Reducing Uncertainties in Managing in British Columbia Waters: Applying an Adaptive Management Mindset on the South, Central and North Coasts

British Columbia’s vast coastline is characterized by ecologically rich, rugged, and remote regions where there are many uncertainties about the way that ecosystems function. This translates into a challenge for environmental managers, as it creates considerable uncertainty about which management actions will be most effective for achieving management goals and objectives. Adaptive management can offer a way forward by providing systematic, rigorous approach for designing and implementing management actions to maximize learning about critical uncertainties affecting decisions on environmental management policy and practice. It typically follows a six-step cycle focusing on the implementation and monitoring of management actions that are deliberately designed to reduce critical uncertainty, and adjusting management based on what is learned. In most cases, this approach relies heavily on interdisciplinary collaboration among scientists, managers, resource users, and the broader community. We showcase the application of an adaptive management mindset through three cases along the BC coast. The first is from the south coast, where stakeholders are working to assess options in the process of developing a strategic integrated management plan for Chinook salmon. The second is from the Kemano River on the central coast, where eulachon management is being informed by the evaluation of previous monitoring activities. The third is from the Skeena Estuary on the north coast, where recommendations for future data collection have been designed to address key uncertainties in the management of Pacific salmon. These stories showcase recent successes of applying an adaptive management way of thinking in the region and highlight how this approach can help to reduce critical uncertainties often cited as a barrier to the effective management of our coastal marine resources

Mapping the movement of marine fishes: methods, mechanisms, and implications for invasion management

Movement represents a key ecological trait of individuals that has important implications for the spatial structuring of population, community, and ecosystem processes. However, the spatial ecology of terrestrial organisms is much better understood than that of their comparatively understudied aquatic counterparts. My thesis focuses on the methods and mechanisms underpinning the study of movement ecology in fishes, with special attention on the movement of invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. miles) on Caribbean coral reefs and its implications for invasion management. I begin by comparing broad-scale patterns of space use across all vertebrates, including fishes, to draw general conclusions about the factors driving their space requirements. My models reveal that body mass, locomotion strategy, foraging dimension, and trophic level predict ~80% of the variation in vertebrate home range size. I then describe a versatile method for GPS-based underwater mapping that will enable more routine collection of a wide variety of spatial data, including movement patterns, habitat characteristics, and bathymetry. This method is ideal for studies operating on smaller scales and budgets and will help advance the study of spatial ecology in aquatic environments. Next, I apply this mapping method to characterize the movements of tagged lionfish on Bahamian coral reefs, and find that lionfish movement is density dependent, declines at larger body sizes, and varies with seascape structure. Using these movement data, I model the metapopulation dynamics of lionfish in a patch reef network to show how removing lionfish from single patches influences metapopulation dynamics at the network scale, and show how landscape features that facilitate recolonization of cleared patches can negatively influence management outcomes. My thesis helps to fill critical gaps in our understanding of movement and space use of animals in general, and of marine fishes in particular. This work also demonstrates how a better understanding of movement ecology can help to optimize the distribution of limited resources for the management of marine invasive species, which represent a significant and growing threat to marine ecosystem biodiversity and function

TamburelloLitt_InvasivesAnalysis-20220726.R

This file contains R code used to run analysis on the dataset associated with this project for an associated peer-reviewed manuscript.</p

TamburelloLitt_Supplementary Material

Supplementary information to accompany the datasets in this file.</p

Multiple impacts of invasive species on species at risk: a case study in British Columbia, Canada

Invasive species are a leading cause of biodiversity loss and species extinctions across ecosystems on a global scale. The historical and ongoing focus on single-species management of invasive species and species at risk contributes to inefficiencies in management strategies that present an obstacle to achieving desired outcomes. A holistic approach that consolidates and maps linkages between the broader collective of invasive species and species at risk in an area provides a more appropriate entry point for issue-based, rather than species-based, management planning. We present a case study of this approach from British Columbia, Canada, which synthesized the identity, mechanisms of impact, mechanisms of spread, and magnitude of impacts across 782 unique pairs of invasive species and federally listed species at risk, based on a literature review of species at risk documentation. The resulting dataset was used to summarize the nature of interactions across species pairs and taxonomic groups to help guide the development of invasive species response strategies that make the best use of limited management resources. As species invasions and extinctions become increasingly interconnected, holistic approaches rooted in cumulative effects assessment and ecosystem-based management can provide a stronger foundation for reducing or mitigating this growing threat

Database of Vertebrate Home Range Sizes

Database of mean species masses and corresponding empirically measured home range sizes for 569 vertebrate species from across the globe, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and fishes

Data from: Energy and the scaling of animal space use

Daily animal movements are usually limited to a discrete home range area that scales allometrically with body size, suggesting that home-range size is shaped by metabolic rates and energy availability across species. However, there is little understanding of the relative importance of the various mechanisms proposed to influence home-range scaling (e.g., differences in realm productivity, thermoregulation, locomotion strategy, dimensionality, trophic guild, and prey size) and whether these extend beyond the commonly studied birds and mammals. We derive new home-range scaling relationships for fishes and reptiles and use a model-selection approach to evaluate the generality of home-range scaling mechanisms across 569 vertebrate species. We find no evidence that home-range allometry varies consistently between aquatic and terrestrial realms or thermoregulation strategies, but we find that locomotion strategy, foraging dimension, trophic guild, and prey size together explain 80% of the variation in home-range size across vertebrates when controlling for phylogeny and tracking method. Within carnivores, smaller relative prey size among gape-limited fishes contributes to shallower scaling relative to other predators. Our study reveals how simple morphological traits and prey-handling ability can profoundly influence individual space use, which underpins broader-scale patterns in the spatial ecology of vertebrates

R Code Used in Analysis and Plotting (PDF)

The R code used for data analysis and plotting in "Energy and the scaling of animal space use", provided as an annotated PDF

R Code Used in Analysis and Plotting (R Markdown)

The R code used for data analysis and plotting in "Energy and the scaling of animal space use", provided as an annotated R Markdown file

Mock Data for Prey Mass Model Predictions

Mock data used with home range models incorporating prey mass to generate home range size predictions for Figure 2 of "Energy and the scaling of animal space use". Details in manuscript