A global map to aid the identification and screening of critical habitat for marine industries

Marine industries face a number of risks that necessitate careful analysis prior to making decisions on the siting of operations and facilities. An important emerging regulatory framework on environmental sustainability for business operations is the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standard 6 (IFC PS6). Within PS6, identification of biodiversity significance is articulated through the concept of “Critical Habitat”, a definition developed by the IFC and detailed through criteria aligned with those that support internationally accepted biodiversity designations. No publicly available tools have been developed in either the marine or terrestrial realm to assess the likelihood of sites or operations being located within PS6-defined Critical Habitat. This paper presents a starting point towards filling this gap in the form of a preliminary global map that classifies more than 13 million km2 of marine and coastal areas of importance for biodiversity (protected areas, Key Biodiversity Areas [KBA], sea turtle nesting sites, cold- and warm-water corals, seamounts, seagrass beds, mangroves, saltmarshes, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps) based on their overlap with Critical Habitat criteria, as defined by IFC. In total, 5798×103 km2 (1.6%) of the analysis area (global ocean plus coastal land strip) were classed as Likely Critical Habitat, and 7526×103 km2 (2.1%) as Potential Critical Habitat; the remainder (96.3%) were Unclassified. The latter was primarily due to the paucity of biodiversity data in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction and/or in deep waters, and the comparatively fewer protected areas and KBAs in these regions. Globally, protected areas constituted 65.9% of the combined Likely and Potential Critical Habitat extent, and KBAs 29.3%, not accounting for the overlap between these two features. Relative Critical Habitat extent in Exclusive Economic Zones varied dramatically between countries. This work is likely to be of particular use for industries operating in the marine and coastal realms as an early screening aid prior to in situ Critical Habitat assessment; to financial institutions making investment decisions; and to those wishing to implement good practice policies relevant to biodiversity management. Supplementary material (available online) includes other global datasets considered, documentation and justification of biodiversity feature classification, detail of IFC PS6 criteria/scenarios, and coverage calculations

Global extent and drivers of mammal population declines in protected areas under illegal hunting pressure

Illegal hunting is a persistent problem in many protected areas, but an overview of the extent of this problem and its impact on wildlife is lacking. We reviewed 40 years (1980–2020) of global research to examine the spatial distribution of research and socio-ecological factors influencing population decline within protected areas under illegal hunting pressure. From 81 papers reporting 988 species/site combinations, 294 mammal species were reported to have been illegally hunted from 155 protected areas across 48 countries. Research in illegal hunting has increased substantially during the review period and showed biases towards strictly protected areas and the African continent. Population declines were most frequent in countries with a low human development index, particularly in strict protected areas and for species with a body mass over 100 kg. Our results provide evidence that illegal hunting is most likely to cause declines of large-bodied species in protected areas of resource-poor countries regardless of protected area conservation status. Given the growing pressures of illegal hunting, increased investments in people’s development and additional conservation efforts such as improving anti-poaching strategies and conservation resources in terms of improving funding and personnel directed at this problem are a growing priority

Worldwide distributions of tuna larvae: revisiting hypotheses on environmental requirements for spawning habitats

Tuna are among the most ubiquitous oceanic predators, and range globally from the equator to temperate regions (0 to 55° latitude). While the distribution of adult fish has been mapped from fishing records, the extent of tuna spawning and larval habitats is less well understood. We compiled and analyzed data on the global distributions of larval occurrence for 7 major oceanic tuna species to investigate environmental predictors of larval habitat. Our results showed that tuna larvae occur within the adults’ distributional range, but were restricted to lower latitudes and higher water temperatures than adults, largely consistent with Schaefer’s ‘temperature hypothesis’. Temperature requirements explained much of the variation in larval occurrence, though temperature by itself tended to over-predict the extent of larval habitats. We also demonstrate that tuna larvae have an elevated probability of occurrence at intermediate values of eddy kinetic energy, generally supporting Bakun’s ‘ocean triad hypothesis’, which relates tuna larval habitats to mesoscale oceanographic activity. However, some deviations in this pattern were also observed, such as for albacore. Regions of suitable larval habitats were most commonly found in western boundary currents, where warm water masses coincide with intermediate eddy kinetic energy. Bluefin tuna species are exceptional though, in that their spawning habitats tended to be much more confined than predicted from oceanographic conditions. Our results provide support for a combination of the 2 hypotheses to explain global environmental requirements for tuna larvae. We have identified oceanographic parameters that can easily be measured by remote sensing and features that should be considered when determining areas of critical habitat for tuna larvaeS

Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa

Using large-scale data sets, these authors present a new assessment of global marine species diversity and its correlation with environmental and spatial parameters

Worldwide distributions of tuna larvae: revisiting hypotheses on environmental requirements for spawning habitats

Tuna are among the most ubiquitous oceanic predators, and range globally from the equator to temperate regions (0 to 55° latitude). While the distribution of adult fish has been mapped from fishing records, the extent of tuna spawning and larval habitats is less well understood. We compiled and analyzed data on the global distributions of larval occurrence for 7 major oceanic tuna species to investigate environmental predictors of larval habitat. Our results showed that tuna larvae occur within the adults’ distributional range, but were restricted to lower latitudes and higher water temperatures than adults, largely consistent with Schaefer’s ‘temperature hypothesis’. Temperature requirements explained much of the variation in larval occurrence, though temperature by itself tended to over-predict the extent of larval habitats. We also demonstrate that tuna larvae have an elevated probability of occurrence at intermediate values of eddy kinetic energy, generally supporting Bakun’s ‘ocean triad hypothesis’, which relates tuna larval habitats to mesoscale oceanographic activity. However, some deviations in this pattern were also observed, such as for albacore. Regions of suitable larval habitats were most commonly found in western boundary currents, where warm water masses coincide with intermediate eddy kinetic energy. Bluefin tuna species are exceptional though, in that their spawning habitats tended to be much more confined than predicted from oceanographic conditions. Our results provide support for a combination of the 2 hypotheses to explain global environmental requirements for tuna larvae. We have identified oceanographic parameters that can easily be measured by remote sensing and features that should be considered when determining areas of critical habitat for tuna larvaeVersión del editor2,48

Advancing global ecological modelling capabilities to simulate future trajectories of change in marine ecosystems

Considerable effort is being deployed to predict the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the ocean's biophysical environment, biodiversity, and natural resources to better understand how marine ecosystems and provided services to humans are likely to change and explore alternative pathways and options. We present an updated version of EcoOcean (v2), a spatial-temporal ecosystem modeling complex of the global ocean that spans food-web dynamics from primary producers to top predators. Advancements include an enhanced ability to reproduce spatial-temporal ecosystem dynamics by linking species productivity, distributions, and trophic interactions to the impacts of climate change and worldwide fisheries. The updated modeling platform is used to simulate past and future scenarios of change, where we quantify the impacts of alternative configurations of the ecological model, responses to climate-change scenarios, and the additional impacts of fishing. Climate-change scenarios are obtained from two Earth-System Models (ESMs, GFDL-ESM2M, and IPSL-CMA5-LR) and two contrasting emission pathways (RCPs 2.6 and 8.5) for historical (1950–2005) and future (2006–2100) periods. Standardized ecological indicators and biomasses of selected species groups are used to compare simulations. Results show how future ecological trajectories are sensitive to alternative configurations of EcoOcean, and yield moderate differences when looking at ecological indicators and larger differences for biomasses of species groups. Ecological trajectories are also sensitive to environmental drivers from alternative ESM outputs and RCPs, and show spatial variability and more severe changes when IPSL and RCP 8.5 are used. Under a non-fishing configuration, larger organisms show decreasing trends, while smaller organisms show mixed or increasing results. Fishing intensifies the negative effects predicted by climate change, again stronger under IPSL and RCP 8.5, which results in stronger biomass declines for species already losing under climate change, or dampened positive impacts for those increasing. Several species groups that win under climate change become losers under combined impacts, while only a few (small benthopelagic fish and cephalopods) species are projected to show positive biomass changes under cumulative impacts. EcoOcean v2 can contribute to the quantification of cumulative impact assessments of multiple stressors and of plausible ocean-based solutions to prevent, mitigate and adapt to global chang

Deep, diverse and definitely different: unique attributes of the world's largest ecosystem

The deep sea, the largest biome on Earth, has a series of characteristics that make this environment both distinct from other marine and land ecosystems and unique for the entire planet. This review describes these patterns and processes, from geological settings to biological processes, biodiversity and biogeographical patterns. It concludes with a brief discussion of current threats from anthropogenic activities to deep-sea habitats and their fauna

Achieving Global Biodiversity Goals by 2050 Requires Urgent and Integrated Actions

Human impacts on the Earth’s biosphere are driving the global biodiversity crisis. Governments are preparing to agree on a set of actions intended to halt the loss of biodiversity and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. We provide evidence that the proposed actions can bend the curve for biodiversity, but only if these actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner