Evaluating Threats in Multinational Marine Ecosystems: A Coast Salish First Nations and Tribal Perspective

Despite the merit of managing natural resources on the scale of ecosystems, evaluating threats and managing risk in ecosystems that span multiple countries or jurisdictions can be challenging. This requires each government involved to consider actions in concert with actions being taken in other countries by co-managing entities. Multiple proposed fossil fuel-related and port development projects in the Salish Sea, a 16,925 km² inland sea shared by Washington State (USA), British Columbia (Canada), and Indigenous Coast Salish governments, have the potential to increase marine vessel traffic and negatively impact natural resources. There is no legal mandate or management mechanism requiring a comprehensive review of the potential cumulative impacts of these development activities throughout the Salish Sea and across the international border. This project identifies ongoing and proposed energy-related development projects that will increase marine vessel traffic in the Salish Sea and evaluates the threats each project poses to natural resources important to the Coast Salish. While recognizing that Coast Salish traditions identify all species as important and connected, we used expert elicitation to identify 50 species upon which we could evaluate impact. These species were chosen because Coast Salish depend upon them heavily for harvest revenue or as a staple food source, they were particularly culturally or spiritually significant, or they were historically part of Coast Salish lifeways. We identified six development projects, each of which had three potential impacts (pressures) associated with increased marine vessel traffic: oil spill, vessel noise and vessel strike. Projects varied in their potential for localized impacts (pressures) including shoreline development, harbor oil spill, pipeline spill, coal dust accumulation and nearshore LNG explosion. Based on available published data, impact for each pressure/species interaction was rated as likely, possible or unlikely. Impacts are likely to occur in 23 to 28% of the possible pressure/species scenarios and are possible in another 15 to 28% additional pressure/species interactions. While it is not clear which impacts will be additive, synergistic, or potentially antagonistic, studies that manipulate multiple stressors in marine ecosystems suggest that threats associated with these six projects are likely to have an overall additive or even synergistic interaction and therefore impact species of major cultural importance to the Coast Salish, an important concept that would be lost by merely evaluating each project independently. Failure to address multiple impacts will affect the Coast Salish and the 7 million other people that also depend on this ecosystem. These findings show the value of evaluating multiple threats, and ultimately conducting risk assessments at the scale of ecosystems and highlight the serious need for managers of multinational ecosystems to actively collaborate on evaluating threats, assessing risk, and managing resources.     

近海海洋生态连通性研究进展

生态连通性是空间生态学和保护生物学的重要概念和研究手段。国外越来越多的研究表明,开展近海海洋生态连通性研究对促进海洋生态系统保护和修复具有十分重要的现实意义。阐述了近海海洋生态连通性的概念与机制,回顾了目前近海海洋连通性的研究进展并分析了存在的问题,总结了近海海洋生态连通性研究的框架和具体方法,最后提出我国开展近海海洋生态连通性研究的建议,以期对今后国内开展海洋生态连通性相关研究工作有所启示。     

Land–Ocean Coupling of Carbon and Nitrogen Fluxes on Sandy Beaches

Rivers link oceans with the land, creating global hot spots of carbon processing in coastal seas. Coastlines around the world are dominated by sandy beaches, but beaches are unusual in that they are thought to rely almost exclusively on marine imports for food. No significant connections to terrestrial production having been demonstrated. By contrast, we isotopically traced carbon and nitrogen pathways leading to clams (Donax deltoides) on beaches. Clams from areas influenced by river plumes had significantly different isotope signatures (δ¹³C: −18.5 to −20.2‰; δ¹⁵N: 8.3–10.0‰) compared with clams remote from plumes (δ¹³C: −17.5 to −19.5‰; δ¹⁵N: 7.6–8.7‰), showing that terrestrial carbon and sewage, both delivered in river plumes, penetrate beach food webs. This is a novel mechanism of trophic subsidy in marine intertidal systems, linking the world’s largest shore ecosystem to continental watersheds. The same clams also carry pollution signatures of sewage discharged into rivers, demonstrating that coastal rivers connect ecosystems in unexpected ways and transfer contaminants across the land–ocean boundary. The links we demonstrate between terrigenous matter and the largest of all marine intertidal ecosystems are significant given the immense social, cultural, and economic values of beaches to humans and the predicted consequences of altered river discharge to coastal seas caused by global climate change.     

Climate warming may cause a parasite-induced collapse in coastal amphipod populations

Besides the direct impact on the general performance of individual organisms, the ecological consequences of climate change in terrestrial and marine ecosystems are expected to be determined by complex cascading effects arising from modified trophic interactions and competitive relationships. Recently, the synergistic effect of parasitism and climate change has been emphasised as potentially important to host population dynamics and community structure, but robust empirical evidence is generally lacking. The amphipod Corophium volutator is an ecologically important species in coastal soft-bottom habitats of the temperate North Atlantic, and commonly serves as host to microphallid trematodes that cause intensity-dependent and temperature-dependent mortality in the amphipod population. Using a simulation model parameterised with experimental and field data, we demonstrate that a 3.8°C increase in ambient temperature will likely result in a parasite-induced collapse of the amphipod population. This temperature increase is well within the range predicted to prevail by the year 2075 in the International Wadden Sea region from where the model data are obtained. Due to the amphipods’ ecological importance, their population decline may impact the coastal ecosystem as a whole.     

Comparative analysis of European wide marine ecosystem shifts: a large-scale approach for developing the basis for ecosystem-based management

Abrupt and rapid ecosystem shifts (where major reorganizations of food-web and community structures occur), commonly termed regime shifts, are changes between contrasting and persisting states of ecosystem structure and function. These shifts have been increasingly reported for exploited marine ecosystems around the world from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic. Understanding the drivers and mechanisms leading to marine ecosystem shifts is crucial in developing adaptive management strategies to achieve sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystems. An international workshop on a comparative approach to analysing these marine ecosystem shifts was held at Hamburg University, Institute for Hydrobiology and Fisheries Science, Germany on 1-3 November 2010. Twenty-seven scientists from 14 countries attended the meeting, representing specialists from seven marine regions, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Barents Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Scotian Shelf off the Canadian East coast. The goal of the workshop was to conduct the first large-scale comparison of marine ecosystem regime shifts across multiple regional areas, in order to support the development of ecosystem-based management strategies.     

气候变化条件下全氟化合物对海岸带可持续发展的影响及管控策略

海岸带生态系统为人类提供了食物、水等丰富的物质以及文化、休闲等生态系统服务。但由于全氟化合物等污染物的排放和气候变化的影响,海岸带地区环境日益恶化、资源枯竭、极端气候灾害加剧。这些问题直接导致了海岸带水质下降、近海生物多样性减少、生物群落结构变化,海岸带生态系统可持续发展受到影响。全氟化合物在自然环境中难以降解,会沿食物链在生物体内累积和放大进而对人类健康造成风险。随着氟化工产业在我国的快速发展、新型全氟化合物的不断更替以及气候变化的加剧,全氟化合物对海岸带生态的影响面临着极大的不确定性。为了更好地服务海岸带生态系统的可持续发展,目前仍需要加快完善立法保障,在全国范围内对全氟化合物进行监测;将海洋与陆地作为一个有机整体,统筹陆地影响和海岸带管控,严格控制污染物的排放。     

景观生态学:海洋生态系统研究的一个新视角

全球海洋生态系统作为异质性的复杂巨系统是一类景观生态系统 ,具有明显的等级结构 ,因此 ,景观生态学的原理和方法完全可以应用到海洋生态学的研究中来。生态系统的尺度限制了海洋生态学向更加宏观的方向进一步发展 ,在景观的水平上 ,运用景观生态学的理论和方法可以更好地在多个尺度上开展深入广泛的研究。本文不仅讨论了海洋景观的空间异质性 ,而且就海洋景观生态学的若干研究方向进行了探讨。     

Sources,impacts and trends of pharmaceuticals in the marine and coastal environment

There has been a significant investment in research to define exposures and potential hazards of pharmaceuticals in freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. A substantial number of integrated environmental risk assessments have been developed in Europe, North America and many other regions for these situations. In contrast, comparatively few empirical studies have been conducted for human and veterinary pharmaceuticals that are likely to enter coastal and marine ecosystems. This is a critical knowledge gap given the significant increase in coastal human populations around the globe and the growth of coastal megacities, together with the increasing importance of coastal aquaculture around the world. There is increasing evidence that pharmaceuticals are present and are impacting on marine and coastal environments. This paper reviews the sources, impacts and concentrations of pharmaceuticals in marine and coastal environments to identify knowledge gaps and suggests focused case studies as a priority for future research.     

Climate change undermines the global functioning of marine food webs

Sea water temperature affects all biological and ecological processes that ultimately impact ecosystem functioning. In this study, we examine the influence of temperature on global biomass transfers from marine secondary production to fish stocks. By combining fisheries catches in all coastal ocean areas and life‐history traits of exploited marine species, we provide global estimates of two trophic transfer parameters which determine biomass flows in coastal marine food web: the trophic transfer efficiency (TTE) and the biomass residence time (BRT) in the food web. We find that biomass transfers in tropical ecosystems are less efficient and faster than in areas with cooler waters. In contrast, biomass transfers through the food web became faster and more efficient between 1950 and 2010. Using simulated changes in sea water temperature from three Earth system models, we project that the mean TTE in coastal waters would decrease from 7.7% to 7.2% between 2010 and 2100 under the ‘no effective mitigation’ representative concentration pathway (RCP8.5), while BRT between trophic levels 2 and 4 is projected to decrease from 2.7 to 2.3 years on average. Beyond the global trends, we show that the TTEs and BRTs may vary substantially among ecosystem types and that the polar ecosystems may be the most impacted ecosystems. The detected and projected changes in mean TTE and BRT will undermine food web functioning. Our study provides quantitative understanding of temperature effects on trophodynamic of marine ecosystems under climate change.     

Linking Freshwater Flows and Ecosystem Services Appropriated by People: The Case of the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin

Humanity's dependence on ecosystem support is “mentally hidden” to large segments of society; it has no price in the market and is seldom accounted for in decision making. Similarly, the needs of ecosystems for fresh water for generation of nature's services are largely invisible. Freshwater assessments predominantly have focused on human uses of liquid water in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. We estimated the spatial appropriation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems—the ecological footprint—of the 85 million inhabitants in the Baltic Sea drainage basin with regard to consumption of food and timber and waste assimilation of nutrients and carbon dioxide. We also estimated the amount of fresh water—the water vapor flow—that the inhabitants depend upon for their appropriation of these ecosystem services. The ecological footprint estimate corresponds to an area as large as 8.5–9.5 times the Baltic Sea and its drainage basin with a per capita ecosystem appropriation of 220,000–250,000 m². This large estimate is mainly attributed to carbon sequestering by marine ecosystems and forests. The water vapor flow of the ecological footprint of forests, wetlands, agriculture, and inland water bodies for making the human appropriation of ecosystem services possible is estimated at 1175–2875 km³ y⁻¹. Human dependence on water vapor flows for ecosystem services is as great as 54 times the amount of freshwater runoff that is assessed and managed in society. Decision making on an increasingly human-dominated planet will have to address explicitly the critical interdependencies between freshwater flows and the capacity of ecosystems to generate services. We advocate a dynamic ecohydrological landscape-management approach upstream and downstream in watersheds to reduce unintentional impacts, irreversible change, and further loss of freshwater resources, ecosystem services, and resilience. Received 6 October 1998; accepted 30 March 1999.     

Biodiversity issues for the forthcoming tropical Mediterranean Sea

Present-day Mediterranean marine biodiversity is undergoing rapid alteration. Because of the increased occurrence of warm-water biota, it has been said that the Mediterranean is under a process of ‘tropicalization’. This paper analyses the main patterns of the Mediterranean Sea tropicalization and considers briefly its extent and consequences. As happened during previous interglacial phases of the Quaternary, Atlantic water, entering via the Straits of Gibraltar, carries into the Mediterranean species that are prevalently of (sub)tropical affinity. On the other side of the basin, Red Sea species penetrate through the Suez Canal, a phenomenon called lessepsian migration from the name of F. de Lesseps, the French engineer who promoted the cutting of the Canal. Also the many exotic species introduced by humans voluntarily or involuntarily are nearly always typical of warm waters. Climate change combines with Atlantic influx, lessepsian migration and the introduction of exotic species by humans to the establishment of tropical marine biota in the Mediterranean Sea. Present-day warming ultimately favours the spread of warm-water species through direct and indirect effects, and especially by changing water circulation. It is impossible at present to foresee to what extent the exuberance of warm-water species will affect the trophic web and the functioning of marine ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea of tomorrow. While Mediterranean Sea communities are modifying their pattern of species composition, they do not seem to be acquiring a more marked tropical physiognomy: Mediterranean coastal marine ecosystems are still dominated by frondose algae (even if the species that are gaining ascendancy are of tropical origin) and not by corals as is normal in tropical seas.     

粤港澳大湾区海岸带生态系统保护和修复策略

粤港澳大湾区是我国海岸带高强度开发区域,面临着生态环境质量不高、生态系统受损严重的压力,开展海岸带生态系统保护修复是绿色湾区发展的必然需求。在分析大湾区海岸带基底、生态环境现状及问题的基础上,提出大湾区海岸带生态系统保护修复规划的策略,从以下5个方面构筑粤港澳大湾区海岸带生态系统保护修复规划的体系：一是从陆海污染统筹治理来恢复海域生物生存环境;二是从自然岸线保护、自然保护地体系重构与规范化建设、珍稀濒危物种栖息地保护来加强海岸带生态的保护;三是通过岸线生态修复、典型滨海湿地生态系统（红树林、珊瑚礁、海草床）修复、受损海岛生态修复来构筑生态安全屏障;四是从海堤生态化改造与建设、沿海防护林体系建设和海岸带综合防护工程建设来促进生态减灾协同增效;五是打造智慧海岸带管理服务平台来保障海洋命运共同体健康发展。本研究提出大湾区海岸带生态保护修复策略,期望为大湾区生态建设和环境保护提供参考。     

Human forcing of the copepod–fish–jellyfish triangular trophic relationship

Copepods, the most abundant planktonic metazoans, constitute an intermediate trophic position between phytoplankton and higher trophic-level animals such as fish and jellyfish. Fish and jellyfish are adversaries because they often compete for prey copepods and also can be prey of each other. The classical food chain represented by phytoplankton–copepod–fish is the main process leading to efficient and sustainable production of fish as human food. At present, more than 75% of world fish stocks are fully or over exploited. On the other hand, jellyfish populations have increased world-wide, particularly in waters under significant human influences. Two such cases are seen in East Asian waters, where massive blooms of moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita s.l.) and giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai) have repeatedly occurred in recent decades, causing severe damage to local fisheries. In this article, I will review the pivotal role of copepods in marine ecosystems, particularly in the Inland Sea of Japan, where the annual fish catch per unit area is among the world’s highest. Then, I will describe an ongoing ecosystem shift from dominance by fish to dominance by jellyfish as a consequence of human forcing. Finally, I will propose to create “sato-umi”, a coastal sea with high productivity and biodiversity with wise human interaction, where copepod production would most efficiently transforms into food for humans.     

海洋生态系统服务价值评估研究综述

海洋生态系统服务是通过海洋生态系统的功能结构和生态过程,以物品和服务等方式直接或间接地给人类提供的效益。海洋生态系统服务价值衡量了海洋生态系统对人类经济社会的贡献度,加快海洋强国建设,急需加强海洋生态系统服务价值评价。通过对市场价值法、替代市场法和假想市场法三大类海洋生态系统服务价值评估方法进行比较分析后可知,各类方法各有利弊,但是,存在不同方法耦合和方法优化选择的空间。通过海岸带、近海、远洋等典型海洋生态系统服务价值评估的研究案例展现了海洋生态系统服务价值评估在海洋资源开发与保护的政策选择、海洋生态补偿与环境损害赔偿的价格决定中的重要作用。海洋生态系统服务价值评估研究前景广阔,在内涵认知深入化、评估方法科学化、评估指标体系化、结果应用广泛化等方面仍有进一步拓展空间。     

Confronting Feedbacks of Degraded Marine Ecosystems

In many coastal areas, marine ecosystems have shifted into contrasting states having reduced ecosystem services (hereafter called degraded). Such degraded ecosystems may be slow to revert to their original state due to new ecological feedbacks that reinforce the degraded state. A better understanding of the way human actions influence the strength and direction of feedbacks, how different feedbacks could interact, and at what scales they operate, may be necessary in some cases for successful management of marine ecosystems. Here we synthesize interactions of critical feedbacks of the degraded states from six globally distinct biomes: coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrass beds, shallow soft sediments, oyster reefs, and coastal pelagic food webs. We explore to what extent current management captures these feedbacks and propose strategies for how and when (that is, windows of opportunity) to influence feedbacks in ways to break the resilience of the degraded ecosystem states. We conclude by proposing some challenges for future research that could improve our understanding of these issues and emphasize that management of degraded marine states will require a broad social–ecological approach to succeed.     

Assessment of bioinvasion impacts on a regional scale: a comparative approach

This paper presents an overall bioinvasion impact assessment on the scale of a large marine region—the Baltic Sea, as defined by the Helsinki Commission. The methodology is based on a classification of the abundance and distribution range of alien species and the magnitude of their impacts on native communities, habitats and ecosystem functioning aggregated in a “Biopollution Level” index (BPL) which ranges from ‘no impact’ (BPL = 0) to ‘massive impact’ (BPL = 4). The assessment performed for nine Baltic sub-regions revealed that documented ecological impact is only known for 43 alien species out of 119 registered in the Sea. The highest biopollution (BPL = 3, strong impact) occurs in coastal lagoons, inlets and gulfs, and the moderate biopollution (BPL = 2)—in the open sea areas. The methodology was also used to classify species into alien (BPL = 0) versus ‘impacting’ species (BPL > 0), which can be divided into ‘potentially invasive’ (BPL = 1) and ‘invasive’ (BPL > 1) ones. No clear correlation between the number of established alien and impacting species was found in the sub-regions of the Baltic Sea. The methodology, although requiring a substantial research effort, proved to be useful for interregional comparisons and evaluating the bioinvasion effects of individual alien species.     

Marine‐terminating glaciers sustain high productivity in Greenland fjords

Accelerated mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet leads to glacier retreat and an increasing input of glacial meltwater to the fjords and coastal waters around Greenland. These high latitude ecosystems are highly productive and sustain important fisheries, yet it remains uncertain how they will respond to future changes in the Arctic cryosphere. Here we show that marine‐terminating glaciers play a crucial role in sustaining high productivity of the fjord ecosystems. Hydrographic and biogeochemical data from two fjord systems adjacent to the Greenland ice sheet, suggest that marine ecosystem productivity is very differently regulated in fjords influenced by either land‐terminating or marine‐terminating glaciers. Rising subsurface meltwater plumes originating from marine‐terminating glaciers entrain large volumes of ambient deep water to the surface. The resulting upwelling of nutrient‐rich deep water sustains a high phytoplankton productivity throughout summer in the fjord with marine‐terminating glaciers. In contrast, the fjord with only land‐terminating glaciers lack this upwelling mechanism, and is characterized by lower productivity. Data on commercial halibut landings support that coastal regions influenced by large marine‐terminating glaciers have substantially higher marine productivity. These results suggest that a switch from marine‐terminating to land‐terminating glaciers can substantially alter the productivity in the coastal zone around Greenland with potentially large ecological and socio‐economic implications.     

互花米草入侵对滨海湿地生态系统的影响研究进展

滨海湿地受海、陆生态系统的交互影响,是典型的生态脆弱带和敏感区。互花米草是全球海岸带最为成功的外来入侵物种,对滨海湿地生态系统已经产生了重要的影响。本文对已有相关研究进行了系统梳理,揭示了互花米草入侵对滨海湿地生态系统生物地球化学循环(碳循环、氮循环、磷循环及土壤重金属迁移)和入侵地生物群落(微生物、植物和动物)的影响。并在此基础上对今后研究的重点提出了展望: 加强互花米草入侵对滨海湿地生态系统健康影响机制研究;重点关注全球变化背景下互花米草群落与湿地环境互馈耦合;开展长时序定位监测,厘清滨海湿地生态系统对互米草不同入侵阶段的响应差异,以期对互花米草的生态利用和治理提供指导。     

Ecosystem thresholds with hypoxia

Hypoxia is one of the common effects of eutrophication in coastal marine ecosystems and is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem worldwide. The causes of hypoxia are associated with excess nutrient inputs from both point and non-point sources, although the response of coastal marine ecosystems is strongly modulated by physical processes such as stratification and mixing. Changes in climate, particularly temperature, may also affect the susceptibility of coastal marine ecosystems to hypoxia. Hypoxia is a particularly severe disturbance because it causes death of biota and catastrophic changes in the ecosystem. Bottom water oxygen deficiency not only influences the habitat of living resources but also the biogeochemical processes that control nutrient concentrations in the water column. Increased phosphorus fluxes from sediments into overlying waters occur with hypoxia. In addition, reductions in the ability of ecosystems to remove nitrogen through denitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation may be related to hypoxia and could lead to acceleration in the rate of eutrophication. Three large coastal marine ecosystems (Chesapeake Bay, Northern Gulf of Mexico, and Danish Straits) all demonstrate thresholds whereby repeated hypoxic events have led to an increase in susceptibility of further hypoxia and accelerated eutrophication. Once hypoxia occurs, reoccurrence is likely and may be difficult to reverse. Therefore, elucidating ecosystem thresholds of hypoxia and linking them to nutrient inputs are necessary for the management of coastal marine ecosystems. Finally, projected increases in warming show an increase in the susceptibility of coastal marine ecosystems to hypoxia such that hypoxia will expand. Guest editors: J. H. Andersen & D. J. Conley Eutrophication in Coastal Ecosystems: Selected papers from the Second International Symposium on Research and Management of Eutrophication in Coastal Ecosystems, 20–23 June 2006, Nyborg, Denmark     

Using primary productivity as an index of coastal eutrophication: the units of measurement matter

Eutrophication is a serious environmental and economic problemin coastal marine ecosystems worldwide. It has recently beenrecommended that measurements of primary productivity, beinga sensitive and accurate indicator of eutrophication, shouldbe mandatory when monitoring and assessing the ecological statusof coastal waters. The units of primary productivity chosenfor eutrophication assessment will be very important becausenot all measures of primary productivity vary monotonically(or even straightforwardly) with changes in aquatic fertility.Volumetric expressions of primary productivity (rates of carbonfixation per unit volume of seawater) may prove to be the mostsensitive and most reliable measures to use when evaluatingthe eutrophication status of coastal marine ecosystems. Anotherpotential measure of primary productivity, the light-saturatedrate of photosynthesis per unit Chlorophyll a (P:B^Chl) ratio,is unsuitable for the assessment of aquatic ecosystem responsesto nutrient enrichment.