Conservation Of Marine Biodiversity Research Articles

Applying environmental DNA approaches to inform marine biodiversity conservation: The case of the Ocean Twilight Zone

Effective governance of the global ocean under accelerating environmental and social changes depends on sufficient scientific knowledge that unravels the complexity of dynamic marine ecosystems. In the case of the vast and remote ocean twilight zone (OTZ), management is particularly challenged by the lack of data. Traditional biodiversity monitoring methods are unable to scale efficiently or effectively to address these knowledge gaps and new technologies are needed to inform policy. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has quickly gained traction in recent years as an enabling technology for marine conservation that will play a transformative role in OTZ biodiversity conservation and high seas governance in general. Through a comprehensive review of science and policy literature and an analysis of existing global marine biodiversity data, we discuss the importance of biodiversity conservation in the OTZ, review existing knowledge gaps, and summarize recent developments in eDNA and OTZ biodiversity research. We identify the key components of an eDNA framework that are needed for OTZ biodiversity monitoring and discuss policy implications relevant to the recent Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement. We show that an integrated science-policy approach based on transdisciplinary eDNA research is essential for achieving sustainability in the OTZ and the 30×30 target for conserving ocean biodiversity.

Evidence of plastics contamination and sewage-derived residues in a Brazilian Hope Spot for conservation of marine biodiversity - Cagarras Islands and surrounding waters

Cagarras Islands Archipelago, a no-take MPA in Southeast Brazil, was designated as Natural Monument (MONA Cagarras) and, more recently, recognized as Hope Spot for biodiversity conservation. This study aimed to assess plastic contamination by analyzing marine litter and microplastics in MONA Cagarras and surrounding waters. Marine litter (34.12 kg) was caught by artisanal fishermen in MONA Cagarras proximities, and plastics represented ∼79 %. Personal hygiene items and strains of hair were found, suggesting sewage-derived contamination from Ipanema SSO. Microplastics were detected in MONA Cagarras surface waters. Fragments and black particle were the most frequently found microplastic shape and color, respectively. μ-FTIR analysis identified, in descending order of occurrence, polystyrene-PS, polyethylene-PE, polyvinyl chloride-PVC, polypropylene-P, and polyamide-PA. Our integrated results of macro and microplastic contamination highlight an issue of effective conservation and health of marine biodiversity in MONA Cagarras and surrounding waters and a concern for better management of Brazilian MPAs.

Sustainable Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture in North Africa: Current Status and Future Prospects

This paper delves into the fisheries and aquaculture sectors of five North African countries—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt—highlighting their critical roles in economic stability and food security amid increasing regional demands for animal protein. Despite the rich marine ecosystems and substantial contributions to national economies and employment, most of these regions face several challenges in fisheries management due to limited knowledge, weak institutional frameworks, and insufficient international cooperation. The paper emphasizes the necessity of transitioning towards sustainable aquaculture practices to preserve natural fish stocks and augment food production capacities. Although legal and sustainable capture fisheries remain vital, the focal point of this review is the potential for aquaculture to meet the growing population's needs without exacerbating the pressures on marine ecosystems. The paper evaluates the current state of fisheries management, identifies challenges in scaling aquaculture, and discusses innovative practices that could lead to more sustainable and productive outcomes. The study calls for improved management strategies, enhanced research and training, and more significant investment in aquaculture to ensure sustainable development of the fisheries sector, ultimately contributing to food security, economic growth, and conservation of marine biodiversity.

ChatBBNJ: a question–answering system for acquiring knowledge on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

The marine biodiversity in Areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), encompassing approximately two-thirds of the global ocean, is persistently declining. In 2023, the agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) was officially adopted. Implementing the BBNJ Agreement has the potential to effectively meet global needs for preserving marine biodiversity. Nevertheless, the implementation requires dealing with thousands of legal clauses, and the parties participating in the process lack adequate means to acquire knowledge connected to BBNJ. This paper introduces ChatBBNJ, a highly efficient question-answering system that combines a novel data engineering technique with large language models (LLMs) of Natural Language Processing (NLP). The system aims to efficiently provide stakeholders with BBNJ-related knowledge, thereby facilitating and enhancing their comprehension and involvement with the subject matter. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ChatBBNJ exhibits superior expertise in the BBNJ domain, outperforming baseline models in terms of precision, recall, and F1-scores. The successful deployment of the suggested system is expected to greatly assist stakeholders in acquiring BBNJ knowledge and facilitating the effective implementation of the BBNJ Agreement. Therefore, this is expected to contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in ABNJ.

The social science side of marine biodiversity monitoring

Abstract Marine biodiversity monitoring is a complex task given the vast ocean areas to be covered, the types of data to be integrated, and the large number of possible parameters to consider when measuring biodiversity change. International agreements, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) or the recently adopted ‘BBNJ treaty’protecting biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ), encourage states to monitor marine life both within and beyond their national waters to foster marine biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. While oceanographers in general, and marine biologists in particular, are aware of the challenges and complexities of measuring biodiversity in the ocean, the politics of marine biodiversity monitoring and the added value of social science perspectives tend to be neglected. This story from the frontline describes our experiences with turning marine biodiversity monitoring into an object of social science inquiry. The MARIPOLDATA project developed an innovative multi-sited approach to capture both the politics and practices of monitoring marine life. During our research, we were confronted with a diversity of perspectives and expectations of what monitoring is, how it works, why it should be done, and whom it should serve. By adopting a mixed-method approach and collecting data at different epistemic sites (negotiation rooms, scientific fields, laboratories, and conferences), we tried to cut through some of the observed ambiguities and trends. We conclude that studying monitoring necessitates a multidisciplinary approach and a sensitivity for the regional, institutional, and cultural specificities and inequalities that shape how we know and govern the ocean.

Beta diversity and regionalization of the western Atlantic marine biota

AbstractAimUnderstanding the factors determining marine community variations is important for biogeography and conservation. Beta diversity is a metric for mapping species composition variations between communities and regionalizing biota. Ecoregions are commonly used for regionalization, but their empirical testing has been limited. Our aim is to map marine species composition variations in the Western Atlantic, identify variables related to these variations, and regionalize areas based on community distribution. Additionally, we test whether currently proposed ecoregions represent unique biota units and specific environmental conditions.LocationWestern Atlantic Ocean.TaxonVertebrates, invertebrates and algae.MethodsWe constructed a large marine biodiversity database, including vertebrates, invertebrates, and algae, totalling over 4 million records. We used the generalized dissimilarity model (GDM) to identify variables most related to species composition variations and map beta‐diversity variations. We employed an unsupervised classifier for community regionalization. To test if the ecoregion regionalization boundaries are corroborated by species distribution data, we used the Sørensen index. To assess if ecoregions correspond to environmental units, we checked if areas had distinct environmental conditions using a PCA of 134 marine environmental variables.ResultsThe GDM explained a high variation in species composition, 61% in the complete database. Analysing vertebrates, invertebrates and algae separately also yielded relatively high results: 46%, 54%, and 33%, respectively. Coastal areas differed from open sea areas in composition. Environmental variables combined better explained beta diversity than isolated variables. The regionalization based on GDM was not congruent with ecoregion boundaries. Moreover, ecoregions showed no distinction in species composition or environmental conditions.Main ConclusionsThis study's regionalization is crucial for marine biodiversity conservation, focusing on understanding species composition patterns between coastal and open sea areas to develop tailored conservation strategies. Despite sampling limitations, the study advances marine biogeography knowledge by analysing over 4 million species records and 134 environmental variables. This comprehensive approach enhances understanding marine species distribution and diversity and aiding the development of effective conservation measures.

Expert Authority Politics in the Marine Biodiversity Complex

Abstract The negotiations for a new instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of high-seas marine biodiversity (marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction; BBNJ) finally concluded after difficult negotiations. The BBNJ negotiations had to address a regime complex of sectoral and regional organizations regulating different aspects of marine biodiversity and a political struggle about the epistemologies that ought to inform marine biodiversity governance, which is driven by limited, unequally distributed, and contested knowledge. However, to be implemented, the new BBNJ Agreement will have to be equipped with expert authority to be able to address these challenges and make competent statements about the state of high-seas marine biodiversity. We address a gap in empirical work on expert authority in the regime complex by analyzing state references to the expertise of different international organizations in the BBNJ negotiations. Combining collaborative event ethnography and social network analysis, we show that states strategically and politically refer to the expertise of international organizations, and we coin the term authority shopping to describe this behavior.

Genome-wide sequencing reveals geographical variations in the thermal adaptation of an aquaculture species with frequent seedling introductions

Climate change and human activity are essential factors affecting marine biodiversity and aquaculture, and understanding the impacts of human activities on the genetic structure to increasing high temperatures is crucial for sustainable aquaculture and marine biodiversity conservation. As a commercially important bivalve, the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum is widely distributed along the coast of China, and it has been frequently introduced from Fujian Province, China, to other regions for aquaculture. In this study, we collected four populations of Manila clams from different areas to evaluate their thermal tolerance by measuring cardiac performance and genetic variations using whole-genome resequencing. The upper thermal limits of the clams showed high variations within and among populations. Different populations displayed divergent genetic compositions, and the admixed population was partly derived from the Zhangzhou population in Fujian Province, implying a complex genomic landscape under the influence of local genetic sources and human introductions. Multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were associated with the cardiac functional traits, and some of these SNPs can affect the codon usage and the structural stability of the resulting protein. This study shed light on the importance of establishing long-term ecological and genetic monitoring programs at the local level to enhance resilience to future climate change.

Marine biodiversity conservation: The cultural aspect of marine protected areas in Ghana

Abstract Studying fishers and fishing communities' social‐cultural structures is vital in policy‐making concerning local marine ecosystem sustainability. Previous studies on marine communities seldom neglected the role of culture in marine biodiversity conservation, especially a marine protected area (MPA) establishment. This study first explores the cultural practices in coastal communities in Ghana that have the potential for the conservation of the marine ecosystem (MPA); second, it examines the willingness of coastal communities to welcome an MPA establishment. Primary data were collected using focus group discussions with 9 fishermen, key informant interviews with 20 chief fishermen, and self‐administered questionnaires to 491 fishermen across 9 semi‐urban, 2 urban, and 16 villages along the coast of Ghana. Adopting the convergent parallel mixed‐methods research design (quantitative method includes descriptive analysis using tables, charts, diagrams, and χ2 bivariate analysis; and qualitative method involves a narrative format), the study underscored that the socioeconomic characteristics of fishermen are diverse and mixed. Most of the fishermen do not know what an MPA is but are willing to accept an MPA initiative. Certain cultural practices such as the prohibition of gathering certain species, traditional close season, and fishing holidays are found to be conducive to an MPA initiative. These cultural practices should be integrated into an MPA policy. Fisheries practitioners should consider an ecosystem‐based approach (including cultural values) to fisheries management and fishermen should endeavour to learn new skills outside the industry.

Comparative assessment of eDNA metabarcoding and longline deployments for elasmobranch surveying across a large tropical marine park network

Abstract Medium‐ to large‐scale marine protected areas (MPAs) are playing an increasingly important role in global marine biodiversity conservation. A key question is “how do we collect relevant data on biodiversity and population trends to inform their design and measure success?” This question is particularly relevant for marine taxa that are difficult to survey, such as sharks and rays, and where populations may occur over vast areas. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has proven to be an effective sampling method and may provide a solution to these challenges; however, it remains unclear how its sampling effectiveness compares with traditionally used methods for elasmobranch surveying. Here, we directly compared the efficacy of eDNA metabarcoding and demersal longline deployments to survey elasmobranchs across 31 sites over a 55,000 km2 area of the Kimberley and Roebuck Australian Marine Parks in Australia's North‐west Marine Parks Network. In total, we documented 49 unique elasmobranch taxa, 36 of which were detected by eDNA and 32 (from a total of 815 captured sharks) by longline. A combined approach yielded over 34% more elasmobranch taxa than either method alone. Site community compositions varied between the two survey methods; notably eDNA was able to detect species from outside of the immediate sampling area, although this was still consistent with a detection radius of a few kilometres, highlighting a particular use in rugose reef habitats where it is difficult to deploy longlines. In investigating the quantitative use of eDNA data, we report that eDNA metabarcoding read abundance (count) data was poorly correlated with longline aggregate catch (count and biomass) data across raw, relative and rank abundance measures. However, we found that in multivariate analyses, both binary (presence–absence) and abundance (after square‐root transformation) datasets produced highly similar ordination patterns, largely segregating method (eDNA vs. longline), followed by latitude and depth. Lastly, we identified required levels of eDNA replication and longline deployments to maximize captured elasmobranch diversity. This study sets an integrated, georeferenced baseline and long‐term monitoring approach for the management and conservation of elasmobranch diversity within this unique marine park network.

After the Dust Settles: Selected Considerations about the New Treaty on Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction with Respect to ABMTs and MPAs

The recent adoption of a new agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction has been welcomed as a historic achievement that will herald a new era of marine conservation and global ocean governance. This article aims to raise and discuss some questions, as the dust settles, and to analyze selected aspects of the text of the new Agreement, with particular respect to Part III of the BBNJ agreement, dedicated to area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs), which are arguably crucial for the operationalization of the Agreement but remain ambiguous or underarticulated, and may thus reduce its effectiveness and ambition. These questions concern the relationship with other relevant instruments, frameworks, and bodies (IFBs); relatedly, the issue of recognition of area-based measures adopted under other IFBs; and the so-called opt-out question, that is, the right to make objections to an ABMT and/or MPA adopted under the BBNJ agreement.

Reimagining the Law of the Sea: Evolution or Revolution?

This article explores the challenges for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in protecting the marine environment and biodiversity. The traditional approach to developing the law when facing new challenges is through evolution – the iterative amendment of existing instruments and guidelines. I discuss the recent Agreement for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) as an example of the evolution approach. I challenge whether evolution in the law of the sea is sufficient to meet the significant challenges facing regulation of uses of the ocean, and ask whether revolution is needed, through new concepts and processes.

Projecting contributions of marine protected areas to rebuild fish stocks under climate change

No-take marine protected areas (No-take MPAs) are considered as a major tool for conserving marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. No-take MPAs can also contribute to climate adaptation for exploited fish stocks. Meanwhile, many fish stocks in the world are overfished and management institutions are developing plans to rebuild them. Understanding the potential effects of no-take MPAs on fish stocks under climate change can help develop strategies for climate-resilient stock rebuilding. Here, using a linked climate-fish-fishing model, we undertake simulation experiments to examine the effects of no-take MPAs on biomass and potential catches of 231 exploited fish and invertebrate species in eight marine ecoregions in the Northeast Atlantic under climate change. The simulations include different levels of fishing, no-take MPAs coverage, atmospheric global warming levels, and account for the expected displacement of fishing to the area around the no-take MPAs. Average individual stock biomass is projected to decrease by 5–15% per degree Celsius atmospheric warming. Having 30% of the distribution of over-exploited fish stocks under no-take MPAs together with conservation-focused fisheries management of these stocks are projected to offset the negative impacts on their biomass under 2.6–2.9 °C global warming. Meanwhile, potential catches increase when a portion of the over-exploited fish stocks is protected from fishing as higher biomass in the no-take MPAs spills-over to the surrounding areas. Our findings highlight that no-take MPAs, combined with reducing fishing intensity, can help rebuild over-exploited fish biomass and benefit their dependent fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic under projected climate change in the 21st century.

Environmental DNA metabarcoding differentiates between micro‐habitats within the rocky intertidal

AbstractWhile the utility of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding surveys for biodiversity monitoring continues to be demonstrated, the spatial and temporal variability of eDNA, and thus the limits of the differentiability of an eDNA signal, remains under‐characterized. In this study, we collected eDNA samples from distinct micro‐habitats (~40 m apart) in a rocky intertidal ecosystem over their exposure period in a tidal cycle. During this period, the micro‐habitats transitioned from being interconnected, to physically isolated, to interconnected again. Using a well‐established eukaryotic (cytochrome oxidase subunit I) metabarcoding assay, we detected 415 species across 28 phyla. Across a variety of univariate and multivariate analyses, using exclusively taxonomically assigned data as well as all detected amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), we identified unique eDNA signals from the different micro‐habitats sampled. This differentiability paralleled expected ecological gradients and increased as the sites became more physically disconnected. Our results demonstrate that eDNA biomonitoring can differentiate micro‐habitats in the rocky intertidal only 40 m apart, that these differences reflect known ecology in the area, and that physical connectivity informs the degree of differentiation possible. These findings showcase the potential power of eDNA biomonitoring to increase the spatial and temporal resolution of marine biodiversity data, aiding research, conservation, and management efforts.

Rarity mediates species-specific responses of tropical reef fishes to protection.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the most widely applied tool for marine biodiversity conservation, yet many gaps remain in our understanding of their species-specific effects, partly because the socio-environmental context and spatial autocorrelation may blur and bias perceived conservation outcomes. Based on a large data set of nearly 3000 marine fish surveys spanning all tropical regions of the world, we build spatially explicit models for 658 fish species to estimate species-specific responses to protection while controlling for the environmental, habitat and socio-economic contexts experienced across their geographic ranges. We show that the species responses are highly variable, with ~40% of fishes not benefitting from protection. When investigating how traits influence species' responses, we find that rare top-predators and small herbivores benefit the most from MPAs while mid-trophic level species benefit to a lesser extent, and rare large herbivores experience adverse effects, indicating potential trophic cascades.

Study on Legal Issues of Sino-French Bilateral Cooperation on Marine Biodiversity Conservation

Study on Legal Issues of Sino-French Bilateral Cooperation on Marine Biodiversity Conservation

International Legal Issues in the Conservation of Marine Genetic Resources

INTRODUCTION. Nowadays the issues concerning conservation of marine biological diversity become important for the community of States in the light of the expansion of the scale of economic activity in marine spaces and of the opportunities of using such resources. At the universal contractual level an answer was proposed to a number of questions that have arisen in this area: on March 4, 2023, the text of the Agreement (under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) with a long title: “on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction” was finalized. It is predicted that the entry into force of this Agreement in the future will create a multilateral legal basis for conservation of biological diversity on the high seas, with the orderly use of its biological resources, to protect such diversity based on the principle of cooperation between States.The purpose of the article is to analyze the legal regime of marine genetic resources conservation based on the text of this Agreement.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The subject of this study comprises international treaties, international customs, general principles of international law and other sources of international law related to conservation of marine biodiversity in general. The methodological basis of the research is represented by a wide range of research methods, namely: formal-legal, comparative-legal, historical-legal and system-structural methods. In addition, the author applied the methods of analysis and generalization.RESEARCH RESULTS. The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the international legal regime of marine genetic resources based on the provisions of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. The author considers the history of the development of the draſt Agreement, analyzes its main provisions, and pays special attention to its innovative legal mechanisms.The author proposes their assessment of the content of the draſt Agreement as a universal legal basis for the conservation of marine biological diversity, and suggests some options for strengthening international cooperation in this area.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. As a result of the study, it can be stated that the draſt Agreement, prepared over many years of negotiations and published in March 2023, is a significant political and legal achievement of a universal level in the field of marine biodiversity conservation. At the same time, one can not fail to note the rather general nature of this document, as well as the fact that the entry into force of the Agreement may also require considerable time: objectively, the interests of developed and developing countries in this area are not always close; moreover, each State party to the Agreement accepts the obligation, among other things, that the use of marine natural resources should be linked to the obligation to protect marine environment, and this is always sensitive: a number of developed countries, as is known, under the pretext of economic concern, impose on developing States “green” products of their enterprises, which exacerbates the gap between developed and developing States.That is why the author comes to the conclusion that the international community, along with the development of a universal international treaty, could take the path of developing regional agreements to clarify such a legal regime, which would also contribute to the strengthening of the legal regime for biodiversity conservation at the universal level.

The Advent of the 2023 “BBNJ” Agreement: A Preliminary Legal Analysis

On 4 March 2023, the Member States of the United Nations agreed in New York on the text of a new treaty on biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ or ABNJ) –in international maritime areas. It took marathon process spread over more than ten years of informal discussions, four years of formal negotiations and the final session of almost 36 hours. Rena Lee, the President of the intergovernmental conference, announced to the applause of the delegates that the ship had finally “reached the shore”. This new BBNJ Agreement, now signed by more than 80 countries, is a historic step for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. It is also in consonance with the objectives of the global Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework adopted at CBD COP15 in December 2022. This article aims to provide a preliminary analysis of the environmental (preamble, principles and approaches, area-based management tools and environmental impact assessments) and economic (marine genetic resources, capacity building and transfer of marine technologies) content of the 2023 BBNJ Agreement, which are both the result of important compromises. It also seeks to underline the numerous remaining uncertainties and potential difficulties it raises, especially in terms of implementation and articulation with existing instruments and frameworks.

Configuring the field of global marine biodiversity conservation

IntroductionThe article describes and analyzes the emergence of the field of global marine biodiversity conservation over the past fifteen years. We draw on collaborative research at international meetings, which we position as ‘field’ sites, places where diverse actors come together to negotiate the meaning and terms of global environmental governance and where that work is accessible and visible to researchers.MethodsBased on Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE), a method developed to facilitate study of large meetings, we mobilize research from seven meetings since 2008 to describe the field of global marine biodiversity conservation, but more importantly to specifying how that field has been configured.ResultsWe identify practices of orchestration, narrative, performance, alliance, social objects, devices, and technologies, formal outcomes, and formal procedures, and their use at three phases of field configuration: building, framing, and bounding.DiscussionThe results: 1) enhance our understanding of the role of international conferences in global environmental governance generally, and for marine biodiversity conservation specifically; 2) demonstrate the relevance of field and field configuration theory; 3) contribute to theory on institutional fields by specifying practices of field configuration.

When the “best available science” is not good enough: The need for supporting scientific research in the United Nations treaty to protect biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction

The distant ecosystems of the high seas are growing closer every year as humans create and deploy novel technologies to harvest resources from the open ocean. A new international agreement, the treaty for Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), is intended to ensure the conservation and sustainability of such ecosystems. Among other issue areas, the BBNJ agreement establishes requirements for conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for activities within (or impacting) Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. This short communication argues that the EIA process created by the BBNJ treaty will not be effective at achieving the goals of conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction without strong scientific support. The basic problem is that EIAs require more information than what is available for even the most accessible marine ecosystems in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. We consider three cases of ocean uses – plastic cleanups, deep seabed mining, and mesopelagic fisheries – to demonstrate that available scientific knowledge is insufficient to conduct and evaluate informative EIAs. We suggest three ways that the Scientific and Technical Body established by the BBNJ agreement could be augmented by the Conference of Parties in order to help avoid dysfunction in the EIA process, support scientific discovery, and increase environmental protection.