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Species home ranges (HRs) were classified into one of four home range size-classes based on the asymptotic area of their sampling adequacy curve: ‘localized’ (100<HR<10,000), ‘intermediate’ (10,000<HR<100,000), ‘large’ (100,000<HR<1,000,000), or ‘vast’ (HR >1,000,000). Note log scale on the y-axis.
Source publication
Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe in part to facilitate the conservation of marine megafauna under the assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; however, this alignment is not well established. Using a global tracking dataset from 36 species acr...
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Citations
... It is a well-known fact that, on a global scale, home ranges of highly mobile marine megafauna often do not match MPA boundaries [29]. The two marine NATURA 2000 sites in southern Kefalonia and northwestern Zakynthos, respectively, are such examples-they are both future MPAs, independent of each other. ...
From August 2021 to December 2023, one adult male Mediterranean monk seal was repeatedly registered, through a systematic monitoring camera system, frequenting a marine cave in southern Kefalonia Island, central Ionian Sea, Greece. The presence of the same adult seal in a series of caves and overhangs in a bay in northwestern Zakynthos, southern Ionian Sea, in September 2023 and May 2024 was verified through opportunistic surveys and citizen science. The two locations are ca. 15 km apart and each is located in a different marine NATURA 2000 site. Appropriate conservation measures need to take into consideration the fact that seals do move between Kefalonia and Zakynthos (and possibly also other Ionian islands) and that the entire area has to be considered as a single “conservation unit” rather than elaborating protection measures on a small scale around a couple of resting and pupping caves alone. A full network of marine caves under strict protection surrounded by a buffer zone, taking into account at least the species’ home range, is needed in order to substantially cover the monk seal’s critical terrestrial habitats throughout the Ionian Sea.
... Consequently, the decline of migratory species is of global conservation concern (UNEP-WCMC 2024). Although the major threats to migratory species are well-known, effective implementation of management measures to address population declines of migrants requires an understanding of migration patterns to coordinate action at national and international scales (Conners et al. 2022;Oppel et al. 2018;Runge et al. 2015). ...
Aim
To identify the broad‐scale oceanic migration routes (‘marine flyways’) used by multiple pelagic, long‐distance migratory seabirds based on a global compilation of tracking data.
Location
Global.
Time Period
1989–2023.
Major Taxa Studied
Seabirds (Families: Phaethontidae, Hydrobatidae, Diomedeidae, Procellariidae, Laridae and Stercorariidae).
Methods
We collated a comprehensive global tracking dataset that included the migratory routes of 48 pelagic and long‐distance migrating seabird species across the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans. We grouped individuals that followed similar routes, independent of species or timings of migration, using a dynamic time warping clustering approach. We visualised the routes of each cluster using a line density analysis and used knowledge of seabird spatial ecology to combine the clusters to identify the broad‐scale flyways followed by most pelagic migratory seabirds tracked to‐date at an ocean‐basin scale.
Results
Six marine flyways were identified across the world's oceans: the Atlantic Ocean Flyway, North Indian Ocean Flyway, East Indian Ocean Flyway, West Pacific Ocean Flyway, Pacific Ocean Flyway and Southern Ocean Flyway. Generally, the flyways were used bidirectionally, and individuals either followed sections of a flyway, a complete flyway, or their movements linked two or more flyways. Transhemispheric figure‐of‐eight routes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and a circumnavigation flyway in the Southern Ocean correspond with major wind ‐ driven ocean currents.
Main Conclusions
The marine flyways identified demonstrate that pelagic seabirds have similar and repeatable migration routes across ocean‐basin scales. Our study highlights the need to account for connectivity in seabird conservation and provides a framework for international cooperation.
... Many of these species remain subject to unsustainable levels of exploitation in the wider region (ICCAT 2023) and in need of effective conservation measures. However, they are also highly mobile which presents challenges for protection even in very large MPAs (Conners et al. 2022;Hampton et al. 2023), particularly given high fishing effort on the boundaries of many LSMPAs and the associated risk of illegal encroachment (Kellner et al. 2007;Boerder, Bryndum-Buchholz, and Worm 2017;Cabral et al. 2017). Knowledge of the spatiotemporal distribution of historic fishing activity may assist with the latter by enabling targeted surveillance and enforcement, although this assumes that vessels engaged in illegal activity continue to behave in a similar way to former licenced fleets, which is increasingly uncertain as target species redistribute in response to climate change (Townhill et al. 2021). ...
The establishment of large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs) has emerged as one of the defining trends in ocean conservation over recent decades. To assess the potential benefits of such designations, it is necessary to understand the nature of the threats that have been excluded. Here, we summarise over 25 years of historical catch and effort data for a pelagic longline fishery that formerly operated within the recently designated LSMPA surrounding Ascension Island (UK), using data compiled from logbooks and observer programmes. Licenced fishing by foreign vessels (primarily flagged to Taiwan and Japan) operated intermittently in the Ascension Island exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between 1988 and 2016, with catch peaking at over 5000 t year −1 in the early 1990s. Bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) was the dominant species targeted (76% of total catch weight) whilst oceanic sharks (e.g. blue shark Prionace glauca) and other predatory pelagic finfish (e.g. longnose lancetfish Alepisaurus ferox) appear to have presented a sizable bycatch risk, accounting for 37% of total individuals caught in local observer data. The fishery displayed strong seasonality, with two thirds of activity occurring between December and March and was consistently concentrated in the northwest of the EEZ. This distribution closely aligns with recent satellite-derived vessel tracking data which suggests that a regional longline fishing hotspot remains in the high seas area adjacent to the northwest of the Ascension Island MPA. Our results suggest that predatory pelagic fish and sharks will be the most direct beneficiaries of the Ascension Island MPA, although the high mobility of these species may lessen any conservation impacts, given intense the fishing effort in adjacent high seas areas. While illegal fishing remains a potential threat, the spatiotemporal predictability of the historic fishery may be useful in identifying areas of elevated risk for targeted enforcement in this large, remote MPA.
... Marine spatial planning and coastally located marine protected areas (MPAs) are management tools that promote the sustainable use of marine ecosystems. While most coastal MPAs are too small to encompass the yearround range of highly mobile megafauna species, small MPAs may include portions of individual ranges at key periods during the year (Conners et al., 2022). Furthermore, understanding the efficacy of an MPA to provide spatial protection for a dynamic marine environment requires monitoring of changes in both biotic and physical environmental conditions. ...
Animal telemetry is maturing into a viable method for observing the ocean as it can be used to monitor both environmental conditions and biological metrics along the movement trajectories of marine animals. As part of the Cormorant Oceanography Project, we have augmented a biologging tag with an external fast response temperature sensor to collect ocean temperature profiles from the backs of foraging marine birds. Cormorants dive between 50 and 250+ times a day to forage for prey so they can provide hard-to-match temporal and spatial coverage of coastal ocean conditions within their foraging areas. We process tag measurements to obtain fundamental oceanographic data (e.g., temperature profiles, bottom soundings, surface current measurements). Together, we have tracked 17 marine bird species (including two Spheniscus penguins spp. and a sea duck), originating from 17 countries and foraging along the edges of all major oceans. Tagged birds’ distribution included 191 MPAs in 26 countries, offering a unique ocean monitoring method to complement more widely used methods.
... For example, catch and release (141) and harvest slot limits (68,142) can be effective in fisheries with high postrelease survival. Because it is often not possible to release fish alive from commercial fisheries, time-area closures (41), protected areas (143,144), balanced harvesting (145), gear that protects size structure, and by-catch reduction devices are management tools that can help to protect old age structure. ...
... Networks of suitably large and connected no-take reserves or time-area closures in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems (table S1) can be effective tools to protect old age classes. Effective design of protected areas (143,144,148) or time-area management must account for species mobility, future climate change, and locations where old individuals are most vulnerable (i.e., feeding and breeding grounds). ...
Earth’s old animals are in decline. Despite this, emerging research is revealing the vital contributions of older individuals to cultural transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes and services. Often the largest and most experienced, old individuals are most valued by humans and make important contributions to reproduction, information acquisition and cultural transmission, trophic dynamics, and resistance and resilience to natural and anthropogenic disturbance. These observations contrast with the senescence-focused paradigm of old age that has dominated the literature for over a century yet are consistent with findings from behavioral ecology and life-history theory. Here, we review why the global loss of old individuals can be particularly detrimental to long-lived animals with indeterminate growth, increasing reproductive output with age, and those dependent on migration, sociality and cultural transmission for survival. Longevity conservation is needed to protect the important ecological roles an ecosystem services provided by old animals.
... The majority of scholarship on existing mismatches focuses on the science-law interface, which is listed as a cause of ineffectiveness that can lead to failure to achieve conservation goals for biodiversity (Crowder et al., 2006;Falco et al., 2022). For marine megafauna, such mismatches mostly focus on spatial incongruities between existing marine protected areas (MPAs) and known areas of importance to marine megafauna (Conners et al., 2022), temporal mismatches associated with reactive (rather than proactive) legal processes (e.g., in listing species on appendices to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora [CITES, 1973]), and ecological value mismatches relating mostly to the lack of legal considerations for species functional traits and values. These mismatches have been reported in specific regions (Brooks et al., 2016;Harrison et al., 2018;von Heland et al., 2014) and jurisdictions (Crowder et al., 2006;Lagabrielle et al., 2018) in relation to particular species (Havice et al., 2018) or aspects of conservation (e.g., use of data for policy; Lindegren et al., 2018) and tend to concern single conservation tools (e.g., MPAs) (Maina et al., 2020) or highlight the focus on agreement making rather than implementation (Beal et al., 2021). ...
... One type is area-based approaches, such as those that feature as targets in the recently adopted Global Biodiversity Framework (i.e., 30% area protection by 2030). Area-based approaches are often implemented through the creation of MPAs (which are then included in shipping and fishing regulations), but these are frequently designated where the potential for user conflict is anticipated to be low (Conners et al., 2022;Lindegren et al., 2018) rather than based purely on different species needs. Another tool utilized is species-focused provisions that protect marine biodiversity through (hierarchical) species listings based on scientific evidence, such as CITES and CMS. ...
... For many mismatches, scientific evidence has revealed successful outcomes from technological advances that are ready to be implemented (short term), as is the case in fisheries, where adaptation of fishing gear helps avoid bycatch or reduces marine megafauna entanglement (Allman et al., 2021;Guidino et al., 2022). There is also substantial scientific evidence for mismatches between areas protected and important sites for some species (Conners et al., 2022;Lindegren et al., 2018). With the recent decision to protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030 (a medium-term goal), a scientific, holistic approach to identify and map biologically and ecologically important areas across marine megafauna taxa at global scale is needed to better inform the implementation of targeted protection areas. ...
Global biodiversity is facing unprecedented pressures, calling into question the effectiveness of existing governance systems aimed at halting extinctions. Renewed hope arose with the recent Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15 December 2022) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (COP19 November 2022). Yet, barriers remain that hamper biodiversity conservation. Identifying and overcoming these barriers is crucial for success. We considered previous lessons learned to show that current barriers to conservation are centered on a multidimensional array of mismatches among legal (law), ecological (science), and sociocultural (human) dimensions across the short, medium, and long term. Focusing on highly migratory marine megafauna (whales, sharks, and turtles), we used the Rubik's cube as a metaphor to conceptualize the multidimensional mismatches and devised a pathway for solutions that is highly dependent on strict alignment across all dimensions. We recommend the continuous cycling across all dimension interfaces to align the use (and update) of regulations and processes in law, improve data and experimentation methods in science, and develop education and engagement actions in the human dimension. This timely alignment across all dimensions is key to achieving biodiversity targets and avoiding further extinctions.
... The methods developed here to estimate these trends can be adopted for other species to help inform national and international initiatives to conserve biodiversity. This could be by identifying priority areas where effects of compound stressors (for example, ocean heat waves and deoxygenation 54 ) are minimized, assessing the resilience of current Marine Protected Area coverage to climate change 61,62 or designing protection networks that encompass the full range of future habitats, including aggregations, hotspots and refugia 63,64 . ...
Climate change is shifting animal distributions. However, the extent to which future global habitats of threatened marine megafauna will overlap existing human threats remains unresolved. Here we use global climate models and habitat suitability estimated from long-term satellite-tracking data of the world’s largest fish, the whale shark, to show that redistributions of present-day habitats are projected to increase the species’ co-occurrence with global shipping. Our model projects core habitat area losses of >50% within some national waters by 2100, with geographic shifts of over 1,000 km (∼12 km yr⁻¹). Greater habitat suitability is predicted in current range-edge areas, increasing the co-occurrence of sharks with large ships. This future increase was ∼15,000 times greater under high emissions compared with a sustainable development scenario. Results demonstrate that climate-induced global species redistributions that increase exposure to direct sources of mortality are possible, emphasizing the need for quantitative climate-threat predictions in conservation assessments of endangered marine megafauna.
... The creation of these MPAs, in many cases, appeared to be an extension of terrestrial protected areas aimed primarily at other taxa (namely loggerhead nesting beaches and seabird colonies), and so may not always target key areas for elasmobranchs or be strengthened by clear regulations aimed at reducing anthropogenic pressures at sea. In Maio, following revisions of the MPA network conducted in 2014, two 'no-take' areas were introduced, and while it is too early to ascertain their effectiveness, their limited size is unlikely to have a significant impact on mobile species such as elasmobranchs(Conners et al., 2022;Halpern, 2003;Rhodes et al., 2019). As the government moves to strengthen the national network of MPAs, the results of these surveys suggest that particular attention should be given to the north-west of Boavista, the central-eastern coast of Sal and the west coast of Maio. ...
An increasing onus on elasmobranch management by regional bodies has been hindered by a lack of data on abundance, distribution and fisheries, especially in data‐poor areas like the eastern Atlantic Ocean. From 2015 through 2017, 204 baited remote underwater videos (BRUV) were deployed in Cabo Verde around the eastern islands of Sal, Boavista and Maio and the remote offshore reef João Valente to establish a baseline of elasmobranch abundance. Over 200 hours of footage revealed 215 individual elasmobranchs, spanning 14 species from 6 taxonomic families. The abundance of elasmobranchs was highest in Maio, the island with the smallest human population, followed by Boavista and Sal. Smaller‐bodied meso‐predatory species such as the common smoothhound ( Mustelus mustelus ) and the Atlantic weasel shark ( Paragaleus pectoralis ) constituted the majority of observations in Maio and Boavista. Inversely, Carcharhinus spp. were observed in considerably greater abundance in Sal, and there was notably lower abundance of small‐bodied sharks at sites with high large‐bodied Carcharhinid abundance. Species richness was consistent with abundance estimates across islands, with Boavista and Sal recording the highest species diversity, followed by Maio. Results suggest that amongst Cabo Verde's eastern islands, there exists a high relative diversity and abundance of coastal elasmobranchs compared to populations in West Africa. Nonetheless, there is evidence of exploitation of higher trophic levels species. This trend is most notable in the decreasing abundance of Carcharhinids with increasing proximity to the capital city Praia, suggesting that fishing efforts from the capital are negatively affecting the abundance of large‐bodied, higher‐trophic predators.
... This is because organisms with varying life history strategies are differentially affected by habitat fragmentation. For example, highly mobile (i.e., vagile) organisms are sensitive to the effects of habitat fragmentation across terrestrial (Betts et al., 2019), marine (Conners et al., 2022), and freshwater (Brauer and Beheregaray, 2020) ecosystems. Within freshwater ecosystems, habitat loss and fragmentation afflict most major rivers because of construction of >16.7 million reservoirs globally (Lehner et al., 2011). ...
... Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that a larger area in itself is not sufficient to guarantee higher protection of cetaceans, due to their large distribution areas and mobility. In this sense, extending beyond isolated MPAs via MPA networks operated cooperatively and synergistically by several counties for the conservation of cetaceans has been widely recognized and discussed (IUCN-WCPA, 2008;Hinch and de Santo, 2011;Hoyt, 2011;Conners et al., 2022). In addition, marine spatial planning strategies and other ecosystem-based tools (Geijer and Jones, 2015;Notarbartolo di Sciara et al., 2016;Carlucci et al., 2021), such as Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), are encouraged (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, 2022). ...
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are key strategies for marine conservation that strive to protect biological diversity and ensure the sustainable use of marine resources. Due to their wide distribution and mobility, cetaceans are exposed to numerous threats. Well-managed MPAs are one of the most effective tools in managing these threats to conserve cetaceans. This study aimed to analyze and compare the existing management approaches toward cetaceans from selected MPAs in the American continent. The purpose was to assess their primary failures and advances. To achieve this, ten MPAs that include at least one cetacean species as a focal conservation target were selected from 10 different countries: five in the Atlantic Ocean and five in the Pacific Ocean. The Marine Mammals Management Self-Assessment Toolkit was used to evaluate the integration of cetaceans in MPA management plans. This toolkit assigns scores to several subjects that are categorized into four themes: 1) Management Frameworks, 2) Addressing Activities and Threats, 3) Research and Monitoring, 4) Outreach and Engagement. Thereafter, a final percentage was obtained for each MPA. The Marine Mammal Sanctuary Bancos de la Plata y la Navidad in the Dominican Republic achieved the highest score. This MPA presented a specific plan to conserve marine mammals that includes zoning of environmentally sensitive areas and considers the threats and activities affecting marine mammals. The five MPAs with the lowest scores were from South America, with Cabo Polonio National Park (Uruguay) being the lowest, as its management plan does not include measures focused on cetaceans. In addition, a lack of monitoring in MPAs results in an absence of information on their impact on marine mammals. Addressing this shortcoming is of utmost importance for informing future MPA planning strategies. To conclude, this study highlights the importance of incorporating mitigation measures targeting priority species and underscores governance structures to regulate anthropogenic threats through robust legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms.
