. 2017. Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries. ABSTRACT. We explore the role of agriculture in destabilizing the Earth system at the planetary scale, through examining nine planetary boundaries, or "safe limits": land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, biosphere integrity, climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, and introduction of novel entities. Two planetary boundaries have been fully transgressed, i.e., are at high risk, biosphere integrity and biogeochemical flows, and agriculture has been the major driver of the transgression. Three are in a zone of uncertainty i.e., at increasing risk, with agriculture the major driver of two of those, landsystem change and freshwater use, and a significant contributor to the third, climate change. Agriculture is also a significant or major contributor to change for many of those planetary boundaries still in the safe zone. To reduce the role of agriculture in transgressing planetary boundaries, many interventions will be needed, including those in broader food systems.

a b s t r a c tVMStools is a package of open-source software, build using the freeware environment R, specifically developed for the processing, analysis and visualisation of landings (logbooks) and vessel location data (VMS) from commercial fisheries. Analyses start with standardized data formats for logbook (EFLALO) and VMS (TACSAT), enabling users to conduct a variety of analyses using generic algorithms. Embedded functionality handles erroneous data point detection and removal, métier identification through the use of clustering techniques, linking logbook and VMS data together in order to distinguish fishing from other activities, provide high-resolution maps of both fishing effort and -landings, interpolate vessel tracks, calculate indicators of fishing impact as listed under the Data Collection Framework at different spatiotemporal scales. Finally data can be transformed into other existing formats, for example to populate regional databases like FishFrame. This paper describes workflow examples of these features while online material allows a head start to perform these analyses. This software incorporates state-of-the art VMS and logbook analysing methods standardizing the process towards obtaining pan-European, or even worldwide indicators of fishing distribution and impact as required for spatial planning.

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/18569/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the ABSTRACTThe population of Calanus finmarchicus in the North Sea is replenished each spring by invasion from an overwintering stock located beyond the shelf edge. A combination of field observations, statistical analysis of Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) data, and particle tracking model simulations, was used to investigate the processes involved in the cross-shelf invasion. The results showed that the main source of overwintering animals entering the North Sea in the spring is at depths of greater than 600 m in the Faroe Shetland Channel, where concentrations of up to 620 m 73 are found in association with the overflow of Norwegian Sea Deep Water (NSDW) across the Iceland Scotland Ridge. The input of this water mass to the Faroe Shetland Channel, and hence the supply of overwintering C. finmarchicus, has declined since the late 1960s due to changes in convective processes in the Greenland Sea. Beginning in February, animals start to emerge from the overwintering state and migrate to the surface waters, where their transport into the North Sea is mainly determined by the incidence of north-westerly winds that have declined since the 1960s. Together, these two factors explain a high proportion of the 30-year trends in spring abundance in the North Sea as measured by the CPR survey. Both the regional winds and the NSDW overflow are connected to the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAO), which is an atmospheric climate index, but with different time scales of response. Thus, interannual fluctuations in the NAO can cause immediate changes in the incidence of northwesterly winds without leading to corresponding changes in C. finmarchicus abundance in the North Sea, because the NSDW overflow responds over longer (decadal) time scales.

A significant correlation was observed between satellite derived chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations and the biomass of the invasive comb jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi in the southern Caspian Sea. By consuming the herbivorous zooplankton, the predatory ctenophore M. leidyi may have caused levels of Chl a to rise to very high values (∼9 mg m −3 ) in the southern Caspian Sea. There might also be several other factors concurrent with predation effects of M. leidyi influencing Chl a levels in this region, such as eutrophication and climatic changes which play major roles in nutrient, phytoplankton, and zooplankton variations. The decrease in pelagic fishes due to overfishing, natural, and anthropogenic impacts might have provided a suitable environment for M. leidyi to spread throughout this enclosed basin. Copyright © 2008 Ahmet E. Kideys et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The Caspian Sea is the largest inland water body in the world sustaining large stocks of small commercially important zooplanktivorous, pelagic fish. In such ecosystems, a consistent, significant decrease in numbers of grazing zooplankton would be expected to result in a decrease in pelagic fish stocks and their predators.Mnemiopsis leidyi is a highly fecund comb jelly feeding extensively on zooplankton. The main diet of this ctenophore in the southwestern Caspian Sea was found to be copepods (∼45%) during May 2000-March 2001, as found previously in the Black Sea [2]. Predation impacts of M. leidyi on zooplanktic prey organisms have been previously demonstrated in its native waters, the western Atlantic [3], and in introduced regions [4,5]. Furthermore, a recent study based on feeding experiments in the Caspian Sea suggested that the predation pressure of M. leidyi alone would be sufficient to suppress available stocks of zooplankton within a short period (1 day in summer and 3-8 days during winter/spring) [6] and thus would allow phytoplankton biomass to increase.In the late 1990s, M. leidyi was transported into the Caspian Sea [5], possibly in ballast water [5] and spread throughout the Caspian Sea within a few years [1,5,7,10]. Overfishing, eutrophication, and climatic changes (such as global warming) have been suggested as triggering factors of the blooms of jellyfish in both native and introduced waters [11][12][13][14]. Native predators (e.g., goby species [15]) of M. leidyi in the Caspian Sea did not appear to be as efficient as B. ovata, which feeds almost exclusively on M. leidyi [16], in the Black Sea, in consuming M. leidyi biomass [17].At the end of the 1991-2000 period, in which relatively good recruitment and high spawning-stock biomass of anchovy kilka were recorded, fishing mortality (1.8 y Despite the substantial decreases in zooplanktivorous fish and still available phytoplankton biomass (inferred from Chl a levels), sharp declines in the zooplan...

Fish aggregating devices, or FADs, are used widely in developing countries to concentrate pelagic fish, making them easier to catch. Nearshore FADs anchored close to the coast allow access for rural communities, but despite their popularity among policy makers, there is a dearth of empirical analysis of their contributions to the supply of fish and to fisheries management. In this paper we demonstrate that nearshore FADs increased the supply of fish to four communities in Solomon Islands. Estimated total annual fish catch ranged from 4300 to 12 000 kg across the study villages, with nearshore FADs contributing up to 45% of the catch. While it is clear that FADs increased the supply of fish, FAD catch rates were not consistently higher than other fishing grounds. Villages with limited access to diverse or productive fishing grounds seemingly utilized FADs to better effect. Villagers believed FADs increased household income and nutrition, as well as providing a source of fish for community events. FADs were also perceived to increase intra-household conflict and reduce fishers' participation in community activities. FADs need to be placed within a broader rural development context and treated as another component in the diversified livelihoods of rural people; as with other livelihood options they bring trade-offs and risks.