Researchers investigate the 'whole enchilada' in Tasman Sea

Researchers investigate the ‘whole enchilada’ in Tasman Sea

Loading equipment onto the <i>RV Investigator</i>. Photo ©Lian Kwong, UBC

Loading equipment onto the RV Investigator.
Photo ©Lian Kwong, UBC

UBC PhD candidate Lian Kwong, and postdoctoral research fellow Dr. Natasha Henschke recently participated in a scientific voyage on board the Australian research vessel Investigator, under the supervision of Professor Evgeny Pakhomov, Principal Investigator and Director of UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. This research voyage, titled “The whole enchilada: from production to predation in Tasman Sea ecosystems,” was led by Chief Scientist, Professor Iain Suthers, and focused on establishing the relationship between open ocean production and coastal fisheries off southeastern Australia.

Over the three-week period, onboard researchers sampled different oceanographic habitats for phytoplankton, zooplankton and larval fish, larval lobster, and small fish. Surveys were also conducted to quantify the birds and cetaceans in the area. Sampling methods included the use of multi-frequency echo sounders, CTD casts, Triaxus tows with an attached laser optical plankton counter, plankton nets and trawls down to 500 and 1000m deep. Several interesting organisms were identified in the deep net trawls, including various anglerfish species such as the ghostly seadevil (Haplophryne mollis), often with a parasitic male attached.

Haplophryne mollis with parasitic male attached. Photo ©Lian Kwong, UBC

Kwong is working Prof. Pakhomov and fellow Principal Investigator Dr. Jason Everett of the University of New South Wales on assessing active carbon transport of mesozooplankton and micronekton in the Tasman Sea.

“The animals that we’ve been sampling undergo the world’s largest migration – from the deep ocean to the surface of the ocean at night to feed,” said Kwong. “In combination with our depth stratified tows, we will also be looking at the acoustic data with Dr. Sven Gastaeur (University of Tasmania). This will help us figure out precisely which animals are migrating in the water column, and how deep they are going.”

Additional research involving pelagic tunicates (salps and pyrosomes), that were opportunistically captured onboard, will be led by Dr. Henschke to supplement her current postdoctoral work with Prof. Pakhomov on Southern Ocean salps.

Pyrosomes. Photo ©Lian Kwong, UBC

“While pyrosomes were not a major focus of this voyage, their mass abundance mirrors recent swarms that were seen off the coast of Oregon and Washington earlier this year,” she said. “It is interesting that these organisms can form such dense swarms, yet we still know so little about their basic ecology, and what causes these swarms. Hopefully we can use this data to link their occurrence to environmental drivers.”

Dr. Brian Hunt, Assistant Professor in UBC’s Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, is also a collaborator on the project, and is focusing on using stable isotopes to understand food web dynamics.

Lian and Natasha working hard at sea. Photo ©Iain Suthers, UNSW.

The voyage was an international collaboration involving ten institutions: University of British Columbia (Canada), Fisheries and Oceans (Canada), University of New South Wales (Australia), University of Tasmania (Australia), Curtin University (Australia), University of Technology Sydney (Australia), University of Auckland (NZ), Auckland Museum (NZ), Taronga Zoo (Australia) and CSIRO (Australia).

This research was supported by a grant of sea time on Investigator from the Marine National Facility. The Marine National Facility is owned and operated by CSIRO on behalf of Australia.

 

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UBC professor wins Volvo Environment Prize

Dr Rashid Sumaila

Dr Rashid Sumaila

The 2017 Volvo Environment Prize has been awarded to Dr. Rashid Sumaila, professor in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and School of Public Policy, Director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit (FERU) and OceanCanada Partnership, for his innovative work in fisheries economics and sustainable governance of ocean resources.

Dr. Sumaila’s research covers all aspects of the future health of the oceans: overfishing, oil spills, plastics pollution, ocean acidification, and climate change. He is an economist who has challenged traditional ways of marine governance and has introduced new ways of thinking, such as protecting the high seas as a “fish bank” for the world.

“This is an amazing, unexpected honour and recognition,” said Dr. Sumaila. “It puts me in the company of truly remarkable scientists, which is very humbling!”

“We are incredibly proud of Professor Sumaila,” said UBC President, Professor Santa Ono. “He is not only one of the most cited scientists, he also has the ability to bring science to life, to get everyone from children to laymen to experts interested in sustainability, climate change and the economy of fisheries, an area which he has pioneered.”

The world’s oceans were once seen as an infinite fisheries supply source, however research undertaken by Dr. Sumaila, and others, showed that overfishing has caused that supply to be severely depleted. “There is clear scientific evidence, supported by reports from fishermen all over the world, that we are currently taking out too much fish. We are overfishing, depleting our resources”, said Dr. Sumaila. “If we were to protect the high seas, we would create areas where the fish can hide and grow. Fish can later seed the economic zones of countries. This will improve not only the marine biodiversity but also economics.” This suggestion of a total ban on fishing in the high seas, which cover more than two thirds of the world’s oceans, was, at first, deemed unrealistic, however the first high seas marine protected area, the Ross Sea in Antarctica, will come into force by December 1, 2017.

In addition, Dr. Sumaila’s application of game theory to fisheries, and his analysis of the nature, amounts and effects of government subsidies on global fisheries, has shown him to be an innovative, interdisciplinary researcher who is willing to address ocean ecology, fisheries economics, and conservation biology. His work is highly regarded by policy makers at the highest levels, resulting in invitations to give talks at the United Nations, the White House, the U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, the African Union, the British House of Lords, and the Canadian Parliament.

The Volvo Environment Prize was founded in 1988 and has become one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes. It is awarded annually to people who have made outstanding scientific discoveries within the area of the environment and sustainable development.

Dr. Sumaila will be presented with the prize, which consists of a diploma, a glass sculpture and a cash sum of SEK 1.5 million (approx. $230,000 CAD), at a ceremony in Stockholm on November 29, 2017.

Photo: Tore Marklund

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Brian Hunt joins the Canada C3 cruise for marine DNA project

MV Polar Prince

Dr. Brian Hunt, assistant professor in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and Hakai Professor in Oceanography, will be setting sail on the Canada C3 Expedition on October 2nd.

The Canada C3 Expedition, part of Canada’s 150th Anniversary celebrations, is an epic 150-day voyage from Toronto to Victoria, via the Northwest Passage. Divided into 15 legs, the expedition invited a cross-section of Canadians, including scientists, artists, Indigenous Elders, historians, community leaders, youth, and journalists to learn more about Canada’s environment, coastal communities, and to connect Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Dr. Hunt is one of the principal investigators for the Trans-Canada eDNA Biodiversity Mapping Project, which will use new genomic technology to analyse trace amounts of environmental DNA shed by marine organisms in the surrounding water. Through the use of ultra fine filters and metabarcoding analysis, the research team will collect information about marine organisms in Canadian waters, including viruses, bacteria, zooplankton, invertebrates, fish, and marine mammals.

The research team will compile this information into a Pan Canadian biodiversity database that can then be used to measure the impacts of environmental changes, such as those from climate change (e.g., rising ocean temperatures, changing salinity, and sea ice loss), on marine species.

Dr. Brian Hunt

“The Canada C3 expedition will provide us with a unique opportunity to gather necessary samples and utilize new technologies to learn more about our marine ecosystems, and engage directly with local communities, individuals, and cruise participants from diverse backgrounds in communicating our science,” said Dr. Hunt. “We have the opportunity to build a database that can become an important reference for Canadians’ understanding of the current distribution of species in Canada’s three oceans, against which we can measure future changes.”

Dr. Hunt will be on legs 13 and 14 of the Canada C3 cruise, from Prince Rupert to Bella Bella, and from Bella Bella to Campbell River. Dr. Kristi Miller-Saunders, from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Pacific Biological Station and a principal investigator on the eDNA Biodiversity Mapping Project, will be the lead scientist on the final leg of the expedition, from Campbell River to Victoria, BC.

 

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Juvenile Salmon Survival Program gains funding from MITACS and the Tula Foundation

The Juvenile Salmon Survival Program, led by Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries UBC-Hakai Professor in Oceanography, Dr. Brian Hunt, has been awarded a $270,000 Tula Foundation-Mitacs grant in support of ongoing research into the early marine life history of juvenile salmon in British Columbia.

“Salmon are one of the most culturally, ecologically, and economically important fish in British Columbia, however, their stocks have been declining since the 1990’s,” said Dr. Hunt. “This collaborative program is concentrating on juvenile salmon’s first months in the ocean as critical to their survival. We want to resolve how changing ocean conditions and ecosystems are impacting BC’s salmon.”

The Juvenile Salmon Survival Program is a collaboration between the University of British Columbia, Hakai Institute, Simon Fraser University, University of Toronto, Pacific Salmon Foundation, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the Heiltsuk Nation. The award will support two postdoctoral fellows, a PhD student and five MSc students as they focus on the role that marine habitat, feeding conditions, pathogen and parasite infections, and migration behaviour play in the survival of juvenile salmon in British Columbia.

 

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Some marine species more vulnerable to climate change than others

Certain marine species will fare much worse than others as they become more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, a new UBC study has found.

After analyzing the biological characteristics of 1,074 marine fish and shellfish, the study identified 294 species that are most at-risk due to climate change by 2050. Species most at-risk include the Eastern Australian salmon, yellowbar angelfish, toli shad, sohal surgeonfish and spotted grouper.

William Cheung

William Cheung

“We hope that this study will highlight the marine species that are most in need of management and conservation actions under climate change,” said William Cheung, associate professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and director of science for the Nippon Foundation – UBC Nereus Program.

As part of the study, UBC researchers created a database that examines the long-term vulnerability of marine species that are important to fisheries around the world. The database was developed with an approach that uses “fuzzy logic” to combine information about the biological sensitivity of these species to environmental changes as well as their projected exposure to changes in the ocean including temperature and oxygen and acidity levels.

“How susceptible are Atlantic cod to climate change compared to skipjack tuna? How about smaller fishes such as anchovy and pilchard?” asked Cheung. “We know that some characteristics of the species make them more sensitive and less resilient to climate change.”

The factors that restrict whether fish or shellfish can adapt to climate change include their preferred temperature range, restrictions on their geographic range, how long it takes to reproduce, and specific habitat requirements such as needing kelp or coral reef to survive.

“Eastern Australian salmon is highly vulnerable because their distribution is limited to shallow coastal and estuarine waters in southern Australia and New Zealand,” said Miranda Jones, the study’s lead author, who was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries when the study was underway. “The species lives in habitats that are exposed to large changes in ocean conditions and have limited scope to avoid these changes.”

In Canada, sockeye salmon, along with the alewife, Pacific bonito, and sharks such as the porbeagle and thresher, are identified as at risk to climate change impacts. In contrast, some species such as the Pacific sanddab, blue crab and Pacific sandlance have less vulnerable biological characteristics and live in areas that are relatively less affected by climate change.

The study “Using fuzzy logic to determine the vulnerability of marine species to climate change” was published today in Global Change Biology.

This research was funded by the Nippon Foundation – UBC Nereus Program and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada.

Background
The researchers used “fuzzy logic” to develop this database. Fuzzy logic allows reasoning and drawing conclusions based on the best available expert and scientific knowledge, even with incomplete or uncertain information. Such fuzzy logic approaches have been applied to study marine biodiversity conservation and fisheries management.

About the Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program
The Nereus Program, a collaboration between the Nippon Foundation and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, has engaged in innovative, interdisciplinary ocean research since its inception in 2011. The program is currently a global partnership of twenty leading marine science institutes with the aim of undertaking research that advances our comprehensive understandings of the global ocean systems across the natural and social sciences, from oceanography and marine ecology to fisheries economics and impacts on coastal communities. Visit nereusprogram.org for more information.

 

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Going diving in the tropics? Don’t eat the reef fish!

Dive tourists taking a lunchtime break in Palau. Photo: Colette Wabnitz

Dive tourists taking a lunchtime break in Palau. Photo: Colette Wabnitz

Reducing tourist consumption of reef fish is critical for Palau’s ocean sustainability, finds a new UBC study that suggests other small island nations might also consider adopting this strategy.

Climate change is expected to lead to sharp declines in Palau’s reefs, and this new research suggests that the best tourism management strategy includes a more than 70 per cent reduction in the amount of reef fish eaten by visitors. These findings are relevant for sustainable development for other small island developing states that are likely to feel a significant impact from changes to the ocean.

Photo: Colette Wabnitz

“Palau’s reefs and the fish communities they host are incredibly beautiful and recognized worldwide as a top diving destination,” says lead author Colette Wabnitz, research associate with the Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Tourist numbers can reach nine times the local population and most come to enjoy the ocean. This puts enormous pressure on local marine resources that are central to local communities’ culture, food security and livelihoods.”

Palau, an archipelago of 700 islands in the South Pacific, is heavily dependent on tourism. Many studies have focused on damage that tourists cause reefs physically — from stepping on coral to interacting with wildlife — but this is the first to look at the effects of consuming the same fish that tourists are looking at through their dive masks.

The authors developed a social-ecological computer model to explore policy scenarios involving tourism, climate change, marine conservation, and local food security. Fish consumption emerged as playing an important role in future ecosystem declines.

The authors found that the health of reefs can be better maintained by shifting seafood consumption to open water fish, such as sustainably-harvested tuna, instead of reef fishes such as grouper, snapper, and parrotfish.

“Dining habits are removing important fish species from local reefs, and it’s ironic that viewing these fish is the reason people come in the first place. This is an important step that can be taken now, rather than a future adaptation to climate change,” says co-author Andrés Cisneros-Montemayor, Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program manager. “Sustainable tourism, especially ecotourism, shouldn’t threaten the food security of local people or their environment.”

On a snorkel in Palau. Photo: Colette Wabnitz

The study’s recommendations, which align with the government’s current proposal of developing an offshore national fishery as part of the recently designated National Marine Sanctuary, may allow Palau to protect reef systems and the industries that rely on them, as well as traditional local lifestyles intimately linked to catching and eating seafood.

“The ocean is central to Palau’s life and customs; their seafood consumption must be maintained sustainably,” says co-author Yoshitaka Ota, Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program director of policy at the University of Washington. “The most important thing is for the people of Palau to keep engaging with the ocean, eating good fish, catching fish sustainably and protecting their way of life, tekoi ra belau — as they say in Palau. We are hoping that this study will be used for current Pacific Island Nation policy to address what they can do right now and for the future.”

The study was published this week in Marine Policy.

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This work was supported by the Nippon Foundation. Additional co-author is Quentin Hanich, Nereus Program principal investigator at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), at the University of Wollongong.

About the Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program
The Nereus Program, a collaboration between the Nippon Foundation and the University of British Columbia, has engaged in innovative, interdisciplinary ocean research since its inception in 2011. The program is currently a global partnership of sixteen leading marine science institutes with the aim of undertaking research that advances our comprehensive understandings of the global ocean systems across the natural and social sciences, from oceanography and marine ecology to fisheries economics and impacts on coastal communities. Visit nereusprogram.org for more information.

 

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Daniel Pauly awarded Royal Society of Canada’s Sir John Willam Dawson medal

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) has awarded the 2017 Sir John William Dawson Medal to UBC fisheries researcher Daniel Pauly.

Dr. Daniel Pauly

Dr. Daniel Pauly

Dr. Pauly is a leader in fisheries science and biodiversity research, whose contributions have created an extensive knowledge infrastructure that fishery scientists and experts working on aquatic biodiversity use every day in their work. He is a University Killam Professor – UBC’s highest honour – in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and Principal Investigator of the Sea Around Us Project, a large research project devoted to identifying and quantifying global fisheries trends.

Pauly is also co-founder of FishBase.org, the online encyclopedia of more than 30,000 fish species, and played a foundational role in the ecosystem modelling approach Ecopath, which has evolved into the world’s most widely used ecosystem modeling approach. Dr. Pauly’s work presents novel concepts for thinking about marine conservation issues (e.g., ‘fishing down food webs’, ‘shifting baselines’, ‘Malthusian overfishing’), new methods and/or software for estimating vital statistics of exploited populations (e.g., the growth and natural mortality of fishes), or consists of work intensive global assessments of major impacts on marine life (e.g., the fraction of primary production of the global ocean required by fisheries, the subsidies they receive from governments, the impact of Chinese fisheries on global fisheries statistics, or the real fisheries catch of the world, which is far higher that the catch officially reported).

Founded in 1882, the RSC is Canada’s oldest and most prestigious scholarly society, whose primary objective is to promote learning and research in the arts and sciences. The Sir John William Dawson Medal, created to honour the RSC’s first president (1882-1883). Sir John William Dawson was the foremost Canadian promoter of learning in his day, and this medal is awarded biannually to a scholar who makes important and sustained contributions to interdisciplinary research.

This year’s RSC award winners will be celebrated during the Induction and Awards Ceremony on Friday, November 24, 2017 at the Fairmont Winnipeg Hotel, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

 

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William Cheung receives the ICES Prix d’ Excellence Award

Dr. William Cheung
Photo: Vicky Lam

Dr. William Cheung was awarded the Prix d’ Excellence Award by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) for his important contributions in marine sciences at the ICES Annual Science Conference (ASC) on September 18, 2017.

Dr. Cheung is an Associate Professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, UBC and the Director (Science) of the Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program. His research focuses on understanding the responses and vulnerabilities of marine ecosystems and fisheries to global change, and examining trade-offs in managing and conserving living marine resources. His works cut across multiple disciplines, from oceanography to ecology, economics and social sciences, and range from local to global scales. Dr. Cheung is actively involved in international and regional initiatives that bridge science and policy; he was a Lead Author in the Working Group II of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Coordinating Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and Global Biodiversity Outlook. He also serves as member of the editorial board of Fish and Fisheries, Fisheries Oceanography and Frontier in Marine Sciences, and as scientific advisors in a number of international and local organizations including BioDiscovery, IUCN and WWF Canada.

Dr. William Cheung receives Prix D’Excellence Award
Photo: Vicky Lam

The ​​​​​​​​​​Prix d’Excellence, which is awarded every three years, is given in recognition the winner’s high level of achievement in marine sciences and their sustained of marine ecosystems conservation work through their research, scientific leadership and scientific policy leadership.

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Small-scale fisheries have big impact on oceans

Hand line fishers on Danajon Bank

Hand line fishers on Danajon Bank

A new UBC study has found that small-scale fisheries may have a much larger impact on ocean ecosystems than previously thought, due to a lack of data on their development over time.

Dr. Jennifer Selgrath

“We found that the influence from small-scale fisheries is far from small,” said Jennifer Selgrath, lead author who completed the research as a PhD student with UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and Project Seahorse. “In our case study in the Philippines, we found that the fisheries have become unsustainable because there are so many people trying to catch a limited number of fish and invertebrates.”

While the impact of large, industrial fisheries have been closely monitored in recent decades, small-scale fisheries that provide food and livelihood to coastal communities, particularly in the developing world, haven’t been monitored in the same way. Fisheries experts estimate that small-scale fisheries remove approximately 30 per cent of global catches or 22 million tonnes of marine life every year, providing a critical source of protein for millions of people worldwide.

In this study, researchers at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at UBC worked with local fishing communities in the Danajon Bank in the central Philippines to map the growth of small-scale fisheries and their impact on the ocean ecosystem between 1960 and 2010. The Danajon Bank is home to a unique double barrier reef, making it one of the richest areas of marine biodiversity in the world.

Researcher Jennifer Selgrath with local squid fishers

They found that the total fishing effort by small-scale fisheries increased approximately 2,000 per cent over 50 years from 1960 to 2010. During the same time period, these fisheries expanded their spatial footprint nearly 50 per cent because as competition and fishing pressure grew, fishers moved into other fishing grounds.

“Targeting new places in the ocean can artificially keep catches high, but this expansion also doubled the area that was impacted by fishing,” said Selgrath. “We also noted that as the fishing effort expanded, people started shifting from relatively benign fishing gears to intensive, damaging fishing gears.”

In the Danajon Bank, fishers were using explosives, thin crowbars to break open reefs to catch invertebrates hidden in crevices and small-mesh nets made out of mosquito netting.

“These trends are not unique to the Philippines and are apparent in other areas with small-scale fisheries around the globe,” said Selgrath. “Fostering sustainability in small-scale fisheries is an important global goal because these fisheries form the economic backbone of many poor and marginalized coastal communities.”

The study “Incorporating spatial dynamics greatly increases estimates of long-term fishing effort: a participatory mapping approach” was published in ICES Journal of Marine Science and was co-authored by Jennifer Selgrath, Amanda Vincent, and Sarah Gergel.

 

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Initiatives to strengthen climate change adaptation in Africa – Cape Town

By Vicky Lam
(Research Associate & Program Manager, Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program)

In late August, Professors Daniel Pauly, Rashid Sumaila and Dr. Vicky Lam, as representatives of the Global Fisheries Cluster in UBC’s Institute for Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), were invited by the World Bank to attend a technical consultation meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss a potential project that aims to understand the likely impacts of climate change through fisheries in African countries. The meeting was attended by variety of participants including representatives of the World Bank, staff from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), fisheries specialists from different regions of Africa, and several fisheries experts from other regions of the world. The objectives of this technical consultation meeting were to engage in a discussion of potential key partners, gather existing knowledge on the biological and socio-economic impacts on African fisheries, identify knowledge gaps, and gather recommendations and advice for this potential project.

Daniel Pauly presents at World Bank technical consultation meeting (Photo: ©Vicky Lam)

On the first day of the meeting, Daniel, Rashid and I shared our research and experiences during the session on “Existing work on climate change & marine fisheries relevant for Sub-Saharan Africa”. We presented our previous and current research work related to the impacts of climate change on the biological, ecological, economic and social aspects of fisheries. Daniel talked about ocean warming and its effect on fish and fisheries, with emphasis on West and Northwest Africa. In his talk, he presented the current reconstructed catch status for West African fisheries (Pauly and Zeller, 2016), poleward migration of fishes (Pauly, 1994, Cheung et al., 2009) and the impacts on fisheries under climate change (Cheung et al., 2010, Cheung et al., 2013b). He also highlighted his recent study that proposed that limits to the growth capacity of gills is a limiting factor to the growth of fish body size, which results in the shrinkage in fish size when the ocean gets warmer (Pauly and Kinne, 2010, Cheung et al., 2013a, Pauly and Cheung, 2017).

I followed with a presentation on the projected socio-economic impacts of climate change on fisheries revenues, number of fisheries-related jobs, fish supply and protein supply in West African countries through fisheries. My talk was based on my previous studies in this region (Lam et al., 2012, Lam et al., 2016). I also presented a vulnerability assessment study for the West African countries based on the framework reported in Allison et al. (2009). At the end of the presentation, I summarized the major challenges to fisheries under climate change in this region and offered recommendations to mitigate and adapt to these changes.

Rashid Sumaila presents at World Bank technical consultation meeting (Photo: ©Vicky Lam)

Rashid took the stage in the final part of this session. In his talk, he pointed out the impact of climate change on food security and human well-being, and the measures for coping with and adapting to these changes, including the idea of putting in place a climate endowment fund (Sumaila and Cheung, 2010, Sumaila et al., 2011, Sumaila et al., 2014). The climate endowment fund would ask the question: What is the capital that a country, region or the world will need to have in order to replace the loss in gross revenues that is likely to be incurred as a result of climate change? It would then call on individuals, businesses and governments to seed such a fund in preparation for what is to come (Sumaila & Cheung (2010). Lastly, Sumaila provided a sketch of currently ongoing work by members of the OceanCanada Partnership and the Global Fisheries Cluster that can contribute to this World Bank project.

The Global Fisheries Cluster’s presentations generated much positive feedback from the group of participants. They showed great interest in the approaches to understanding the climate change impacts on oceans and fisheries. They also had questions on the details of the modeling approach, particularly on incorporating management measures in the model, assessing the uncertainty of different parts of the models, including gender disaggregation in the social impact analysis, and the inclusion of ocean acidification in the models. The work of the “UBC group” provided a great starting point and preliminary framework for the further discussion of the approaches that maybe adopted by the proposed World Bank report.

On the last day of the meeting, I led a discussion on how to choose the appropriate vulnerability assessment framework for the proposed World Bank study. Daniel also gave a brief talk on extreme weather conditions and climate change. This talk was very informative and raised much interest in the relationship between extreme weather and climate change among the participants.

I found the meeting to be productive and I am positive that it would contribute to the future works on understanding climate change impacts on oceans and fisheries and how to adopt to these impacts in Africa.

 

References

ALLISON, E. H., PERRY, A. L., BADJECK, M. C., NEIL ADGER, W., BROWN, K., CONWAY, D., HALLS, A. S., PILLING, G. M., REYNOLDS, J. D. & ANDREW, N. L. 2009. Vulnerability of national economies to the impacts of climate change on fisheries. Fish Fish, 10, 173-196.

CHEUNG, W. W., LAM, V. W., SARMIENTO, J. L., KEARNEY, K., WATSON, R. & PAULY, D. 2009. Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios. Fish Fish, 10, 235-251.

CHEUNG, W. W., LAM, V. W., SARMIENTO, J. L., KEARNEY, K., WATSON, R., ZELLER, D. & PAULY, D. 2010. Large‐scale redistribution of maximum fisheries catch potential in the global ocean under climate change. Global Change Biol, 16, 24-35.

CHEUNG, W. W., SARMIENTO, J. L., DUNNE, J., FRÖLICHER, T. L., LAM, V. W., PALOMARES, M. D., WATSON, R. & PAULY, D. 2013a. Shrinking of fishes exacerbates impacts of global ocean changes on marine ecosystems. Nat. Clim. Change, 3, 254-258.

CHEUNG, W. W., WATSON, R. & PAULY, D. 2013b. Signature of ocean warming in global fisheries catch. Nature, 497, 365-368.

LAM, V. W. Y., CHEUNG, W. W. L., REYGONDEAU, G. & SUMAILA, U. R. 2016. Projected change in global fisheries revenues under climate change. Scientific Reports, 6, 32607.

LAM, V. W. Y., CHEUNG, W. W. L., SWARTZ, W. & SUMAILA, U. R. 2012. Climate Change Impacts on Fisheries in West Africa: Implications for Economic, Food and Nutritional Security. African Journal of Marine Science, 34, 103-117.

PAULY, D. 1994. Un mécanisme explicatif des migrations des poissons le long des côtes du Nord-Ouest africain.

PAULY, D. & CHEUNG, W. W. 2017. Sound physiological knowledge and principles in modeling shrinking of fishes under climate change. Global Change Biology.

PAULY, D. & KINNE, O. 2010. Gasping fish and panting squids: oxygen, temperature and the growth of water-breathing animals, International Ecology Institute Oldendorf/Luhe, Germany.

PAULY, D. & ZELLER, D. 2016. Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nature communications, 7.

SUMAILA, U. R. & CHEUNG, W. W. 2010. Cost of adapting fisheries to climate change. World Bank Discussion Paper, 5.

SUMAILA, U. R., CHEUNG, W. W. & LAM, V. W. 2014. Climate change effects on the economics and management of marine fisheries. Handbook on the Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity, 61.

SUMAILA, U. R., CHEUNG, W. W., LAM, V. W., PAULY, D. & HERRICK, S. 2011. Climate change impacts on the biophysics and economics of world fisheries. Nature climate change, 1, 449.

 

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