Parrotfish in Swedish fishmarkets

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Svenska Dagbladet, Swedens second largest daily newspaper, recently ran a story on the appearance of parrotfish in Swedish fishmarkets. Parrotfish can be likened to lawnmowers of the reef, and keep algae from smothering coral reefs.

Parrotfish sold for 269 SEK/kg at a Swedish fishmarket. Photo courtesy of Jerker Lokrantz/Azote

Parrotfish sold for 269 SEK/kg at a Swedish fishmarket. Photo courtesy of Jerker Lokrantz/Azote

Parrotfish are not known to be an essential part of the Scandinavian kitchen, so one wonders what they are doing being flown halfway across the world to a country that has enough tasty seafood to satisfy its needs? When contacted by reporters store managers claimed that distributors would recomend parrotfish as a colourful species that would certainly attract buyers. They also explained that they did have policies regarding the sale of red-listed species, but that parrotfish do not appear on any such lists (WWF and IUCN). This is problematic, as models and observation suggest that the levels of parrotfish biomass required to safeguard reefs against algal domination, are probably much higher than those that would classify them as being red-listed.

And this doesn’t seem to be a one-off incident. Two PhD-students from Stockholm University, Jerker Lokrantz and Matilda Thyresson, are currently following up reports of large (several tons) shipments of parrotfish from Vietnam arriving to Sweden via the Netherlands. This whole story really illustrates the challenges facing marine resource management in the face of rapid exploitation driven by a globalized market, as highlighted by Berkes et al in the 2006 Science article “Globalization, Roving Bandits, and Marine Resources“.

Microdocs and podcasts

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ANU environmental podcast
Australian National University are podcasting a series of lectures and seminars on the environment, and are covering some hard hitting topics, ranging from policy and economy to oceanography (several of which I might not entirely agree with) . Below are three of the best – see the full listing here.

The microdoc project: ‘short attention span science videos’
Steve Palumbi and colleagues at Stanford University have produced an exceptional collection of microdocs (2-3 minute documentaries on a single topic), focused around a central theme of “Sustainability on Coral Reefs”. To paraphrase Rick McPherson, microdocs ‘take on macro ocean issues’, and are a great way to get key messages on ecological sustainability and coral reefs across to the media, general public and schools. The Stanford microdocs website has a full listing of all microdocs, and below are some of the highlights:

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The worm will turn: a tale of a (large) marine polychaete

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I stumbled across this creature whilst reading The Other 95% (a fantastic blog documenting the oddities of invertebrate life). As Eric points out, “I guess it’s fortunate that they didn’t comment on the hyper cool, but horror movie inspiring, evertable pharynx and the jaws which look awfully like giant fangs.” Have a read through the original newspaper article below (with slightly dramatic headline “Barry the giant sea worm discovered by aquarium staff after mysterious attacks on coral reef“).

Aquarium staff have unearthed a ‘giant sea’ worm that was attacking coral reef and prize fish. The 4ft long monster, named Barry, had launched a sustained attack on the reef in a display tank at Newquay’s Blue Reef Aquarium over recent months. Workers at the Cornwall-based attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and – in some cases – cut in half.

After staking out the display for several weeks, the last resort was to completely dismantle it, rock by rock. Halfway through the process the predator was revealed as a four-foot polychaete worm. Staff eventually lured it out with fish scraps, but not before it bit through 20lb fishing line.

Matt Slater, the aquarium’s curator, said: ‘Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.

‘That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.’

He added: ‘It really does look like something out of a horror movie. It’s over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws.

Predictive science and the dangers of ignoring warning signs

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One of the more common critiques banded around by the media and skeptics is that climate models are useless, and that “nature is too complicated to predict“. Here is a seemingly stark warning on the dangers of taking the advice of politicians over science:

An Italian scientist who predicted a major earthquake near L’Aquila a few weeks ago was forced to remove warnings from the internet after being reported to the police, it emerged today. The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at regular intervals, leading to concerns that a large earthquake was imminent in the medieval city.

Giampaolo Giuliani, a seismologist at the nearby Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Abruzzo, predicted, following months of small tremors in the area, that a much bigger jolt was on its way. The researcher had said that a “disastrous” earthquake would strike on March 29, but when it didn’t, Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, officially denounced Giuliani in court last week for “false alarm.” “These imbeciles enjoy spreading false news,” Bertolaso was quoted as saying. “Everyone knows that you can’t predict earthquakes.” (Read more)

Using the internet as an early warning of ecological change

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A recent paper out in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment  (Galaz et al 2009) identifies novel and fascinating ways on how to capture looming ecological crises.

The basic problem addressed by the authors is this: The six billion people on Earth are changing the biosphere at unprecedented rates. Ecosystems tend to respond to such change in unpredictable ways; collapsing fisheries and sudden phase shifts observed in freshwater ecosystems and coral reefs are good examples of such phenomena. The challenge is that existing ecological monitoring systems are not in tune with the speed of social, economical and ecological change and early warnings of pending ecological crisis are to a large extent limited by insufficient data, and geographical gaps in official monitoring systems.

So how do we deal with this situation? Look to the internet for guidance! Not quite so simple, but the researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the University of east Anglia, explore the possibilities of using information posted on the Internet to detect ecosystems on the brink of change.

Much of the pioneering work in this type of Internet surveillance has come in the public health field, where software programs that search the Internet in methodical and automated manners, web crawlers, are used to track disease.

The potential of web crawlers is illustrated by the success of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), an early disease detection system developed by Health Canada for the World Health Organization (WHO). GPHIN gathers information about unusual disease events by monitoring internet-based global media sources, such as news wires, web sites, local online newspapers, and public health e-mail information services, in eight languages, with non-English articles filtered through a translation engine. The system retrieves approximately 2000–3000 news items per day; roughly 30% are rejected as duplicative or irrelevant, but the remainder are sorted by GPHIN analysts and posted on GPHIN’s secure website.  

Web crawlers could be designed to complement conventional ecological monitoring. The authors use coral reef ecosystems to illustrate how such a process could progress. Data-mining the internet for information on potential drivers of coral ecosystem change (e.g. heavy investment in fish gear that can precede heavy exploitation of key reef organisms) and ecosystem responses (changes in coral cover, fish community composition) can be the basis for early warning assessments of ecological change.

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Fig. 1 Examples of drivers and impact signals regarding a coral reef social-ecological system, that in principle could be detected by a web-crawler

Addtionally, by searching the internet for reports of local scale coral reef degradation can provide early indicators of large scale systemic collapses of reef systems. The success of such web-crawlers will be highly dependent on information becoming rapidly accessible online via”web 2.o” applications such as blogs, wikis and other networking tools such as electronic mailing lists (Coral-List is highlighted as an example).

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Fig. 2 Ecological shifts at smaller scales can provide warnings of impending changes to large-scale systems

I guess that a problem, and one highlighted by the authors, is that fragmented and insufficient data from several sources, could lead to information junkyards instead of robust ecological monitoring systems. Any web crawler based monitoring system would therefore need to be plugged into a coupled knowledge management and expert judgement system. Would that slow the process down to the extent of nullyfying any gains made through the rapid information sweeps generated by the web crawler?  In any case, its a refreshing approach and a fascinating read.

The other CO2 problem – animated adventures into ocean acidification

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55D8TGRsl4k&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]




Take a look at this light-hearted video on a serious subject. This animation on ocean acidification was made by students from the Ridgeway School (Plymouth, UK) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory – an excellent production!

Ridgeway students have made a short animated film which is being used internationally to highlight the acidification of the world’s seas. Called ‘The Other CO2 Problem’, the film was commissioned by Dr Carol Turley from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, a leading authority on ocean acidification who had seen a previous film (which won a Europe wide film making competition held by Euroceans) made by the students which highlighted the problem of pollution in the seas.

Sixteen students drew up the storyline, designed and made the starring characters from plasticine then filmed the stop frame animation. Seventy other students composed and played the accompanying music

“Hungry Crustaceans Eat Climate Change Experiment”

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copepodsThe ‘seeding of the oceans’ with iron as a ‘quick fix’ to climate change has been the subject of much debate over recent years, with some companies going as far as commercialising the selling the concept in exchange for carbon credits. The idea – to seed the surface of the oceans with iron (a trace element essential to photosynthesis that is often a limiting factor in the marine world) in order to stimulate phytoplankton growth, in turn sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – isn’t entirely new. Over thirteen research groups have trialled iron fertilisation since 1993 to varying degrees of success, although most of these projects have fallen short of the dream of the late oceanographer John Martin back in the late 80’s: “Give me a half a tanker of iron and I will give you another ice age”

After a series of moderate succeses onver the past decade, it seems that the idea of sequestering CO2 in the oceans might truely be dead and buried. Project LOHAFEX, a joint Indo-German group, succeeded in seeding an area of 300km2 with over 6 tonnes of iron, resulting in a doubling of plankton biomass in just two weeks. What the team didn’t factor was the power of the oceans food web. Instead of the plankton bloom undergoing a natural death and sinking to the ocean floor (along with the sequestered CO2), the phytoplankton became an instant food source for hungry copepods, who in turn were consumed by a swarm of larger crustaceans (amphipods – see inset picture).

This ‘grazing effect’ was apparently absent from previous experiments, which instead  stimulated the growth of diatoms. Diatoms differ from most phytoplankton in that they are protected from being eaten by protective shells made of silica. Whilst the experiment did succeed in providing new insights into the dynamics and ecology of plankton, to quote Ken Caldiera “I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilisation as a carbon storage strategy”.

Special interest groups: the enemy within?

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One of the big issues discussed in relation to climate change is the relative costs of ‘acting’ versus ‘not acting’.  Basically the argument comes down to: If the cost of ‘acting’ exceeds costs associated with the impacts of ‘not acting’, then ‘not acting’ is the preferred course.

As outlined endlessly by highly credible experts such as former World Bank chief economist, Lord Nicholas Stern, the massive costs of inaction on our economic and social systems dwarf the much smaller costs of acting.  According to Stern in his report to the British government, the cumulative cost of climate inaction in 2050 will be a startling 5 percent to 20 percent of global GDP, or 5 to 20 times as much as it would cost to take action.

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Estimated global macro-economic costs in 2030 for least-cost trajectories towards different long-term stabilization levels (IPCC 4th Assessment)

The conservative fourth assessment report of the IPCC came to a similar conclusion (bringing carbon dioxide equivalents to safe levels would cost <0.1% of GDP per annum growth over 50 years, IPCC 2007 – the figure below table and figure from Bert Metz, Co-chair of IPCC WG III).  The conclusion: the impact of responding to climate change, if taken across the board, will affect very few of us significantly.

And here is the Dorothy Dixer:  why is it that certain industry sectors and their media associates continue to promulgate inaccurate and misleading viewpoints on the important issue of whether or not we should act decisively on climate change?  The answer is, ‘special interest‘.

Eric Pooley, a Kalb fellow, has written a highly credible and clear account of the issues at stake in a discussion paper published through the Joan Shorenstein Centre on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.  In particular, he focuses on the role of some elements of the media in confusing and often deliberately misleading the debate.  I recommend reading his paper because it highlights the often devious nature of special interest (and its media associates) and outlines the challenges that we face in getting policymakers to adopt a rational and sensible policies with respect to the looming climate change catastrophe.

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Estimated mitigation strategies illustrating the cost of numbers (IPCC 4th Assessment)

As Pooley outlines, the forces of special interest have created a hysterical atmosphere that has led with the argument that any action to reduce the current rates of climate issue would cause economic mayhem and is therefore irresponsible.  I was stunned by the numbers involved.  According to Pooley, in just one example, US$427 million was spent by the oil and coal industries on lobbying, advertising and eventually defeating the important and sensible Lieberman-Warner bill that attempted to pass through the US House of Representatives.

At the end of the day, Pooley points to where the showdown really lies.  The argument is not about whether or not climate change exists or not (it exists – that debate is over), it is challenging the deliberate and unethical inaccuracies promulgated by the fossil fuel lobby.  This lobby is bent on thwarting attempts to respond to climate change so as to protect its bottom line via any means possible. As a citizen of this wonderful planet, I personally wonder how these individuals can sleep peacefully at night knowing that they are imperilling the earth and its citizens through their irresponsible and selfish actions.

“Macro-algal dominated coral reefs: shake that ASS”

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In recent years, coral reefs have been hit hard by an array of anthropogenic impacts – coral bleaching, coral disease, overfishing and eutrophication to mention but a few – resulting in significant declines in coral cover and species diversity. One of the classic examples of coral reef decline was discussed by Terry Hughes in a 1994 article in the journal Nature, entitled “Catastrophes, Phase Shifts and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef”. Hughes concluded that the synergistic impacts of overfishing, hurricane damage and disease resulted in a ‘phase shift’ from a coral dominated ecosystem (52% coral cover, 4% algal cover) to a macro-algal dominated ecosystem (2% coral cover, 92% algal cover). Similar examples of phase-shifts from coral to macroalgal dominated ecosystems have been observed across the Caribbean region, throughout the Eastern-Pacific, Indian Ocean and on the Great Barrier Reef.

asdasdWhilst macro-algal dominated reefs and phase shifts have recieved considerable attention in the scientific literature, a recent paper questions the role and driving factors of such ‘alternative stable states’ (ASS), and implicates the dominance of several other organisms that take rise following the loss of coral cover.

First establishing that a ‘phase shift’ must result from a decline of coral and subsequent increases in an other ‘alternative’ organism that must last for a significant period of time (in this case >5yrs), Norström et al conducted a survey of the literature to determine exactly what alternative organisms were dominant on reefs following a phase shift.

The authors argue a timely point that phase shifts associated with coral reefs are not exclusively coral – macroalgal shifts, and often result in shifts to ‘other’ states, including ‘soft coral’  dominance (corallimorphs and octocorals), sponges and urchin dominated states.

One of the key findings of the research suggests that whilst these different alternative states are common, the factors driving the shift may be considerably different. Whilst macro-algal states are driven by ‘top down’ factors (a loss of herbivorous fish or urchins through overfishing or disease), soft coral and sponge states are more closely associated with ‘bottom up’ factors (declining water quality).

Site specific examples of phase shifts in coral reefs: a) Israel, b) Seychelles, c) Belize

Site specific examples of phase shifts and the persistence of alternative stable states in coral reefs: a) Israel, b) Seychelles, c) Belize

So what does it take to ‘shake that ASS’? (Alternative Stable State, of course). Once a coral reef has shifted to an alternative stable state, simply removing the stressor that triggered the shift might not be sufficient to produce recovery back to a coral dominated state – partly due to feedback mechanisms, or a longer-term decline in environmental conditions.

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“Climate change: a self-fulfilling prophecy” – Monbiot

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After reading that Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing the Copenhagen climate change deal due to the scale of opposition in the US Congress, I can only conclude that ignorance and complacency in our policy makers continues to reign supreme. When will we wake up to the fact that tweaking the business-as-usual approach will do nothing to prevent the catastrophes that loom?  Without a directed and massive reorganization of the way we generate energy, we are headed for disaster.  Despite this, many policy makers pretend that there are good reasons for delaying action. As George Monbiot reiterates yet again, the cost of doing nothing is far less than the costs that will swamp our societies if climate change continues to run out of control.

Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than two degrees of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.

This, at any rate, was the repeated whisper at the climate change conference in Copenhagen last week. It’s more or less what Bob Watson, the environment department’s chief scientific adviser, has been telling the British government. It is the obvious if unspoken conclusion of scores of scientific papers. Recent work by scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, for example, suggests that even global cuts of 3% a year, starting in 2020, could leave us with four degrees of warming by the end of the century. At the moment emissions are heading in the opposite direction at roughly the same rate. If this continues, what does it mean? Six? Eight? Ten degrees? Who knows?

Faced with such figures, I can’t blame anyone for throwing up his hands. But before you succumb to this fatalism, let me talk you through the options. (Read More)