Developing priority variables ("ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables" — eEOVs) for observing dynamics and change in Southern Ocean ecosystems

Reliable statements about variability and change in marine ecosystems and their underlying causes are needed to report on their status and to guide management. Here we use the Framework on Ocean Observing (FOO) to begin developing ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (eEOVs) for the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). An eEOV is a defined biological or ecological quantity, which is derived from field observations, and which contributes significantly to assessments of Southern Ocean ecosystems. Here, assessments are concerned with estimating status and trends in ecosystem properties, attribution of trends to causes, and predicting future trajectories. eEOVs should be feasible to collect at appropriate spatial and temporal scales and are useful to the extent that they contribute to direct estimation of trends and/or attribution, and/or development of ecological (statistical or simulation) models to support assessments. In this paper we outline the rationale, including establishing a set of criteria, for selecting eEOVs for the SOOS and develop a list of candidate eEOVs for further evaluation. Other than habitat variables, nine types of eEOVs for Southern Ocean taxa are identified within three classes: state (magnitude, genetic/species, size spectrum), predator–prey (diet, foraging range), and autecology (phenology, reproductive rate, individual growth rate, detritus). Most candidates for the suite of Southern Ocean taxa relate to state or diet. Candidate autecological eEOVs have not been developed other than for marine mammals and birds. We consider some of the spatial and temporal issues that will influence the adoption and use of eEOVs in an observing system in the Southern Ocean, noting that existing operations and platforms potentially provide coverage of the four main sectors of the region — the East and West Pacific, Atlantic and Indian. Lastly, we discuss the importance of simulation modelling in helping with the design of the observing system in the long term. Regional boundary: south of 30°S

Convergence of marine megafauna movement patterns in coastal and open oceans

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115 (2018): 3072-3077, doi:10.1073/pnas.1716137115.The extent of increasing anthropogenic impacts on large marine vertebrates partly depends on the animals’ movement patterns. Effective conservation requires identification of the key drivers of movement including intrinsic properties and extrinsic constraints associated with the dynamic nature of the environments the animals inhabit. However, the relative importance of intrinsic versus extrinsic factors remains elusive. We analyse a global dataset of 2.8 million locations from > 2,600 tracked individuals across 50 marine vertebrates evolutionarily separated by millions of years and using different locomotion modes (fly, swim, walk/paddle). Strikingly, movement patterns show a remarkable convergence, being strongly conserved across species and independent of body length and mass, despite these traits ranging over 10 orders of magnitude among the species studied. This represents a fundamental difference between marine and terrestrial vertebrates not previously identified, likely linked to the reduced costs of locomotion in water. Movement patterns were primarily explained by the interaction between species-specific traits and the habitat(s) they move through, resulting in complex movement patterns when moving close to coasts compared to more predictable patterns when moving in open oceans. This distinct difference may be associated with greater complexity within coastal micro-habitats, highlighting a critical role of preferred habitat in shaping marine vertebrate global movements. Efforts to develop understanding of the characteristics of vertebrate movement should consider the habitat(s) through which they move to identify how movement patterns will alter with forecasted severe ocean changes, such as reduced Arctic sea ice cover, sea level rise and declining oxygen content.Workshops funding granted by the UWA Oceans Institute, AIMS, and KAUST. AMMS was supported by an ARC Grant DE170100841 and an IOMRC (UWA, AIMS, CSIRO) fellowship; JPR by MEDC (FPU program, Spain); DWS by UK NERC and Save Our Seas Foundation; NQ by FCT (Portugal); MMCM by a CAPES fellowship (Ministry of Education)

The retrospective analysis of Antarctic tracking data project

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations

Distribution and Cconnection to other Plant-Communities of Genista radiata (L.) Scop in the South Tyrol (Italy)

Es werden die Genista radiata-Bestände an der Mendel in Südtirol (Italien) beschrieben und ihr Gesellschaftsanschluß diskutiert. Das Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 besidelt steile südexponierte Kalkhänge der hochmontanen und subalpinen Stufe und ersetzt z.T. den Zwergstrauchgürtel mit Pinus mugo. Ähnlich zusammengesetzt ist das Genisto-Festucetum alpestris pinetosum Peer 83, das in den ¡lockeren Erika-Kiefernwäldern auftritt und bis in die tiefmontane Stufe hinunterreicht. Keinerlei syntaxonomische Bedeutung besitzt Genista radiata in den thermophilen Buschwaldgesellschaften, in denen die Pflanze lediglich eine Variante zum Orno-Ostryetum seslerietosum Peer 81 darstellt und speziell in der Saumzone anzutreffen ist. Auch in den Lärchenwiesen der Kammlagen kommt Genista radiata nur sporadisch vor. Sie ist hier mit dem Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosum subass. prov. verzahnt.Istražene su vegetacijske sastojine vrste Genista radiata u južnom Tirolu i razmatrana njihova fitocenološka pripadnost. Asocijacija Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 nastava strme, južne vapnenačke obronke visokobrdskog i subalpskog pojasa. Subasocijacija Genisto-Festucetum alpestris pinetosum Peer 83 dolazi u rijetkim borovim šumama s crnjušom i spušta se do u niži brdski pojas. Termofilne niske šume, u kojima Genista radiata nema posebno sintaksonomsko značenje, označene su samo kao varijanta zajednice Orno-Ostryetum seslerietosum Peer 81. Genista radiata dolazi također na travnjacima s arišem, ali samo sporadično i to u mješavini sa zajednicom Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosnm subass. prov.The Genista radiata-communities of the Mendel in the South Tyrol (Italy) are described and their connection to other plant-communities is discussed. Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 settles on steep, south- exposed colcareous slopes of high-mountain and subalpine altitudes and replaces particularly the dwarf-shrub-belt with Firms mugo. Similar contents aire found in Genisto-F estucetum alpestris pinetasum Peer 83, which occurs in undensed Erico-Pinetum-communities and reaches down to the low-mountain-altitude. In the thermophilic bush-communities, in which Genista radiata is found only as a variant of Orneto-Ostryetum seslerie- tosum (Peer 81), the plant has no syntaxonomic importance. Genista radiata especially is found in the edge-zone. In the grassland of the larch- communities of the ridges Genista radiata appears only sporadically. Here the plant appeals in Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosum subass. prov

The retrospective analysis of Antarctic tracking data project

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations.Supplementary Figure S1: Filtered location data (black) and tag deployment locations (red) for each species. Maps are Lambert Azimuthal projections extending from 90° S to 20° S.Supplementary Table S1: Names and coordinates of the major study sites in the Southern Ocean and on the Antarctic Continent where tracking devices were deployed on the selected species (indicated by their 4-letter codes in the last column).Online Table 1: Description of fields (column names) in the metadata and data files.Supranational committees and organisations including the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Life Science Group and BirdLife International. National institutions and foundations, including but not limited to Argentina (Dirección Nacional del Antártico), Australia (Australian Antarctic program; Australian Research Council; Sea World Research and Rescue Foundation Inc., IMOS is a national collaborative research infrastructure, supported by the Australian Government and operated by a consortium of institutions as an unincorporated joint venture, with the University of Tasmania as Lead Agent), Belgium (Belgian Science Policy Office, EU Lifewatch ERIC), Brazil (Brazilian Antarctic Programme; Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq/MCTI) and CAPES), France (Agence Nationale de la Recherche; Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB; www.fondationbiodiversite.fr) in the context of the CESAB project “RAATD”; Fondation Total; Institut Paul-Emile Victor; Programme Zone Atelier de Recherches sur l’Environnement Antarctique et Subantarctique; Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises), Germany (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg - Institute for Advanced Study), Italy (Italian National Antarctic Research Program; Ministry for Education University and Research), Japan (Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition; JSPS Kakenhi grant), Monaco (Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco), New Zealand (Ministry for Primary Industries - BRAG; Pew Charitable Trusts), Norway (Norwegian Antarctic Research Expeditions; Norwegian Research Council), Portugal (Foundation for Science and Technology), South Africa (Department of Environmental Affairs; National Research Foundation; South African National Antarctic Programme), UK (Darwin Plus; Ecosystems Programme at the British Antarctic Survey; Natural Environment Research Council; WWF), and USA (U.S. AMLR Program of NOAA Fisheries; US Office of Polar Programs).http://www.nature.com/sdataam2021Mammal Research Institut

Foraging habitats of southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, from the Northern Antarctic Peninsula

Elephant Island (EI) is uniquely placed to provide southern elephant seals (SES) breeding there with potential access to foraging grounds in the Weddell Sea, the frontal zones of the South Atlantic Ocean, the Patagonian shelf and the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Quantifying where seals from EI forage therefore provides insights into the types of important habitats available, and which are of particular importance to elephant seals. Twenty nine SES (5 sub-adult males-SAM and 24 adult females-AF) were equipped with SMRU CTD-SLDRs during the post-breeding (PB 2008, 2009) and post-moulting (PM 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) trips to sea. There were striking intra-annual and inter-sex differences in foraging areas, with most of the PB females remaining within 150. km of EI. One PB AF travelled down the WAP as did 16 out of the 20 PM females and foraged near the winter ice-edge. Most PM sub-adult males remained close to EI, in areas similar to those used by adult females several months earlier, although one SAM spent the early part of the winter foraging on the Patagonian Shelf. The waters of the Northern Antarctic Peninsula (NAP) contain abundant resources to support the majority of the Islands' SES for the summer and early winter, such that the animals from this population have shorter migrations than those from most other populations. Sub-adult males and PB females are certainly taking advantage of these resources. However, PM females did not remain there over the winter months, instead they used the same waters at the ice-edge in the southern WAP that females from both King George Island and South Georgia used. Females made more benthic dives than sub-adult males-again this contrasts with other sites where SAMs do more benthic diving. Unlike most other populations studied to date EI is a relatively southerly breeding colony located on the Antarctic continental shelf. EI seals are using shelf habitats more than other SES populations but some individuals still employ open water foraging strategies. Sea-ice was also very influential for PM females with more foraging occurring in heavier pack-ice. Larger females used areas with heavier ice-concentration than smaller females. The study demonstrates the importance of shelf and slope habitat to elephant seals, but also highlighted the influence of sea-ice and fine-scale bathymetry and local ocean condition in determining foraging habitat.Fil: Muelbert, Monica M. C.. Fundação Universidade Federal do Rio Grande; BrasilFil: de Souza, Ronald B.. Centro de Previsao de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais; BrasilFil: Lewis, Mirtha Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico; ArgentinaFil: Hindell, Mark A.. University of Tasmania; Australi

Multiple origins of vagrant Subantarctic fur seals: A long journey to the Brazilian coast detected by molecular markers

In this study, we present the first data about putative source populations of the vagrant Subantarctic fur seal, Arctocephalus tropicalis, found on the Brazilian coast, through the comparison of their mitochondrial DNA control sequences to exclusive haplotypes from the main breeding colonies of the species. The results indicated that, despite the majority of the vagrant individuals are from Gough Island (the closest breeding site to the Brazilian coast), they also come from other reproductive colonies, such as Crozet Island, a distance around 16,500 km from the Brazilian coast. Furthermore, the molecular data identified three possible management units: (1) Gough, (2) Amsterdam, and (3) Marion, Macquarie and Crozet. This significant genetic subdivision must be taken into account in any future management plan for the species conservation, including rehabilitation and even reintroduction of vagrant fur seals

(2018). MEOP-CTD in-situ data collection: a Southern ocean Marine-mammals calibrated sea water temperatures and salinities observations.

The Southern Ocean plays a fundamental role in regulating the global climate. This ocean also contains a rich and highly productive ecosystem, potentially vulnerable to climate change. Very large national and international efforts are directed towards the modeling of physical oceanographic processes to predict the response of the Southern Ocean to global climate change and the role played by the large-scale ocean climate processes. However, these modeling efforts are greatly limited by the lack of in situ measurements, especially at high latitudes and during winter months. The standard data that are needed to study ocean circulation are vertical profiles of temperature and salinity, from which we can deduce the density of seawater. These are collected with CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) sensors that are usually deployed on research vessels or, more recently, on autonomous Argo profilers. The use of conventional research vessels to collect these data is very expensive, and does not guarantee access to areas where sea ice is found at the surface of the ocean during the winter months. A recent alternative is the use of autonomous Argo floats. However, this technology is not easy to use in glaciated areas.In this context, the collection of hydrographic profiles from CTDs mounted on marine mammals is very advantageous. The choice of species, gender or age can be done to selectively obtain data in particularly under-sampled areas such as under the sea ice or on continental shelves. Among marine mammals, elephant seals are particularly interesting. Indeed, they have the particularity to continuously dive to great depths (590 ± 200 m, with maxima around 2000 m) for long durations (average length of a dive 25 ± 15 min, maximum 80 min). A Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Satellite Relay Data Logger (CTD-SRDLs) has been developed in the early 2000s to sample temperature and salinity vertical profiles during marine mammal dives (Boehme et al. 2009, Fedak 2013). The CTD-SRDL is attached to the seal on land, then it records hydrographic profiles during its foraging trips, sending the data by satellite ARGOS whenever the seal goes back to the surface.While the principle intent of seal instrumentation was to improve understanding of seal foraging strategies (Biuw et al., 2007), it has also provided as a by-product a viable and cost-effective method of sampling hydrographic properties in many regions of the Southern Ocean (Charrassin et al., 2008; Roquet et al., 2013)

Estimates of the Southern Ocean general circulation improved by animal-borne instruments

Over the last decade, several hundred seals have been equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors in the Southern Ocean for both biological and physical oceanographic studies. A calibrated collection of seal-derived hydrographic data is now available, consisting of more than 165,000 profiles. The value of these hydrographic data within the existing Southern Ocean observing system is demonstrated herein by conducting two state estimation experiments, differing only in the use or not of seal data to constrain the system. Including seal-derived data substantially modifies the estimated surface mixed-layer properties and circulation patterns within and south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Agreement with independent satellite observations of sea-ice concentration is improved, especially along the East Antarctic shelf. Instrumented animals efficiently reduce a critical observational gap, and their contribution to monitoring polar climate variability will continue to grow as data accuracy and spatial coverage increas