The blue economy - cultural livelihood - ecosystem conservation triangle : the African experience

Publications costs were supported by the University of St Andrews to IO-Y and the New England Aquarium-Marine Conservation and Action Fund (MCAF) to NK.The concept of Blue Economy (BE) is recognised as central for sustainable development that incorporates socio-economic benefits and ecological conservation. However, in Africa, much of the emphasis on BE is placed on economic gains; as a result, traditional livelihoods and small-scale local operations are outcompeted by international corporations and government initiatives, with little or no regard for social inclusion and environmental sustainability. We argue that successful BE initiatives in Africa accentuate the involvement of local communities and promote sustenance of the natural ecosystem. We define success in terms of the sustainability balance among ecological, social and economic aspects. Drawing on extensive expert experiences, observational data and literature review of case studies across the African continent, we highlight two critical findings. First, large scale BE initiatives prioritise economic gains at the expense of environmental degradation and the exclusion of local communities. Second, using the full spectrum sustainability (FSS) evaluation, we show that successful BE interventions considered ecological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional objectives. Drawing on these case studies, we propose the adoption of a collaborative framework which amalgamates the top-down and bottom-up approaches to BE management. Achieving the goal of successful blue growth in Africa is now even more challenged by the implications of COVID-19 on the BE sectors. Reimagining and rebuilding a resilient BE in Africa post-coronavirus will require a strong political commitment to promoting a balance between economic, social and environmental benefits in line with the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Synthesis of novel (1-alkanoyloxy-4- alkanoylaminobutylidene)-1,1-bisphosphonic acid derivatives

Abstract A novel strategy for the synthesis of (1-alkanoyloxy-4-alkanoylaminobutylidene)-1,1-bisphosphonic acid derivatives (1a-d) via (1-hydroxy-4-alkanoylaminobutylidene)-1,1-bisphosphonic acid derivatives (2a-d), starting from alendronate has been developed with reasonable 51-77% overall yields. Intermediate products, (1-hydroxy-4-alkanoylaminobutylidene)-1,1-bisphosphonic acid derivatives (2a-d), were prepared in water with reasonable to high yields (52-94%)

eQTL Catalogue 2023: New datasets, X chromosome QTLs, and improved detection and visualisation of transcript-level QTLs

The eQTL Catalogue is an open database of uniformly processed human molecular quantitative trait loci (QTLs). We are continuously updating the resource to further increase its utility for interpreting genetic associations with complex traits. Over the past two years, we have increased the number of uniformly processed studies from 21 to 31 and added X chromosome QTLs for 19 compatible studies. We have also implemented Leafcutter to directly identify splice-junction usage QTLs in all RNA sequencing datasets. Finally, to improve the interpretability of transcript-level QTLs, we have developed static QTL coverage plots that visualise the association between the genotype and average RNA sequencing read coverage in the region for all 1.7 million fine mapped associations. To illustrate the utility of these updates to the eQTL Catalogue, we performed colocalisation analysis between vitamin D levels in the UK Biobank and all molecular QTLs in the eQTL Catalogue. Although most GWAS loci colocalised both with eQTLs and transcript-level QTLs, we found that visual inspection could sometimes be used to distinguish primary splicing QTLs from those that appear to be secondary consequences of large-effect gene expression QTLs. While these visually confirmed primary splicing QTLs explain just 6/53 of the colocalising signals, they are significantly less pleiotropic than eQTLs and identify a prioritised causal gene in 4/6 cases

Sublittoral seaweed communities on natural and artificial substrata in a high-latitude coral community in South Africa

Coral mortality may result in macroalgal proliferation or a phase shift into an alga dominated state. Subtidal, high-latitude western Indian Ocean coral communities at Sodwana Bay on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, South Africa, have experienced some mortality because of warm water anomalies, storms and other causes, but the response of the macroalgae is unknown. We investigated the abundance and diversity of benthic algae on different hard natural substrata (dead digitate, brain and plate corals and beach rock) on Two-Mile Reef, Sodwana Bay. We also compared algal communities colonising ceramic, marble and pretreated ceramic tiles placed on the reef for six months. We identified 95 algae (14 Chlorophyta, 11 Phaeophyceae, 69 Rhodophyta and one cyanobacterium). Assemblages on natural and artificial substrata were dominated by the brown alga Lobophora variegata (Lamouroux) Womersley ex Oliveira and non-geniculate corallines (Rhodophyta, Corallinaceae). Cluster and ordination analyses revealed that the algae showed no affinity for particular substrata, whether natural or artificial. Algal cover was occasionally higher on rougher tiles and crustose corallines were significantly more abundant on marble than ceramic tiles. Two-Mile Reef had 23.1% dead and 48.4% live scleractinian coral cover, where dead corals were colonised indiscriminately by many small algal species, but there was no evidence of algal proliferation. The results provide a baseline for monitoring this high-latitude reef system.DHE

A Roadmap for Using the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development in Support of Science, Policy, and Action

The health of the ocean, central to human well-being, has now reached a critical point. Most fish stocks are overexploited, climate change and increased dissolved carbon dioxide are changing ocean chemistry and disrupting species throughout food webs, and the fundamental capacity of the ocean to regulate the climate has been altered. However, key technical, organizational, and conceptual scientific barriers have prevented the identification of policy levers for sustainability and transformative action. Here, we recommend key strategies to address these challenges, including (1) stronger integration of sciences and (2) ocean-observing systems, (3) improved science-policy interfaces, (4) new partnerships supported by (5) a new ocean-climate finance system, and (6) improved ocean literacy and education to modify social norms and behaviors. Adopting these strategies could help establish ocean science as a key foundation of broader sustainability transformations

Max-average: an extended max-min scheduling algorithm for Grid computing environtment

Sharing numerous computational and communication power from connected heterogeneous systems over the world are the two key points of Grid computing. Grid computing can also be referred as a computing platform for users to utilise the remote heterogeneous resources for solving their large scale jobs that require a huge amount of processing power or a huge data storage. Sharing these resources that way effectively requires a very good scheduling strategy, which is the focus of this research. This paper presents a new proposed grid based scheduling algorithm called Max-Average, inspired from Max-Min algorithm. In order to produce good quality solutions, the proposed algorithm is designed in two phases; firstly it uses an initial task queue like the traditional Max -Min for estimating task completion time for each of resources, and in the second phase choose the fitting resource for scheduling according to requirements. The results from our simulation showed that our proposed algorithm is performing better in producing good quality solutions, particularly in executing tasks fast and in balancing the load (resource utilisation) among the resources more effectively when compared to standard Minimum Execution Time (MET), Minimum Completion Time (MCT), Min-Min, and Max-Min heuristic approaches

Induction and reduction of anti-herbivore defenses in brown and red macroalgae off the Kenyan coast

Herbivory is particularly intense in tropical benthic communities, suggesting preference of constitutive, rather than inducible, anti-herbivory defense. The objective of the study was to examine whether anti-herbivore defenses in the red alga Hypnea pannosa J. Agardh and the brown algae Sargassum asperifolium Hering and G. Martens ex J. Agardh and Cystoseira myrica (S.G. Gmelin) C. Agardh could be induced and subsequently reduced in response to grazing by the amphipod Cymadusa filosa Savigny. During a 14-day treatment phase, algae were exposed to amphipod grazing or were left ungrazed (control). Subsequently, one subset of algae was used in feeding assays, whereas another was cultivated for additional 14 days without consumers (recovery phase). At the end of each phase, bioassays were conducted to detect defensive traits in terms of differences in consumption rates of grazed and control pieces of live algae and agar-based food containing nonpolar algal extracts. Consumption of grazed live S. asperifolium and H. pannosa specimens was lower than of control algae. Furthermore, nonpolar extracts of grazed S. asperifolium and C. myrica were less preferred than those from control algae. Defensive responses were exclusively detected after the treatment phase, although strong preference of ungrazed H. pannosa and C. myrica over grazed conspecifics continued throughout the recovery phase. These findings suggest that phenotypic plasticity in anti-herbivory defense of marine macroalgae 1) might be more common than previously shown, 2) could be switched on and off within 2 weeks, and 3) can be found in nonpolar algal extracts

The blue economy - cultural livelihood - ecosystem conservation triangle:the African experience

The concept of Blue Economy (BE) is recognised as central for sustainable development that incorporates socio-economic benefits and ecological conservation. However, in Africa, much of the emphasis on BE is placed on economic gains; as a result, traditional livelihoods and small-scale local operations are outcompeted by international corporations and government initiatives, with little or no regard for social inclusion and environmental sustainability. We argue that successful BE initiatives in Africa accentuate the involvement of local communities and promote sustenance of the natural ecosystem. We define success in terms of the sustainability balance among ecological, social and economic aspects. Drawing on extensive expert experiences, observational data and literature review of case studies across the African continent, we highlight two critical findings. First, large scale BE initiatives prioritise economic gains at the expense of environmental degradation and the exclusion of local communities. Second, using the full spectrum sustainability (FSS) evaluation, we show that successful BE interventions considered ecological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional objectives. Drawing on these case studies, we propose the adoption of a collaborative framework which amalgamates the top-down and bottom-up approaches to BE management. Achieving the goal of successful blue growth in Africa is now even more challenged by the implications of COVID-19 on the BE sectors. Reimagining and rebuilding a resilient BE in Africa post-coronavirus will require a strong political commitment to promoting a balance between economic, social and environmental benefits in line with the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

Beach sand supply and transport at Kunduchi, Tanzania, and Bamburi, Kenya

Beach-head erosion of sandy beach plains in eastern Africa threatens tourism-related infrastructure and the livelihoods of beach plain users. The nature and drivers of physical shoreline change at Kunduchi, near Dar es Salaam, and Bamburi, near Mombasa, are described with analyses of beach sand transport through the annual monsoon cycle and the provenance and sustainability of beach sand supply. Time-series records of wind-vectors at Dar es Salaam and Mombasa show similar averaged patterns. Because of the contrasting alignments of these coasts, the net wind-wave driven longshore transport at Kunduchi (NNW-trending) is north-northwestwards, while at Bamburi (NNE-trending) there is little net transport over the cycle. At Bamburi, the beaches are recharged reef/platform-derived calcium carbonate sand and siliciclastic sand discharged from the hinterland via tidal channels. At Kunduchi, recharge is mostly river-borne siliciclastic sand, but river sand mining threatens natural replenishment. At both sites eroding beach plain deposits contribute siliciclastic sand. Structural responses to maintain beaches protecting susceptible shores – mostly seawalls at Bamburi and groyne fields at Kunduchi – have high capital and maintenance costs, degrade the coastal amenity and may exacerbate erosion. At Kunduchi, beach maintenance is further jeopardised by unchecked illegal river sand mining