Why compare marine ecosystems?

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 67 (2010): 1-9, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp221.Effective marine ecosystem-based management (EBM) requires understanding the key processes and relationships controlling the aspects of biodiversity, productivity, and resilience to perturbations. Unfortunately, the scales, complexity, and non-linear dynamics that characterize marine ecosystems often confound managing for these properties. Nevertheless, scientifically derived decision-support tools (DSTs) are needed to account for impacts resulting from a variety of simultaneous human activities. Three possible methodologies for revealing mechanisms necessary to develop DSTs for EBM are: (i) controlled experimentation, (ii) iterative programmes of observation and modelling ("learning by doing"), and (iii) comparative ecosystem analysis. We have seen that controlled experiments are limited in capturing the complexity necessary to develop models of marine ecosystem dynamics with sufficient realism at appropriate scales. Iterative programmes of observation, model building, and assessment are useful for specific ecosystem issues but rarely lead to generally transferable products. Comparative ecosystem analyses may be the most effective, building on the first two by inferring ecosystem processes based on comparisons and contrasts of ecosystem response to human-induced factors. We propose a hierarchical system of ecosystem comparisons to include within-ecosystem comparisons (utilizing temporal and spatial changes in relation to human activities), within-ecosystem-type comparisons (e.g. coral reefs, temperate continental shelves, upwelling areas), and cross-ecosystem-type comparisons (e.g. coral reefs vs. boreal, terrestrial vs. marine ecosystems). Such a hierarchical comparative approach should lead to better understanding of the processes controlling biodiversity, productivity, and the resilience of marine ecosystems. In turn, better understanding of these processes will lead to the development of increasingly general laws, hypotheses, functional forms, governing equations, and broad interpretations of ecosystem responses to human activities, ultimately improving DSTs in support of EBM

Scenarios and design: Scoping the dialogue space

This paper examines the intersections between two futures-oriented domains of practice and research: scenario planning and design. Both are practice-led, with uneasy but productive relationships with theorizing. Exploring their relations offers ways to address challenges faced by interdisciplinary management research, which struggles to connect research and practice. The authors describe how they brought the two fields together. We outline how we convened, designed and facilitated the fourth Oxford Futures Forum held in May 2014. This event brought together leading practitioners and researchers in a collective inquiry based on self-organizing, generative and reflexive making and dialogue. How participants engaged, from responding to the invitation to take part, as well as their practical and discursive encounters with one another during the event, threw up similarities and differences between the two fields. We present nine themes that capture the links and spaces between design and scenarios, yet suggest that they are not a straightforward overlap or a simple relationship, but rather a range of interactions between the fields, including feeding in, bridging, tension and repulsion. The paper's contribution is to suggest how scenario planning can engage with design, resulting in new opportunities for research and projects. These modes of engagement provide a framing to explore dialogues between other management disciplines

Private healthcare provider experiences with social health insurance schemes: Findings from a qualitative study in Ghana and Kenya

<div><p>Background</p><p>Incorporating private healthcare providers into social health insurance schemes is an important means towards achieving universal health coverage in low and middle income countries. However, little research has been conducted about why private providers choose to participate in social health insurance systems in such contexts, or their experiences with these systems. We explored private providers’ perceptions of and experiences with participation in two different social health insurance schemes in Sub-Saharan Africa—the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana and the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) in Kenya.</p><p>Methods</p><p>In-depth interviews were held with providers working at 79 facilities of varying sizes in three regions of Kenya (N = 52) and three regions of Ghana (N = 27). Most providers were members of a social franchise network. Interviews covered providers’ reasons for (non) enrollment in the health insurance system, their experiences with the accreditation process, and benefits and challenges with the system. Interviews were coded in Atlas.ti using an open coding approach and analyzed thematically.</p><p>Results</p><p>Most providers in Ghana were NHIS-accredited and perceived accreditation to be essential to their businesses, despite challenges they encountered due to long delays in claims reimbursement. In Kenya, fewer than half of providers were NHIF-accredited and several said that their clientele were not NHIF enrolled. Understanding of how the NHIF functioned was generally low. The lengthy and cumbersome accreditation process also emerged as a major barrier to providers’ participation in the NHIF in Kenya, but the NHIS accreditation process was not a major concern for providers in Ghana.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>In expanding social health insurance, coordinated efforts are needed to increase coverage rates among underserved populations while also accrediting the private providers who serve those populations. Market pressure was a key force driving providers to gain and maintain accreditation in both countries. Developing mechanisms to engage private providers as stakeholders in social health insurance schemes is important to incentivizing their participation and addressing their concerns.</p></div

Distribution of the study sample by country, facility type and health insurance accreditation status.

<p>Distribution of the study sample by country, facility type and health insurance accreditation status.</p

Providers’ reasons for applying for NHI accreditation.

<p>Providers’ reasons for applying for NHI accreditation.</p

Process for selecting the qualitative provider sample.

<p>Process for selecting the qualitative provider sample.</p

Feeding patterns and predation potential of scyphomedusae in a highly productive upwelling region

We quantified diet and predation rates for large scyphomedusae from a coastal upwelling region. In the Northern California Current, early stages of euphausiids, gelatinous taxa, and cladocerans were particularly vulnerable to predation by Chrysaora fuscescens, Aurelia labiata, and Phacellophora camtschatica, whereas copepods were not. Moreover, C. fuscescens had the potential to deplete the standing stock of euphausiid eggs where predator and prey overlapped. During August 2002, C. fuscescens ingested an average 32.5% of the standing stock of euphausiid eggs each day at stations close to shore and north of Cape Blanco (42.9 degrees N, 126.6 degrees W) where maximum abundances of the medusae occurred. Ingestion of other vulnerable prey, such as other early stages of euphausiids and gelatinous taxa, reached 10 to 12% d(-1). In contrast, we calculated the maximum removal rate of the standing stock of copepods to be \u3c 1% d(-1). Given the importance of euphausiids to fish and other top predators, and the potential for changes in abundance and distribution of both predator and prey taxa with changes in climate, we suggest that gelatinous zooplankton abundance and predation impacts be incorporated within long-term studies and ecosystem models