{"id":4291,"date":"2020-04-22T20:13:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T20:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/?p=4291"},"modified":"2020-04-22T20:13:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T20:13:17","slug":"more-protections-needed-to-safeguard-biodiversity-in-the-southern-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/2020\/04\/22\/more-protections-needed-to-safeguard-biodiversity-in-the-southern-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"More Protections Needed to Safeguard Biodiversity in the Southern Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2020\/04\/weddell_seal.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4292\" width=\"680\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2020\/04\/weddell_seal.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2020\/04\/weddell_seal-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"CU Boulder Today (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colorado.edu\/today\/2020\/04\/22\/more-protections-needed-safeguard-biodiversity-southern-ocean\" target=\"_blank\">CU Boulder Today<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Protecting the Southern Ocean\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VbRxx0RCX6g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Current marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean need to be at least doubled to adequately safeguard the biodiversity of the Antarctic, according to a new CU Boulder study published today, Earth Day,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0231361\">in the journal&nbsp;<em>PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Proposals under consideration by an international council this year would significantly improve the variety of habitats protected, sustain fish populations and enhance the region\u2019s resilience to the effects of climate change, the authors say.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCompared to the rest of the world&#8217;s oceans, we have some of the healthiest marine systems left in the world in Antarctica,\u201d said Cassandra Brooks, author of the new paper and assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program. \u201cBut there are vast areas of the Southern Ocean that are left completely unprotected.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many international targets suggest that 10 to 30 percent of the world\u2019s combined oceans should be protected. The Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, comprises about 10 percent of the world&#8217;s oceans, and its protection can play a large role in accomplishing this goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At present, almost 12 percent of the Southern Ocean is designated as part of marine protected areas, or MPAs. MPAs \u2013 especially \u201cno-take\u201d MPAs, or marine reserves which do not allow any fishing \u2013 have been shown to support the abundance and diversity of species.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut percentages aren&#8217;t enough,\u201d said Brooks. \u201cYou want protected areas to be representative of all the different life that&#8217;s in the Southern Ocean.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Antarctic region is home to as many as 10,000 species \u2013 including whales, seals, penguins, fish, corals and giant Antarctic sea spiders \u2013 many of which are found nowhere else in the world. And as far as scientists know, none of them have yet gone extinct from climate change or other human actions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If additional marine protected areas currently under negotiation by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) are implemented, they would encompass almost 22 percent of the Southern Ocean and achieve at least 10 percent representation of its over 40 unique habitats.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs marine scientists, it\u2019s important we have places left that we can actually study as healthy systems that are undergoing climate stress,\u201d said Brooks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the Southern Ocean supports international commercial fisheries for Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish, sold as Chilean sea bass, as well as krill, which is farmed for fish meal and omega-3 fatty acid pills. Less than 5 percent of the Southern Ocean\u2019s protection bans fishing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pressure on these fisheries has increased in recent years and is likely to continue, due to the popularity of omega-3 pills and demand for fish meal \u2013 which is fed to pigs, chickens, and other farmed fish. At the same time, climate change pressures on Southern Ocean ecosystems are also increasing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To help boost the resilience of these ecosystems, \u201cwe really need large areas that are off limits to extraction,\u201d said Brooks. \u201cAntarctica is a global commons that belongs to all of us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A system in flux<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The importance of the Antarctic cannot be understated. The Southern Ocean stores 90 percent of the world&#8217;s freshwater, drives global ocean circulation and regulates our entire climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt its most basic level, all Earth&#8217;s systems depend on the Southern Ocean,\u201d said Brooks. \u201cAnd Antarctica is one of the fastest changing places in the whole world due to climate change. It is impacting the entire ecosystem in ways that we really don&#8217;t understand yet.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Populations of phytoplankton communities and krill \u2013 at the bottom of the food chain \u2013 to penguins and toothfish \u2013 at the very top \u2013 are changing. The whole system is in flux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of these animals cannot migrate or relocate. They\u2019re already as far south as they can go.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building on work from previous studies, Brooks and her co-authors wanted to know: Are we protecting the right areas that actually will conserve biodiversity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they looked at the variety of Antarctic ocean habitats, from the seafloor to the open water, and examined what percentage of them rest within existing and proposed protected areas and which ones do not.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They found that for protections to be fully representative of the biodiversity in the Southern Ocean, and better protect many ocean birds and mammals, they would need to be increased even more than protections currently proposed by CCAMLR. This international treaty group of 26 member states is next scheduled to meet in October of 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adopting these protections would be an important milestone in the right direction, said Brooks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Additional coauthors on the new study include Zephyr Sylvester and Christa Torrens of CU Boulder; Steven L. Chown of Monash University; Lucinda Douglass of the Centre for Conservation Geography at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, and University of Queensland, Queensland; Justine Shaw of The University of Queensland, Queensland; and Ben Raymond of the Australian Antarctic Division.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CU Boulder Today Current marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean need to be at least doubled to adequately safeguard the biodiversity of the Antarctic, according to a new CU Boulder study published today, Earth Day,&nbsp;in the journal&nbsp;PLOS ONE.&nbsp; Proposals &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/2020\/04\/22\/more-protections-needed-to-safeguard-biodiversity-in-the-southern-ocean\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 01:07:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4293,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/prometheus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}