Assessing marine ecosystem condition: A review to support indicator choice and framework development

Smit, Kaylee P.; Bernard, Anthony; Lombard, Amanda T.; Sink, Kerry

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107148

Cited by 31 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 218 publications

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“…Marques et al, 2021), to ultimately produce a taxonomic composition for each sampled site. Yet, beyond the mere taxonomic richness, many other biodiversity indicators or metrics can be relevant to monitor ecosystems under degradation or restoration (D'agata et al, 2014; Smit et al, 2021; Soykan & Lewison, 2015), but remain to be tested using eDNA surveys.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benchmarking eleven biodiversity indicators based on environmental DNA surveys: More diverse functional traits and evolutionary lineages inside marine reserves

Dalongeville

Boulanger

Marques

et al. 2022

Journal of Applied Ecology

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1. To mitigate the ongoing threats to coastal ecosystems, and the biodiversity erosion they are causing, marine-protected areas (MPAs) have emerged as powerful and widespread conservation tools. Strictly no-take MPAs, also called marine reserves, undeniably promote fish biomass and density, but it remains unclear how biodiversity responds to protection. Identifying which facets of biodiversity respond to protection is critical for the management of MPAs and the development of relevant conservation strategies towards the achievement of biodiversity targets.2. We collected 99 environmental DNA (eDNA) samples inside and outside nine marine reserves in the Mediterranean Sea to assess the effect of protection on 11 biodiversity indicators based on fish traits, phylogeny and vulnerability to fishing. We controlled for the effect of environmental heterogeneity (habitat, bathymetry, productivity, temperature and accessibility) using a principal component analysis, and for spatial autocorrelation due to potential unmeasured factors.3. We found a positive and significant effect of protection on only 3 out of 11 indicators: functional and phylogenic diversity but also the ratio between demersopelagic and benthic species richness. Rather, total fish richness responded significantly and negatively to protection. We did not detect any significant effect of protection on threatened and elasmobranch species richness, probably due to their large home range compared to the size of Mediterranean marine reserves.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benchmarking eleven biodiversity indicators based on environmental DNA surveys: More diverse functional traits and evolutionary lineages inside marine reserves

Dalongeville

Boulanger

Marques

et al. 2022

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…Recently, South Africa applied the Options for Delivering Ecosystem-Based Marine Management (ODEMM) approach to prioritize key sectors, pressures, and affected ecosystem components. Further, a literature review of indicator types and assessment approaches was conducted for country-level application (Smit et al, 2021). Key marine indicators are now being categorized for inclusion in a revised National Biodiversity Framework.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To mitigate these impacts and maintain healthy oceans, we need sustained measurements of the status and trends of marine biodiversity and ecosystem condition to better assess the effects of human pressures and to apply this information to inform management actions and policy development. Global policies, research initiatives, and biodiversity frameworks have resulted in the development of numerous tools to track progress in meeting biodiversity targets; this has led to the identification of a wide range of methods and indicators for biodiversity monitoring and assessment, particularly in developed countries (Teixeira et al, 2016;Smit et al, 2021). However, this has resulted in confusion and a lack of standardization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Roadmap to Advance Marine and Coastal Monitoring, Biodiversity Assessment, and International Reporting: A Developing Nation Perspective

Smit

Niekerk²,

Harris³

et al. 2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Despite the increasing number of tools and indicators to measure biodiversity status and trends, many developing countries struggle to initiate and advance coastal and marine assessments needed to monitor and track national and international progress in biodiversity targets. We identified five key challenges that hinder progress in this context, based on a national marine assessment workshop held in South Africa, and developed recommendations and tangible actions to address these challenges drawing from multiple national assessments, regional initiatives, and global collaborations over the last 15 years. Challenges include a poor understanding of methods, limited capacity and funding for assessments, a lack of systematic approaches to biodiversity assessment and indicator development, and scattered efforts that often fail to link science to policy. Key actions could enable the development of a coordinated framework to feed into policy and decision-making at multiple scales. We provide South African examples to highlight a developing country’s progress toward marine biodiversity assessment and provide a roadmap to integrated monitoring, assessment, and reporting based on positive outcomes. Recommendations to address challenges include building collective understanding of assessment tools and methods, prioritizing pressures urgently needing mitigation measures, using relevant indicators to support reporting at multiple scales, applying coordinated approaches to identify gaps and opportunities, codeveloping coordinated approaches with direct policy links, and leveraging resources and technical capacity for iterative improvement. This roadmap can guide developing and developed countries and support global best practices to collaboratively advance marine and coastal ecosystem monitoring and assessment at multiple scales for meeting many objectives.

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“…Initial steps have been taken in South Africa to identify key challenges that hinder national marine ecosystem assessment, where recommendations and tangible priority actions have been identified to overcome these challenges (Smit et al, 2022). Work is underway to advance marine ecosystem assessment and to further develop an indicator and assessment framework where ecological indicators will also support upcoming semi-quantitative and later quantitative risk assessments (Keith et al, 2013;Skern-Mauritzen et al, 2018;Smit et al, 2021).…”

Section: Future Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scoping an integrated ecosystem assessment for South Africa

et al. 2022

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The need to move toward marine ecosystem-based management is globally recognized. Few countries effectively account for multiple interacting pressures in their marine assessments, planning and management. Many socio-economic sectors currently operate in South African waters and in most cases, their associated pressures are managed on a sector-by-sector basis and interacting pressures are seldom accounted for in assessments or decision-making. For ecosystem-based management to be effective, a science-based approach to prioritize sectors and pressures needing most urgent action, and to identify affected ecological components is needed. Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) has hence been put forward as a tool that can organize relevant information and provide context for cross-sectoral management decisions. Consisting of five main stages that form an iterative cycle, the first IEA stage involves scoping of top management priorities in a given area and can be done by way of risk assessment. Through the ODEMM (Options for Delivering Ecosystem-based Marine Management) approach, linkage chains (interactions) among sectors, pressures and affected ecological components for the entirety of the South African marine territory were identified. Subsequently, impact risk scores of each linkage chain were calculated based on the exposure and severity of impacts faced by ecological components from pressures that are associated with each sector. Fishing was the sector with the greatest connectivity (11.65% proportional connectance) in the framework and ranked highest in terms of impact risk (summed), followed by Shipping and Coastal infrastructure. Pressures with the most serious impacts on ecological components, as identified through summed impact risk scores, included Bycatch, Species extraction, and Incidental loss and the ecological components most affected were those primarily associated with Fishing and its associated pressures. These findings align with those of the recent South African National Biodiversity Assessment and corroborate views of local stakeholders. This study also identified key local knowledge gaps, including impacts of underwater noise, invasive species, and climate change, that must be better understood to improve assessment accuracy and guide management prioritization of pressures exerted by most impactful sectors.

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Assessing marine ecosystem condition: A review to support indicator choice and framework development

Cited by 31 publications

References 218 publications

Benchmarking eleven biodiversity indicators based on environmental DNA surveys: More diverse functional traits and evolutionary lineages inside marine reserves

Benchmarking eleven biodiversity indicators based on environmental DNA surveys: More diverse functional traits and evolutionary lineages inside marine reserves

A Roadmap to Advance Marine and Coastal Monitoring, Biodiversity Assessment, and International Reporting: A Developing Nation Perspective

Scoping an integrated ecosystem assessment for South Africa

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