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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

An Ecosystem Is Not A Monument, And Other Challenges To Fishing In The 21st Century, Roger Mann Jan 2021

An Ecosystem Is Not A Monument, And Other Challenges To Fishing In The 21st Century, Roger Mann

VIMS Articles

The continental shelf of the United States was once the preserve of commercial fishermen. This is no longer the case. The exclusive economic zone is increasingly becoming the focus of other economically powerful, sometimes incompatible uses, including green energy, shipping, communications, mining, military exclusion zones, and conservation regions. These other uses generally have fixed boundaries. The distribution of fished species moves in relation to warming of shelf waters, presenting challenges to both federal regional fishery management councils and industry alike. There is need for continued engagement between user groups with respectful use of guiding science and legal structure to ensure …


Debating The Effectiveness Of Marine Protected Areas, Linwood H. Pendleton, Gabby N. Ahmadia, Howard I. Browman, Ruth Thurstan, David M. Kaplan, Valerio Bartolino May 2018

Debating The Effectiveness Of Marine Protected Areas, Linwood H. Pendleton, Gabby N. Ahmadia, Howard I. Browman, Ruth Thurstan, David M. Kaplan, Valerio Bartolino

VIMS Articles

Increasing the size and number of marine protected areas (MPAs) is widely seen as a way to meet ambitious biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Yet, debate still exists on the effectiveness of MPAs in achieving ecological and societal objectives. Although the literature provides significant evidence of the ecological effects of MPAs within their boundaries, much remains to be learned about the ecological and social effects of MPAs on regional and seascape scales. Key to improving the effectiveness of MPAs, and ensuring that they achieve desired outcomes, will be better monitoring that includes ecological and social data collected inside and outside …


Consequences Of Drift And Carcass Decomposition For Estimating Sea Turtle Mortality Hotspots, Bianca Santos, David M. Kaplan, Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs, Susan G. Barco, Katherine L. Mansfield, James P. Manning Jan 2018

Consequences Of Drift And Carcass Decomposition For Estimating Sea Turtle Mortality Hotspots, Bianca Santos, David M. Kaplan, Marjorie A.M. Friedrichs, Susan G. Barco, Katherine L. Mansfield, James P. Manning

VIMS Articles

Sea turtle strandings provide important mortality information, yet knowledge of turtle carcass at-sea drift and decomposition characteristics are needed to better understand and manage where these mortalities occur. We used empirical sea turtle carcass decomposition and drift experiments in the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, USA to estimate probable carcass oceanic drift times and quantify the impact of direct wind forcing on carcass drift. Based on the time period during which free-floating turtle carcasses tethered nearshore were buoyant, we determined that oceanic drift duration of turtle carcasses was highly dependent on water temperature and varied from 2 to 15 days during typical …


Robots As Vectors For Marine Invasions: Best Practices For Minimizing Transmission Of Invasive Species Via Observation-Class Rovs., Andrew David Thaler, Amy Freitag, Erika Bergman, Dominik Fretz, William Saleu Jan 2015

Robots As Vectors For Marine Invasions: Best Practices For Minimizing Transmission Of Invasive Species Via Observation-Class Rovs., Andrew David Thaler, Amy Freitag, Erika Bergman, Dominik Fretz, William Saleu

VIMS Articles

Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) present a potential risk for the transmission of invasive species. This is particularly the case for small, low-cost microROVs that can be easily transported among ecosystems and, if not properly cleaned and treated, may introduce novel species into new regions. Here we present a set of 5 best-practice guidelines to reduce the risk of marine invasive species introduction for microROV operators. These guidelines include: educating ROV users about the causes and potential harm of species invasion; visually inspecting ROVs prior to and at the conclusion of each dive; rinsing ROVs in sterile freshwater following each dive; …


The Charisma Of Coastal Ecosystems: Addressing The Imbalance, Carlos M. Duarte, Wc Dennison, Robert J. Orth, Tim J. Carruthers Feb 2008

The Charisma Of Coastal Ecosystems: Addressing The Imbalance, Carlos M. Duarte, Wc Dennison, Robert J. Orth, Tim J. Carruthers

VIMS Articles

Coastal ecosystems including coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and salt marshes are being lost at alarming rates, and increased scientific understanding of causes has failed to stem these losses. Coastal habitats receive contrasting research effort, with 60% of all of the published research carried out on coral reefs, compared to 11–14% of the records for each of salt marshes, mangrove forests, and seagrass meadows. In addition, these highly connected and interdependent coastal ecosystems receive widely contrasting media attention that is disproportional to their scientific attention. Seagrass ecosystems receive the least attention in the media (1.3% of the media reports) …