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- Duffy, J. Emmett, et al.
(författare)
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Toward a Coordinated Global Observing System for Seagrasses and Marine Macroalgae
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Marine Science. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 2296-7745. ; 6
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- In coastal waters around the world, the dominant primary producers are benthic macrophytes, including seagrasses and macroalgae, that provide habitat structure and food for diverse and abundant biological communities and drive ecosystem processes. Seagrass meadows and macroalgal forests play key roles for coastal societies, contributing to fishery yields, storm protection, biogeochemical cycling and storage, and important cultural values. These socio-economically valuable services are threatened worldwide by human activities, with substantial areas of seagrass and macroalgal forests lost over the last half-century. Tracking the status and trends in marine macrophyte cover and quality is an emerging priority for ocean and coastal management, but doing so has been challenged by limited coordination across the numerous efforts to monitor macrophytes, which vary widely in goals, methodologies, scales, capacity, governance approaches, and data availability. Here, we present a consensus assessment and recommendations on the current state of and opportunities for advancing global marine macrophyte observations, integrating contributions from a community of researchers with broad geographic and disciplinary expertise. With the increasing scale of human impacts, the time is ripe to harmonize marine macrophyte observations by building on existing networks and identifying a core set of common metrics and approaches in sampling design, field measurements, governance, capacity building, and data management. We recommend a tiered observation system, with improvement of remote sensing and remote underwater imaging to expand capacity to capture broad-scale extent at intervals of several years, coordinated with strati fied in situ sampling annually to characterize the key variables of cover and taxonomic or functional group composition, and to provide ground-truth. A robust networked system of macrophyte observations will be facilitated by establishing best practices, including standard protocols, documentation, and sharing of resources at all stages of work flow, and secure archiving of open-access data. Because such a network is necessarily distributed, sustaining it depends on close engagement of local stakeholders and focusing on building and long-term maintenance of local capacity, particularly in the developing world. Realizing these recommendations will producemore effective, efficient, and responsive observing, a more accurate global picture of change in vegetated coastal systems, and stronger international capacity for sustaining observations.
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| 2. |
- Norderhaug, Kjell Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List does not account for intraspecific diversity
- 2024
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Ingår i: ICES JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE. - 1054-3139 .- 1095-9289.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List identifies threatened and endangered species and is a key instrument in global biodiversity conservation efforts. Our understanding of the structure and value of genetic biodiversity below the species level is rapidly increasing. Nonetheless, the IUCN assessment criteria overlook genetic variation within species. Here, we address this blind spot and discuss the principles of species conservation status classification relative to intraspecific biodiversity. We focus on coastal species, which thrive in heterogeneous environments known to drive genetic differentiation. The focal example species, Atlantic cod and sugar kelp, have contrasting life histories, are ecologically and economically important constituents of the coastal ecosystem, and are currently not classified as threatened in Norway and Canada. We expose important variation in population structure, the presence of ecotypes and genetic-environment covariation, as well as loss of ecotypes that threatens the conservation of these species. Because the genetic makeup of species directly influences their resilience, omitting this information from conservation status assessments can result in loss of adaptive capacity to future stressors, such as climate change. Consequently, recognizing and preserving intraspecific variation emerges as vital for species' abilities to adapt to and survive in future ocean conditions.
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