Zoology Department Seminar: Objectives, ecology, cool tools and people: on ingredients to managing ecosystem change on reefs

Speaker: Professor Maria Beger, University of Leeds

Abstract: Climate change and other anthropogenic pressures transform, degrade, and homogenise the biodiversity and ecosystem services of our coastal marine ecosystems, in turn also reducing opportunities for people wanting to benefit from their ecosystem services. Management and conservation actions to mitigate the stressors and enhance positive ecosystem responses thus help both biodiversity and people, but often some key ingredients to success are missing that I explain below.
1 Quantifying and predicting the responses of biota at key levels of organisation (from genes to ecosystems) enables understanding the system we aspire to manage. For example, tropicalisation of cold (high-latitude) reefs arises from both coral range shifting and expansion of endemic corals (and other species), but arguably, the reassembly of communities of algae, mollusks, soft corals, echinoderms and even reef fishes is key for provisional services but largely unquantified. In particular, the functional perspective of change is important, as users often can shift target species but require ecosystem integrity to flourish.
2 Explicitly articulating feasible, time-bound, and measurable management objectives are the prerequisite for sensible decision making. It is also typically important to embed these decisions within broader theory, legislative frameworks, and stakeholder needs.
3 Human brains are ill equipped to deal with the complexities of deciding, particularly when biodiversity and the number of stakeholders is high, trade-offs are complicated, and socio-ecological predictions are uncertain. This is where decision support tools play an important role. I will briefly explain one example that is important in spatial planning.
Climate change, range shifting, local extinctions, and changing human interests all challenge our concept of static protected areas. I will close by drawing together the “ingredients” to explain how we might plan spatiotemporally dynamic management actions.

Our Departmental Seminars run weekly on Thursdays during term time. They cover recent research on a wide variety of topics from evolutionary genetics through behavioural ecology to ecology and natural history.  

Everyone in Zoology is invited, and Part II undergraduate zoologists are particularly encouraged to attend.  Please click here for a list of all of this term's seminars.