We found that 47% of all the CKS reported and 38% of the works identified in our review were located in North America. Beyond ‘supporting identity’, several other of nature's contributions to people are associated with the CKS definitions. However, the contributions of the sociocultural group to the survival and conservation of the CKS (i.e. stewardship) are made explicit only in one-third of the documents reviewed. To advance biocultural stewardship as a conservation paradigm, we suggest (a) defining CKS as an indissoluble combination of a non-human species and one or more sociocultural groups; (b) acknowledging that species and sociocultural group relations should be classified in a continuum, according to gradients of relationship intensity; and (c) explicitly acknowledging the reciprocal relationships between sociocultural groups and species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. © 2024 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.We would like to acknowledge Kelsey Leonard for her contribution to an early draft of this manuscript. G.M. acknowledges funding from the Margarita Salas grant MGSC2022-13. V.R.-G. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council under an ERC Consolidator Grant (FP7-771056-LICCI). R.C.-L. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation Starting Grant (TMSGI3_211659). N.Z.-C. acknowledges that this research is supported by María de Maeztu Excellence Unit 2023-2027 (CEX2021- 001201-M), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; and by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program. S.D. acknowledges funding from Redes Federales de Alto Impacto MinCyT Argentina (CONVE2023-102072649-APN-MCT). This work contributes to the ‘María de Maeztu’ Programme Excellence Unit of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CEX2019-000940-M

Track D Social Science, Human Rights and Political Science

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138414/1/jia218442.pd