Finding logic models for sustainable marine development that deliver on social equity.

Sustainable development is often represented as contributing to desirable outcomes across economic, environmental, and social goals, yet policies and interventions attempting to deliver sustainable development often disagree on the order in which these categories of goals should be addressed. In this Essay, we identify and review 5 approaches (called logic models) for sustainable development in ocean systems based on existing policies and interventions and consider the evidence for their contributions to equity-the ultimate goal of sustainable development according to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two of the 5 logic models prioritize economic growth and lead to social and environmental benefits, 2 prioritize environmental health as a prerequisite for sustainable economic and social benefits, and the final logic model is community driven and prioritizes social dimensions.

Biological sensitivities to high-resolution climate change projections in the California current marine ecosystem.

The California Current Marine Ecosystem is a highly productive system that exhibits strong natural variability and vulnerability to anthropogenic climate trends. Relating projections of ocean change to biological sensitivities requires detailed synthesis of experimental results. Here, we combine measured biological sensitivities with high-resolution climate projections of key variables (temperature, oxygen, and pCO ) to identify the direction, magnitude, and spatial distribution of organism-scale vulnerabilities to multiple axes of projected ocean change.

Introducing zoid: A mixture model and R package for modeling proportional data with zeros and ones in ecology.

Many ecological data sets are proportional, representing mixtures of constituent elements such as species, populations, or strains. Analyses of proportional data are challenged by categories with zero observations (zeros), all observations (ones), and overdispersion. In lieu of ad hoc data adjustments, we describe and evaluate a zero-and-one inflated Dirichlet regression model, with its corresponding R package (zoid), capable of handling observed data consisting of three possible categories: zeros, proportions, or ones.

Avoiding critical thresholds through effective monitoring.

A major challenge in sustainability science is identifying targets that maximize ecosystem benefits to humanity while minimizing the risk of crossing critical system thresholds. One critical threshold is the biomass at which populations become so depleted that their population growth rates become negative-depensation. Here, we evaluate how the value of monitoring information increases as a natural resource spends more time near the critical threshold.

Environmental DNA provides quantitative estimates of Pacific hake abundance and distribution in the open ocean.

All species inevitably leave genetic traces in their environments, and the resulting environmental DNA (eDNA) reflects the species present in a given habitat. It remains unclear whether eDNA signals can provide quantitative metrics of abundance on which human livelihoods or conservation successes depend. Here, we report the results of a large eDNA ocean survey (spanning 86 000 km to depths of 500 m) to understand the abundance and distribution of Pacific hake (), the target of the largest finfish fishery along the west coast of the USA.

Perspectives on managing fisheries for community wellbeing in the face of climate change.

Coastal communities are being impacted by climate change, affecting the livelihoods, food security, and wellbeing of residents. Human wellbeing is influenced by the heath of the environment through numerous pathways and is increasingly being included as a desired outcome in environmental management. However, the contributors to wellbeing can be subjective and the values and perspectives of decision-makers can affect the aspects of wellbeing that are included in planning.

Microbial biogeography of the wombat gastrointestinal tract.

Most herbivorous mammals have symbiotic microbes living in their gastrointestinal tracts that help with harvesting energy from recalcitrant plant fibre. The bulk of research into these microorganisms has focused on samples collected from faeces, representing the distal region of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. However, the GI tract in herbivorous mammals is typically long and complex, containing different regions with distinct physico-chemical properties that can structure resident microbial communities.

Do windy areas have more wind turbines: An empirical analysis of wind installed capacity in Native tribal nations.

The decarbonization of the electricity sector is leading to a substantial increase in the demand for wind energy. Will tribal nations, which account for 7.8% of utility-scale wind capacity, benefit from this policy shift? To examine why tribal nations vary in translating wind energy potential into wind installed capacity, we have constructed an original dataset of the potential as well as the location of wind turbines across tribal nations.

High PCO2 does not alter the thermal plasticity of developing Pacific herring embryos during a marine heatwave.

Forage fish tend to respond strongly to environmental variability and therefore may be particularly sensitive to marine climate stressors. We used controlled laboratory experiments to assess the vulnerability of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) embryos to the combined effects of high partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO2) and a simulated marine heatwave. The two PCO2 treatments reflected current conditions (∼550 µatm) and a future extreme level (∼2300 µatm).

Tracking an invasion front with environmental DNA.

Data from environmental DNA (eDNA) may revolutionize environmental monitoring and management, providing increased detection sensitivity at reduced cost and survey effort. However, eDNA data are rarely used in decision-making contexts, mainly due to uncertainty around (1) data interpretation and (2) whether and how molecular tools dovetail with existing management efforts. We address these challenges by jointly modeling eDNA detection via qPCR and traditional trap data to estimate the density of invasive European green crab (Carcinus maenas), a species for which, historically, baited traps have been used for both detection and control.

The weaker sex: Male lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) with blue color polymorphism are more burdened by parasites than are other sex-color combinations.

The unusual blue color polymorphism of lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) is the subject of much speculation but little empirical research; ~20% of lingcod individuals exhibit this striking blue color morph, which is discrete from and found within the same populations as the more common brown morph. In other species, color polymorphisms are intimately linked with host-parasite interactions, which led us to ask whether blue coloration in lingcod might be associated with parasitism, either as cause or effect. To test how color and parasitism are related in this host species, we performed parasitological dissection of 89 lingcod individuals collected across more than 26 degrees of latitude from Alaska, Washington, and California, USA.

Modeling characterization of the vertical and temporal variability of environmental DNA in the mesopelagic ocean.

Increasingly, researchers are using innovative methods to census marine life, including identification of environmental DNA (eDNA) left behind by organisms in the water column. However, little is understood about how eDNA is distributed in the ocean, given that organisms are mobile and that physical and biological processes can transport eDNA after release from a host. Particularly in the vast mesopelagic ocean where many species vertically migrate hundreds of meters diurnally, it is important to link the location at which eDNA was shed by a host organism to the location at which eDNA was collected in a water sample.

Integrating multiple chemical tracers to elucidate the diet and habitat of Cookiecutter Sharks.

The Cookiecutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) is an ectoparasitic, mesopelagic shark that is known for removing plugs of tissue from larger prey, including teleosts, chondrichthyans, cephalopods, and marine mammals. Although this species is widely distributed throughout the world's tropical and subtropical oceanic waters, like many deep-water species, it remains very poorly understood due to its mesopelagic distribution. We used a suite of biochemical tracers, including stable isotope analysis (SIA), fatty acid analysis (FAA), and environmental DNA (eDNA), to investigate the trophic ecology of this species in the Central Pacific around Hawaii.

Willingness to help climate migrants: A survey experiment in the Korail slum of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Bangladesh faces a severe rural to urban migration challenge, which is accentuated by climate change and the Rohingya crisis. These migrants often reside in urban slums and struggle to access public services, which are already short in supply for existing slum dwellers. Given the inadequacy of governmental efforts, nonprofits have assumed responsibility for providing essential services such as housing, healthcare, and education.

Climate shock effects and mediation in fisheries.

Climate shocks can reorganize the social-ecological linkages in food-producing communities, leading to a sudden loss of key products in food systems. The extent and persistence of this reorganization are difficult to observe and summarize, but are critical aspects of predicting and rapidly assessing community vulnerability to extreme events. We apply network analysis to evaluate the impact of a climate shock-an unprecedented marine heatwave-on patterns of resource use in California fishing communities, which were severely affected through closures of the Dungeness crab fishery.

Environmental DNA metabarcoding reveals winners and losers of global change in coastal waters.

Studies of the ecological effects of global change often focus on one or a few species at a time. Consequently, we know relatively little about the changes underway at real-world scales of biological communities, which typically have hundreds or thousands of interacting species. Here, we use COI mtDNA amplicons from monthly samples of environmental DNA to survey 221 planktonic taxa along a gradient of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and carbonate chemistry in nearshore marine habitat.

Illegal fisheries, environmental crime, and the conservation of marine resources.

The illegal harvest of marine species within exclusive economic zones can have a strong impact on the function of local ecosystems and livelihoods of coastal communities. The complexity of these problems is often overlooked in the development of solutions, leading to ineffective and sometimes harmful social and environmental outcomes. One-dimensional, oversimplified perspectives can lead to conservation prescriptions that exacerbate social stressors.

The Retail Food Sector and Indigenous Peoples in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Scoping Review.

Indigenous Peoples in high-income countries experience higher burdens of food insecurity, obesity, and diet-related health conditions compared to national averages. The objective of this systematic scoping review is to synthesize information from the published literature on the methods/approaches, findings, and scope for research and interventions on the retail food sector servicing Indigenous Peoples in high-income countries. A structured literature search in two major international databases yielded 139 relevant peer-reviewed articles from nine countries.

Credible Threat: Perceptions of Pandemic Coronavirus, Climate Change and the Morality and Management of Global Risks.

Prior research suggests that the pandemic coronavirus pushes all the "hot spots" for risk perceptions, yet both governments and populations have varied in their responses. As the economic impacts of the pandemic have become salient, governments have begun to slash their budgets for mitigating other global risks, including climate change, likely imposing increased future costs from those risks. Risk analysts have long argued that global environmental and health risks are inseparable at some level, and must ultimately be managed systemically, to effectively increase safety and welfare.

Severe biological effects under present-day estuarine acidification in the seasonally variable Salish Sea.

Estuaries are recognized as one of the habitats most vulnerable to coastal ocean acidification due to seasonal extremes and prolonged duration of acidified conditions. This is combined with co-occurring environmental stressors such as increased temperature and low dissolved oxygen. Despite this, evidence of biological impacts of ocean acidification in estuarine habitats is largely lacking.