Ecosystem-based marine spatial management: Review of concepts, policies, tools, and critical issues

Conventional sectoral management and piecemeal governance are considered less and less appropriate in pursuit of sustainable development. Ecosystem based marine spatial management (EB-MSM) is an approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem, including human uses, rather than considering single issues, species, or ecosystem services in isolation. Marine spatial planning and ocean zoning are emerging concepts that can support EB-MSM. EB-MSM is driven by high-level goals that managers aim to achieve through the implementation of measures. High-level goals and objectives need to be translated into more operational objectives before specific targets, limits and measures can be elaborated.Monitoring, evaluation and adaptation are necessary to ensure that marine management measures are both effective and efficient. Solid monitoring frameworks are the foundation of adaptive management, as they provide the necessary information to evaluate performance and the effectiveness of management actions. Marine protected areas (MPAs) - possibly set up in networks - constitute a key component in EB-MSM policies and practises and have been applied as a cornerstone in conservation of marine biodiversity, management of fish populations, development of coastal tourism, etc. Moreover, MPA experiences have provided methods and concepts (such as zoning) to a wider EB-MSM context. The assignment of values to biophysical features of the marine environment allows the direct assessment of related management choices and may assist EB-MSM.A range of monetary valuation techniques have been proposed to reduce attributes of goods and services to a single metric. However, in the marine environment such an approach is often over simplistic, and thus less reductive techniques may be necessary. Rather than producing a single metric, the results of non-monetary assessments guide policy allowing weight to be given as necessary to potential areas of conflict and consensus.Strategies to take into account climate change effects and geohazard risks in EB-MSM have been applied or proposed worldwide. EB-MSM regimes must be alert to such risks and flexible to account for changes.     

Measurements of ozone and its precursor nitrogen dioxide and crop yield losses due to cumulative ozone exposures over 40 ppb (AOT40) in rural coastal southern India

Measurements of ground level ozone (O₃), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and meteorological parameters (air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed and direction) has been made for 3 years from March 2007 to February 2010 at Nagercoil (8.2°N, 77.5°E, 23 m above sea level), an equatorial rural coastal site of southern India. The monthly average of daytime maximum of O₃ concentrations ranged from 28 to 50 parts per billion (ppb) with an annual average of 19.8 ppb. Similarly, monthly average of NO₂ concentration ranged from 3.4 ppb to 7.7 ppb with an annual average of 5.3 ppb. The monthly variation of meteorological parameters shows the little changes being a coastal site. The estimated summer crops yield losses by 1.1–15.6 % from present O₃ concentration level associated with AOT40 index 3.1–5 ppm h.     

Lake District pioneers – the earliest footprints on land

New evidence reveals that the first arthropods colonized dry land over 450 million years ago, more than 20 million years before the appearance of vascular plants. Traditionally, it was thought that animals only emerged on to land after plants had become established, thus providing a plentiful new food source. The earliest known terrestrial trace fossils occur in volcanogenic sediments from the English Lake District. The trace fossils are thought to have been made on land by a small millipede-like creature. These rocks contain no other fossils.     

Combining data from a multisensor tag and passive sonar to determine the diving behavior of a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)

Reports on the diving behavior of a sperm whale tagged and tracked on September 6, 2000 during the Sirena 2000 cruise in the Ligurian Sea. A total of about 4.5 h of acoustic and nonacoustic sensor data were recorded when a sperm whale was tagged with a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution developed tag with a hydrophone, motion, and pressure sensors. The animal was simultaneously tracked with a passive sonar system deployed from the NATO research vessel NRV Alliance. By combining data from the tag and passive sonar, we were able to reconstruct a three-dimensional track of the whale, along with its orientation and vocal behavior. While it was tagged, the whale carried out three deep dives to a depth of about 900 m in an area with a bottom depth of about 2600 m. The inter-click intervals of the diving whale were not consistent with ranging on the bottom, but were consistent with the hypothesis that the whale was possibly echolocating on some target(s) near the depth at which it dove to feed. This study demonstrated an ability to track subtle changes in the behavior of diving whales. This ability is important for three areas: 1) basic research, 2) studies of the responses of these animals to controlled exposures of man-made noise, and 3) studies to infer the biological significance of behavioral disruption.     

Young star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud: NGC 1805 and 1818

We present colour–magnitude diagrams for two rich (≈10⁴ M_⊙) Large Magellanic Cloud star clusters with ages ≈10⁷ yr, constructed from optical and near-infrared data obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope . These data are part of an HST project to study LMC clusters with a range of ages. In this paper we investigate the massive star content of the young clusters, and determine the cluster ages and metallicities, paying particular attention to Be-star and blue-straggler populations and evidence of age spreads. We compare our data with detailed stellar-population simulations to investigate the turn-off structure of ≈25 Myr stellar systems, highlighting the complexity of the blue-straggler phenomenon.     

Shocked plagioclase signatures in Thermal Emission Spectrometer data of Mars

The extensive impact cratering record on Mars combined with evidence from SNC meteorites suggests that a significant fraction of the surface is composed of materials subjected to variable shock pressures. Pressure-induced structural changes in minerals during high-pressure shock events alter their thermal infrared spectral emission features, particularly for feldspars, in a predictable fashion. To understand the degree to which the distribution and magnitude of shock effects influence martian surface mineralogy, we used standard spectral mineral libraries supplemented by laboratory spectra of experimentally shocked bytownite feldspar [Johnson, J.R., Hörz, F., Christensen, P., Lucey, P.G., 2002b. J. Geophys. Res. 107 (E10), doi:10.1029/2001JE001517] to deconvolve Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) data from six relatively large (>50 km) impact craters on Mars. We used both TES orbital data and TES mosaics (emission phase function sequences) to study local and regional areas near the craters, and compared the differences between models using single TES detector data and 3×2 detector-averaged data. Inclusion of shocked feldspar spectra in the deconvolution models consistently improved the rms errors compared to models in which the spectra were not used, and resulted in modeled shocked feldspar abundances of >15% in some regions. However, the magnitudes of model rms error improvements were within the noise equivalent rms errors for the TES instrument [Hamilton V., personal communication]. This suggests that while shocked feldspars may be a component of the regions studied, their presence cannot be conclusively demonstrated in the TES data analyzed here. If the distributions of shocked feldspars suggested by the models are real, the lack of spatial correlation to crater materials may reflect extensive aeolian mixing of martian regolith materials composed of variably shocked impact ejecta from both local and distant sources.     

Vertical distribution of first stage larvae of the blue crab,Callinectes sapidus,at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay

The vertical distribution of stage I blue crab larvae, near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, was examined over four diurnal cycles. Each of two stations was occupied for 30 hours twice during the summer of 1979.On each of the four cruises, peak larval abundance occurred after a night time high slack tide, suggesting a synchronized hatch of blue crab larvae. 90–99% of all larvae collected were taken in the neuston layer. The apparent timing of the hatches to coincide with the beginning of an ebb tide and the concentration of larvae in the neuston layer strongly suggests seaward transport of these early stage larvae and the probability of offshore development.     

Macroscale friction of granular soils under monotonic and cyclic loading based upon micromechanical determination of dissipated energy

Macroscopic frictional behavior of granular materials is of great importance for studying several complex problems associated with fault slip and landslides. The main objective of this study is to model the macroscale frictional behavior of granular soils under monotonic and cyclic loadings based upon micromechanical determination of dissipated energy at particle contacts. This study is built on the general observation that the externally computed energy dissipation should be equal to the total internal energy dissipation derived from inter-particle sliding and rolling, energy losses from inter-particle collisions, and damping. For this purpose, the discrete element method is used to model a granular soil and determine the stored, dissipated, and damping energies associated with shear loading for applied monotonic and cyclic velocities. These energies are then related to the friction by an application of the Taylor-critical state power balance relationship. Also, the contributions of the different modes of energy dissipation (normal, shear, and rolling) to the total frictional resistance were studied. By changing the inter-particle friction, the simulations showed that the macroscopic friction was nearly constant, the slip friction increased almost linearly with increasing inter-particle friction, and the difference between the two was attributed to the non-energy dissipating dilatancy component. By providing a clear relationship between energy dissipated by micro-scale mechanisms versus the traditional engineering definition based on macro-scale (continuum) parameters, this study provides a means to develop a better understanding for the frictional behavior of granular media.