Marine protected area strategies: issues,divergences and the search for middle ground

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries - There has been a dramatic increase in recentyears in the number of papers, reports, etc.,which have been published concerning MarineProtected Areas (MPAs)....     

Protected area types,strategies and impacts in Brazil's Amazon: public protected area strategies do not yield a consistent ranking of protected area types by impact

The leading policy to conserve forest is protected areas (PAs). Yet, PAs are not a single tool: land users and uses vary by PA type; and public PA strategies vary in the extent of each type and in the determinants of impact for each type, i.e. siting and internal deforestation. Further, across regions and time, strategies respond to pressures (deforestation and political). We estimate deforestation impacts of PA types for a critical frontier, the Brazilian Amazon. We separate regions and time periods that differ in their deforestation and political pressures and document considerable variation in PA strategies across regions, time periods and types. The siting of PAs varies across regions. For example, all else being equal, PAs in the arc of deforestation are relatively far from non-forest, while in other states they are relatively near. Internal deforestation varies across time periods, e.g. it is more similar across the PA types for PAs after 2000. By contrast, after 2000, PA extent is less similar across PA types with little non-indigenous area created inside the arc. PA strategies generate a range of impacts for PA types—always far higher within the arc—but not a consistent ranking of PA types by impact.     

Marine protected areas: Theoretical background for design and operation

This review paper deals with the problem of the design and operation of marine reserves in the context of modern views on the hierarchical organization of marine ecosystems. The state of the art in the theoretical aspect of the establishment and development of marine protected areas (MPAs) is discussed. Despite the increasing number of publications on MPAs, which are mainly focused on social and economic issues, studies devoted to the ecological bases for the establishment and operation of marine reserves are still scarce. However, the low efficiency of the existing MPAs and their systems may be a result of the lack of an ecological background in MPA designs. Recent threats to the diversity of marine organisms are analyzed, and changes in the relative significance of anthropogenic factors affecting the marine biological diversity are assessed. The hierarchical nature of and the existence of characteristic spatial scales in the marine ecosystems are critical issues that must be taken into account together with scale-oriented analysis of the anthropogenic threats. On the basis of the scale-oriented concept of the marine ecosystems, new theoretical approaches to the design and operation of MPAs are formulated. In particular, theoretical bases for the estimation of the minimal size of marine reserves and a hierarchical approach to the design of MPA systems are proposed. Formal schemes of classification of sea bottom communities (The Marine Habitat Classification for Britain and Ireland and EUNIS) are discussed.     

Marine actinobacteria: new opportunities for natural product search and discovery

It is widely accepted that new drugs, especially antibiotics, are urgently required, and that the most propitious source remains natural products. We argue that in exploring new sources of bioactive natural products the marine environment warrants particular attention, in view of the remarkable diversity of microorganisms and metabolic products. Recent reports of new chemical entities and first-in-class drug candidates, and confirmation of indigenous marine actinobacteria, make exciting discoveries even more likely given the unrivalled capacity of this class of bacteria to produce exploitable natural products.     

Searching for the middle ground: mechanisms of chromosome alignment during mitosis

The contributions of key molecules predicted to align chromosomes at the center of the mitotic spindle have been recently examined. New results dictate that models for how chromosomes align during the early stages of mitosis must be revised to integrate properties of microtubule-based motor proteins as well as microtubule dynamics.     

Marine protected areas and the coral reefs of traditional settlements in the Exumas,Bahamas

This paper is about modeling the perceived social impacts of three proposed marine protected areas (MPAs), each designed to protect coral reefs. The paper argues that shared perceptions of these impacts have resulted in different community-level responses to these MPA proposals. The study is uniquely situated in the Bahamas where the government has approved setting aside 30 No-take MPAs (including three under study here) to protect the coastal marine environment. The paper is based on 572 interviews conducted during eight field trips with members of six traditional settlements in the Exuma Islands and Cays in the central Bahamas. Overall, 34% of the census population of these settlements was interviewed at least once. Key findings are that an MPA can impact in either positive or negative ways (a) community agency by the process of siting, (b) community resilience by eliminating or supporting some components of their traditional adaptations to social and natural environments, and (c) community identity by precluding or protecting customary marine access. MPA impacts to local communities determine whether those communities will support or resist proposed MPAs.     

When a pet dies: Religious issues,euthanasia and strategies for coping with bereavement

Abstract

Sixty-eight people from a variety of religious backgrounds and who had experienced the death of a companion animal were interviewed. Questions covered their personal experience of their pet's death, the role that their religion played in this experience and factors affecting how well they coped with the death. Individuals varied widely in their emotional response to the death of their pet. Demographic variables were relatively weak predictors of the distress experienced, the strongest predictor of distress being whether or not the animal was euthanized. Religion did not affect the level of distress that participants reported or the veterinary treatment, including euthanasia, that they considered appropriate. Nevertheless, 56 percent of participants believed in an afterlife for their pet and generally found this belief comforting. Having someone to talk to, and being included in decision-making were also reported to be helpful.     

Cancer gene suppression strategies: issues and potential

Oncogenes are ideal targets for therapies which down-regulate gene expression. However, effective modalities for altering gene expression in vivo have thus far proven to be elusive. Whilst there has been recent success with small molecule inhibitors of oncoprotein function, evolution of resistance to these agents has been observed in the clinical setting, indicating the need for combinations of therapies for cancer treatment. Strategies for in vivo gene down-regulation still hold promise for the treatment of cancer. The technologies relevant to such therapeutic strategies are discussed in terms of molecular action, delivery and choice of target gene. Consideration is given to the pre-clinical and clinical efficacy these agents have demonstrated to date.     

Current strategies in the search for novel antiparasitic agents

The market for antiparasitic products comprises the largest segment for sales of livestock and companion-animal healthcare agents. Despite the availability of highly effective, broad-spectrum agents, there remains a need for safer, more convenient and more environmentally friendly products that will overcome the ever-present threat of resistance development. The very high cost of discovering and developing a new drug, especially for use in livestock, is reflected in the limited number of new classes of antiparasitic agent launched on the market. New strategies are being adopted to minimise the cost of discovering potential drug candidates by maximising the chance of identifying a useful target mechanism of action and by speeding the time to discover and optimise a lead structure. These rely heavily on new technologies in target identification, screen development and lead optimisation. Examples of these will be discussed and speculation made about the possible factors that could influence the future shape of antiparasitic control.     

Marine protected areas and resilience to sedimentation in the Solomon Islands

The ability of marine protected areas (MPAs) to provide protection from indirect stressors, via increased resilience afforded by decreased impact from direct stressors, remains an important and unresolved question about the role MPAs can play in broader conservation and resource management goals. Over a five-year period, we evaluated coral and fish community responses inside and outside three MPAs within the Roviana Lagoon system in Solomon Islands, where sedimentation pressure from upland logging is substantial. We found little evidence that MPAs decrease impact or improve conditions and instead found some potential declines in fish abundance. We also documented modest to high levels of poaching during this period. Where compliance with management is poor, and indirect stressors play a dominant role in determining ecosystem condition, as appears to be the case in Roviana Lagoon, MPAs may provide little management benefit.     

Review of the protected area network in Guinea, West Africa, and recommendations for new sites for biodiversity conservation

With only five protected areas dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity (two national parks, one strict nature reserve and two faunal reserves), Guinea has one of the smallest protected area networks in West Africa. As a result, two of the five ecoregions of the country and six of the 14 globally threatened large and medium-sized mammals occurring in Guinea are not found in the national protected area network. To identify areas with high biodiversity that could be included in the national protected area network, we used the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) methodology. We devised a scoring system to rank the identified KBAs according to their relative conservation significance. We identified a total of 16 KBAs throughout the country. Their proclamation as protected areas would result in the protection of all ecoregions and all but one of Guinea’s globally threatened large and medium-sized mammals. Twelve of the 16 KBAs have the legal status of classified forest, a status that should facilitate the change into formal biodiversity protected areas (IUCN category I–IV). Our analysis indicates that even if only the two areas with the highest conservation significance score, the Ziama and Diécké forests, become formal protected areas, this would provide protection to both the western Guinean lowland forests, one of the most threatened ecoregions in Africa, and to 11 of the 14 threatened large and medium-sized mammals occurring in Guinea.     

Mate choice and optimal search behavior: Fitness returns under the fixed sample and sequential search strategies

The behavior of a female in search of a mate determines the likelihood that she encounters a high-quality male in the search process. The fixed sample (best-of-n) search strategy and the sequential search (fixed threshold) strategy are two prominent models of search behavior. The sequential search strategy dominates the former strategy—yields an equal or higher expected net fitness return to searchers—when search costs are nontrivial and the distribution of quality among prospective mates is uniform or truncated normal. In this paper our objective is to determine whether there are any search costs or distributions of male quality for which the sequential search strategy is inferior to the fixed sample search strategy. The two search strategies are derived under general conditions in which females evaluate encountered males by inspection of an indicator character that has some functional relationship to male quality. The solutions are identical to the original models when the inspected male attribute is itself male quality. The sequential search strategy is shown to dominate the fixed sample search strategy for all search costs and distributions of male quality. Low search costs have been implicated to explain empirical observations that are consistent with the use of a fixed sample search strategy, but under conditions in which the original models were derived there is no search cost or distribution of male quality that favors the fixed sample search strategy. Plausible alternative explanations for the apparent use of this search strategy are discussed.     

Marine environmental issues of Southeast Asia: state and development

The seas of Southeast Asia play an important role in the economy of the surrounding countries. The region's constantly expanding coastal population and development has made great demands on marine resources, with growing evidence seen in the further degradation of the marine environment and continued exploitation of living as well as non-living resources. Integrated coastal area management has never been considered in the past while environmental protection measures and policies have largely been at local or national levels. Implementation of regional study programmes less than 10 years ago and ratification of international as well as regional agreements aimed at protecting the marine environment in recent times indicate a more enlightened approach to the problem.     

Physical schemata underlying biological pattern formation-examples, issues and strategies

Biological systems excel at building spatial structures on scales ranging from nanometers to kilometers and exhibit temporal patterning from milliseconds to years. One approach that nature has taken to accomplish this relies on the harnessing of pattern-forming processes of non-equilibrium physics and chemistry. For these systems, the study of biological pattern formation starts with placing a biological phenomenon of interest within the context of the proper pattern-formation schema and then focusing on the ways in which control is exerted to adapt the pattern to the needs of the organism. This approach is illustrated by several examples, notably bacterial colonies (diffusive-growth schema) and intracellular calcium waves (excitable-media schema).     

Sulphur isotopes and the search for life: strategies for identifying sulphur metabolisms in the rock record and beyond

The search for life can only be as successful as our understanding of the tools we use to search for it. Here we present new sulphur isotope data (32S, 33S, 34S, 36S) from a variety of modern marine environments and use these observations, along with previously published work, to contribute to this search. Specifically, we use these new data to gain a sense of life's influences on the sulphur isotope record and to distinguish these biologically influenced signatures from their non-biological counterparts. This treatment extends sulphur isotope analyses beyond traditional (34S/32S) measures and employs trace isotope relationships (33S/32S, 36S/32S), as the inclusion of these isotopes provides unique information about biology and its role in the sulphur cycle through time. In the current study we compare and contrast isotope effects produced by sulphur-utilizing microorganisms (experimental), modern and ancient sedimentary records (observational) and non-biological reactions (theoretical). With our collective search for life now extending to neighbouring planets, we present this study as a first step towards more fully understanding the capability of the sulphur isotope system as a viable tool for life detection, both on Earth and beyond.