Importance of considering grain and extent for the analysis on spatial dynamics: perspectives from comparison between theory and empirical example on seagrass bed dynamics in Tokyo Bay

AbstractThe term scale has been used in many ways. In continuous landscape analysis, the spatial scale consists of two components; grain and extent. Most previous studies on the scale issue were conducted in limited range or on one component of the scale. To further step up, we compared theory of scaling by applying indices developed for terrestrial static landscape to underwater vegetation. The result suggested that changing grain shows power-low scaling relationships for the most of landscape indices. Changing extent increased variation of above scaling relationships. We conclude that changing both components reveal the possibility to extrapolate these indices into different scales or places. For the conservation of ecosystems, recognition of scaling relationships is necessary to build more spatially explicit planning and understanding of phenomenon

Current Status of Marine Biodiversity Assessment in the Asia and Status of Assessing Marine Ecosystem Services

IPBES の地域アセスメントにおいて，2 章では生態系サービスについて，３章で生物多様性・生態系の現状とトレンド，４章で変化要因について記載することが公表されている。各章における記載内容は，本稿の執筆時点では公表されていないが，著者らは地域アセスメントの執筆者の多数が参画する環境省の研究プロジェクトにおいて，IPBES の検討と並行して検討していくつかの検討をおこなった。そのうち，東アジア，東南アジア海域全体の生物多様性の現状評価，海域における生態系サービスの評価の国際的誌上に見られる現状について，ここで紹介する。その上で特に海域に関連するものに焦点を当て，生物多様性の現状評価から生態系サービスの評価へと検討を進めていくにあたっての課題を議論する。OpenAcces

東日本大震災後の海の変化を知る -地理情報システムの活用と地理情報科学(GIScience)

CC BY 4.0http://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/darwin/cruise/natsushima/nt13-21/ehttp://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/darwin/cruise/yokosuka/yk12-12/ehttp://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/darwin/cruise/natsushima/nt14-11/

The potential role of temperate Japanese regions as refugia for the coral Acropora hyacinthus in the face of climate change

As corals in tropical regions are threatened by increasing water temperatures, poleward range expansion of reef-building corals has been observed, and temperate regions are expected to serve as refugia in the face of climate change. To elucidate the important indicators of the sustainability of coral populations, we examined the genetic diversity and connectivity of the common reef-building coral Acropora hyacinthus along the Kuroshio Current, including recently expanded (<50 years) populations. Among the three cryptic lineages found, only one was distributed in temperate regions, which could indicate the presence of Kuroshio-associated larval dispersal barriers between temperate and subtropical regions, as shown by oceanographic simulations as well as differences in environmental factors. The level of genetic diversity gradually decreased towards the edge of the species distribution. This study provides an example of the reduced genetic diversity in recently expanded marginal populations, thus indicating the possible vulnerability of these populations to environmental changes. This finding underpins the importance of assessing the genetic diversity of newly colonized populations associated with climate change for conservation purposes. In addition, this study highlights the importance of pre-existing temperate regions as coral refugia, which has been rather underappreciated in local coastal management

Identification of important marine areas using ecologically or biologically significant areas (EBSAs) criteria in the east to southeast Asia region and comparison with existing registered areas for the purpose of conservation

The biodiversity of East to Southeast (E-SE) Asian waters is rapidly declining because of anthropogenic effects ranging from local environmental pressures to global warming. To improve marine biodiversity, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets were adopted in 2010. The recommendation of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), encourages application of the ecologically or biologically significant area (EBSA) process to identify areas for conservation. However, there are few examples of the use of EBSA criteria to evaluate entire oceans. In this article, seven criteria are numerically evaluated to identify important marine areas (EBSA candidates) in the E-SE Asia region. The discussion includes 1) the possibility of EBSA criteria quantification throughout the E-SE Asia oceans and the suitability of the indices selected; 2) optimal integration methods for criteria, and the relationships between the criteria and data robustness and completeness; and; 3) a comparison of the EBSA candidates identified and existing registered areas for the purpose of conservation, such as marine protected areas (MPAs). Most of the EBSA criteria could be quantitatively evaluated throughout the Asia-Pacific region. However, three criteria in particular showed a substantial lack of data. Our methodological comparison showed that complementarity analysis performed better than summation because it considered criteria that were evaluated only in limited areas. Most of the difference between present-day registered areas and our results for EBSAs resulted from a lack of data and differences in philosophy for the selection of indices. Keywords Ecologically or biologically significant area (EBSA); East Asia; Southeast Asia; West Pacific ocean; Complementarity; Gap analysi

Natural capitals for nature’s contributions to people: the case of Japan

Recently, natural capital has gained the attention of researchers and policymakers to promote sustainability. Previous studies have investigated the value of ecosystem services with respect to specific areas or species. Other studies have investigated the value of various types of ecosystem services and natural capital by integrating a number of findings using meta-analyses at the global level. Although these studies have provided information on either the global value of natural capital or the local value of specific subjects, there is little evidence on the country-specific values of natural capital in Japan, which will provide useful information for national environmental policies. We investigated the perceived values of terrestrial and marine natural capital in Japan using internet surveys and payment card methods. Data on various natural forms of capital were collected in a unified format and comparable manner. We found that some explanatory variables, such as perceived importance and visit frequency, as well as sociodemographic characteristics, are significant drivers of the willingness to pay (WTP), which maintains each aspect of natural capital. In addition, we conducted future predictions of terrestrial and marine natural capital using a scenario developed in a previous study. Our results indicate that Japan should follow a population dispersed scenario for the sustainable management of natural capital up to 2050

Re-Structuring of Marine Communities Exposed to Environmental Change: A Global Study on the Interactive Effects of Species and Functional Richness

Species richness is the most commonly used but controversial biodiversity metric in studies on aspects of community stability such as structural composition or productivity. The apparent ambiguity of theoretical and experimental findings may in part be due to experimental shortcomings and/or heterogeneity of scales and methods in earlier studies. This has led to an urgent call for improved and more realistic experiments. In a series of experiments replicated at a global scale we translocated several hundred marine hard bottom communities to new environments simulating a rapid but moderate environmental change. Subsequently, we measured their rate of compositional change (re-structuring) which in the great majority of cases represented a compositional convergence towards local communities. Re-structuring is driven by mortality of community components (original species) and establishment of new species in the changed environmental context. The rate of this re-structuring was then related to various system properties. We show that availability of free substratum relates negatively while taxon richness relates positively to structural persistence (i.e., no or slow re-structuring). Thus, when faced with environmental change, taxon-rich communities retain their original composition longer than taxon-poor communities. The effect of taxon richness, however, interacts with another aspect of diversity, functional richness. Indeed, taxon richness relates positively to persistence in functionally depauperate communities, but not in functionally diverse communities. The interaction between taxonomic and functional diversity with regard to the behaviour of communities exposed to environmental stress may help understand some of the seemingly contrasting findings of past research