Getting Ocean Acidification on Decision Makers’ To-Do Lists: Dissecting the Process Through Case Studies

Cooley, Sarah R.; Jewett, Elizabeth B.; Reichert, Julie M.; Robbins, Lisa; Shrestha, Gyami; Wieczorek, Dan; Weisberg, Stephen B.

doi:10.5670/oceanog.2015.42

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The majority of biological research related to ocean acidification focuses on direct effects on species, mostly in laboratory experiments. However, societal questions related to ocean acidification are much larger, scaling to concerns about food webs, ecosystems, and provisioning from marine resources [ 16 ]. Projections of ocean acidification impacts generated with ecological models can help develop understanding of the indirect effects of ocean acidification at large scales [ 5 , 17 , 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of the Direct Effect of Seawater pH on the Survival Rate of Species Groups in the California Current Ecosystem

2016

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Ocean acidification (OA) has the potential to restructure ecosystems due to variation in species sensitivity to the projected changes in ocean carbon chemistry. Ecological models can be forced with scenarios of OA to help scientists, managers, and other stakeholders understand how ecosystems might change. We present a novel methodology for developing estimates of species sensitivity to OA that are regionally specific, and applied the method to the California Current ecosystem. To do so, we built a database of all published literature on the sensitivity of temperate species to decreased pH. This database contains 393 papers on 285 species and 89 multi-species groups from temperate waters around the world. Research on urchins and oysters and on adult life stages dominates the literature. Almost a third of the temperate species studied to date occur in the California Current. However, most laboratory experiments use control pH conditions that are too high to represent average current chemistry conditions in the portion of the California Current water column where the majority of the species live. We developed estimates of sensitivity to OA for functional groups in the ecosystem, which can represent single species or taxonomically diverse groups of hundreds of species. We based these estimates on the amount of available evidence derived from published studies on species sensitivity, how well this evidence could inform species sensitivity in the California Current ecosystem, and the agreement of the available evidence for a species/species group. This approach is similar to that taken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to characterize certainty when summarizing scientific findings. Most functional groups (26 of 34) responded negatively to OA conditions, but when uncertainty in sensitivity was considered, only 11 groups had relationships that were consistently negative. Thus, incorporating certainty about the sensitivity of species and functional groups to OA is an important part of developing robust scenarios for ecosystem projections.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimates of the Direct Effect of Seawater pH on the Survival Rate of Species Groups in the California Current Ecosystem

2016

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“…In some models, scientists initiate an interaction, for example, by offering information; in others, users of the information seek answers from scientists. These "push vs. pull" models can be an ongoing, interactive, and iterative process (e.g., Cooley et al, 2015).…”

Section: The Science-user Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting Science to Policymakers, Managers, and Citizens

Lubchenco¹,

Menge²,

Barth³

et al. 2019

Oceanog

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Twenty years ago, the creation of a new scientific program, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), funded by the Packard Foundation, provided the opportunity to integrate-from the outsetresearch, monitoring, and outreach to the public, policymakers, and managers. PISCO's outreach efforts were initially focused primarily on sharing scientific findings with lay audiences, but over time they evolved to a more interactive, multi-directional mode of engagement. Over the next two decades, PISCO science and scientists significantly influenced local, state, federal, and international decisions about many topics, but especially marine protected areas, hypoxia, ocean acidification, fishery management, and marine diseases. PISCO scientists' long-term data and understanding of key ecosystem processes also enabled them to detect anomalies, investigate rapidly, and inform others about novel developments such as hypoxia, acidification, warming, and disease. Especially during a time of dynamic changes in ecosystems, long-term data like PISCO's have proven invaluable. Moreover, PISCO's dual focus on understanding fundamental processes and finding solutions (not just identifying problems) has resulted in rich opportunities to co-create knowledge with citizens and translate that knowledge into action by citizens, managers, and policymakers. PISCO has delivered on its goal to serve society through science.

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“…Decision makers in a variety of contexts, ranging from industry to ocean policy and management (e.g., HoeghGuldberg et al, 2014;Boehm et al, 2015, in this issue; Cooley et al, 2015, in this issue), can benefit from actionable information on what is known and what is not known. In this context of rapidly advancing policy-relevant science, approaches used in communicating the science of climate change over the past decades can suggest best practices for communicating OA research.…”

Section: Communicating Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding, Characterizing, and Communicating Responses to Ocean Acidification: Challenges and Uncertainties

Busch¹,

O’Donnell²,

Hauri³

et al. 2015

oceanog

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Getting Ocean Acidification on Decision Makers’ To-Do Lists: Dissecting the Process Through Case Studies

Cited by 14 publications

References 27 publications

Estimates of the Direct Effect of Seawater pH on the Survival Rate of Species Groups in the California Current Ecosystem

Estimates of the Direct Effect of Seawater pH on the Survival Rate of Species Groups in the California Current Ecosystem

Connecting Science to Policymakers, Managers, and Citizens

Understanding, Characterizing, and Communicating Responses to Ocean Acidification: Challenges and Uncertainties

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