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September 1990 - present
Publications
Publications (71)
National ecosystem assessments (NEAs) collate and synthesise current knowledge on the status, trends and threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services in target countries. These assessments also provide information on the economic, social and intrinsic value of those ecosystems and ecosystem services for use in national and local level decision ma...
This study investigated the sources and microbiological quality of domestic water used by rural communities of Speightstown, Barbados; Carriacou, Grenada; and Nariva, Trinidad. The primary water source was harvested rainwater in Carriacou, and the public water supply for Nariva and Speightstown. Secondary water supplies of the communities came from...
Transformative governance is key to addressing the global environmental crisis. We explore how transformative governance of complex
biodiversity–climate–society interactions can be achieved, drawing on the first joint report between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and E...
Background:
With the current climate change crisis and its influence on infectious disease transmission there is an increased desire to understand its impact on infectious diseases globally. Hantaviruses are found worldwide, causing infectious diseases such as haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (H...
The Caribbean region experiences significant water supply challenges, especially for 30% of the population who live in rural areas. Improved water resource management in this region would enhance water availability for its population, but this requires reliable quantitative data to guide relevant policy decisions. The Water Poverty Index (WPI) and...
Despite their economic, ecological and cultural
importance, few studies have examined the population size,
distribution and trends of the red-rumped agouti (Dasyprocta
leporina) on the island of Trinidad. This study reports
densities of agouti on Trinidad during a three-year period,
including two years of a moratorium on hunting. Diurnal
transect s...
Alongside ecosystem services, ecosystems also produce functions that detract from human wellbeing, termed ecosystem disservices. Decision making and policy that incorporate ecosystem services and disservices better reflect the complexity of human nature interactions, yet few studies have considered ecosystem services and disservices in combination....
Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goa...
The time is now
For decades, scientists have been raising calls for societal changes that will reduce our impacts on nature. Though much conservation has occurred, our natural environment continues to decline under the weight of our consumption. Humanity depends directly on the output of nature; thus, this decline will affect us, just as it does th...
Despite well publicised knowledge of the spread and potential negative impacts of lionfish in the Caribbean, there has been little attempt to assess the economic costs of lionfish as an ecosystem disservice relative to the recreational amenity value associated with viewing an exotic and unique species. We use choice experiments to explore the deter...
This report represents a critical assessment, the first in almost 15 years (since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005) and the first ever carried out by an intergovernmental body, of the status and trends of the natural world, the social implications of these trends, their direct and indirect causes, and, importantly, the act...
Habitat loss and more recently, climate change are primary challenges to the effectiveness of protected area networks (PANs) in species conservation within many archipelagic biodiversity hotspots across the globe. An environmental niche model (ENM) of 11 high-conservation-value tree species was used to assess the effectiveness of the PAN within the...
Consideration of the spatial dimension in the provision of ecosystem services is fundamental for the calculation of the economic value of ecosystem services and the distribution across beneficiaries and ecosystems. In the context of Small Island Developing States, the islands of Trinidad and Tobago are characterized by a rich natural capital, which...
What does the future hold for the world’s ecosystems and benefits that people obtain from them? While the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has identified the development of scenarios as a key to helping decision makers identify potential impacts of different policy options, it currently lacks a long-term sce...
Respiratory diseases such as asthma and rhinitis are multifaceted disorders which are exacerbated by various factors including: gender, age, diet, genetic background, biological materials, allergens (pollen and spores), pollutants, meteorological conditions and dust particles. It is hypothesized that, the number of valid physician diagnosed cases o...
Introduction: As the frequency of natural disasters (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes) has increased, climate change issues have been brought to the forefront, highlighting infrastructure deficiencies. Climate change and adverse environmental issues are noticed globally; and, the accumulating health impact will have profound effects on f...
Background
Dengue is an acute arboviral disease responsible for most of the illness and death in tropical and subtropical regions. Over the last 25 years there has been increase epidemic activity of the disease in the Caribbean, with the co-circulation of multiple serotypes. An understanding of the space and time dynamics of dengue could provide he...
It has long been recognized that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from small islands are negligible in relation to global emissions, but that the threats of climate change and sea level rise (SLR) to small islands are very real. Indeed, it has been suggested that the very existence of some atoll nations is threatened by rising sea levels associated w...
Mangrove ecosystems are widely distributed in the Caribbean Region, covering c. 2.4 million hectares. They provide numerous ecosystem services, notably they act as nursery grounds for many marine and terrestrial animals, prevent coastal erosion, and act as carbon sinks. Mangrove trees have developed a range of morphological and physiological adapta...
This book covers many aspects of global climate change and flooding within the Caribbean region and examines the impacts of these on the agricultural sector in the Caribbean, on coastal and wetland ecosystems, and on the health sector in Trinidad. It provides an account of and the vulnerability and successful adaptation measures of Jamaica. A repor...
During a major flood in a large river, extremely large volumes of fresh water and sediment can be delivered to near shore areas and the coastal zone. Annual sediment load in the Caribbean is estimated at 109 tons per year, which is approximately 12% of the global sediment input from rivers. The riverine inputs bring a combination of freshwater and...
Executive Summary
Current and future climate-related drivers of risk for small islands during the 21st century include sea level rise (SLR), tropical and extratropical cyclones, increasing air and sea surface temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns (high confidence; robust evidence, high agreement). {WGI AR5 Chapter 14; Table 29-1} Current imp...
Invasive species are often characterised by the introduction of low numbers of individuals and a small genetic pool which could give rise to a population with a lower genetic diversity than the original population. Perna viridis was first reported on the west coast of Trinidad in 1990 in the Point Lisas Industrial estate. They may have been first i...
The purpose of the UNEP Foresight Process is to produce, every two years, a careful and authoritative ranking of the most important emerging issues related to the global environment. UNEP aims to inform the UN and wider international community about these issues on a timely basis, as well as provide input to its own work programme and that of other...
Concentrations of heavy metals were determined in nearshore marine sediments and fish tissue from Sea Lots area on the west coast, at Caroni Lagoon National Park, and in the Point Lisas harbor, Trinidad. The most dominant metals found in sediments were Al, Fe and Zn with mean concentrations highest at Sea Lots (Al-39420 μg/g; Fe-45640 μg/g; Zn-245...
Organochlorine compounds are a class of pollutants considered toxic to humans, fish and wildlife, and show great potential for accumulation and persistence in the environment. In May 1995, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Governing Council adopted Decision 18/32 (GC18/32) on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the goal of which was...
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) introduced a new framework for analyzing social-ecological systems that has had wide influence in the policy and scientific communities. Studies after the MA are taking up new challenges in the basic science needed to assess, project, and manage flows of ecosystem services and effects on human well-being. Ye...
The sensitivity of the tropical mysid, Metamysidopsis insularis relative to that of the sub-tropical North American mysid, Americamysis bahia was determined by comparing their acute toxicity to six toxicants. The 96 h LC50 values for M. insularis ranged from 0.03 mg L (cadmium (Cd) chloride) to 466 mg L (potassium chloride (KCL) whereas those for A...
The acute salinity tolerance of three tropical freshwater cladoceran species, M. macleayi, C. rigaudii and D. brachyurum was determined. The existence of these species represented new records for Trinidad and Tobago, a tropical Caribbean island. It has a large oil based industry, in which, the primary effluent (saline produced water) is discharged...
The toxicities of six chemicals (cadmium chloride, potassium dichromate, sodium dodecyl sulfate, potassium chloride, Tritox X-100 and copper (II) sulphate) was determined for three tropical freshwater cladoceran, Moinodaphnia macleayi, Ceriodaphnia rigaudii and Diaphanosoma brachyurum. The data was subsequently used to compare the relative sensitiv...
In callichthyid catfishes, the posterior intestine is modified to function as an air breathing organ by being air-filled, thin-walled and highly vascularized. These modifications make it unsuitable for digestive functions and digesta has to be transported quickly through this region to minimize disruption of vital respiratory functions. However, th...
Newly hatched larval Hoplosternum littorale do not exhibit bimodal respiration upon hatching but depend initially on branchial respiration. As the respiratory intestine develops, its increasing length leads to an increasing dependence on aerial respiration. The respiratory intestine first appears when the fish is 9days old but is microscopic at thi...
"Ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs arise from management choices made by humans, which can change the type, magnitude, and relative mix of services provided by ecosystems. Trade-offs occur when the provision of one ES is reduced as a consequence of increased use of another ES. In some cases,a trade-off may be an explicit choice; but in others, trad...
Most small island developing states, including Trinidad and Tobago, are quite vulnerable to changes in climate. Analysis of the temporal and spatial changes of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is an important way of understanding and possibly managing variability in the climate. However, obtaining SST and developing environmental policies are seriousl...
Toxicity identification evaluations (TIEs) were performed on seven produced water (PW) effluents from inland discharge facilities operated in Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean tropical country with one of the oldest commercial oil industries in the world. The research was performed to determine the presence and magnitude of toxicity and characterize...
Corbula caribea is the most common non-polychaete macrofaunal organism identified at a large natural oil seep at La Brea in south Trinidad. It is hypothesized that these animals may possess (NADPH-ferrihemoprotein reductase) a component of the Mixed Function Oxygenase system (MFO), which may allow them to ameliorate the potentially deleterious effe...
Heavy metal concentrations were monitored in edible soft tissues of shellfish from Trinidad and Venezuela. Oysters (Crassostrea sp.) and the green mussel (Perna viridis), which is a recently transplanted species to the Caribbean from the Far East, were collected at six locations in Venezuela and five in Trinidad, the latter along the coast line of...
All the islands of the Lesser Antilles have coasts that border on both the tropical western Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. Major sills in the passages between these islands control water flow into the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Horizontal motion below the average sill depth of the Antillean Arc (1200 m) is almost stagnant. These island...
Macrobrachium rosenbergii (de Man) is an important commercial species whose larvae develop through several stages in brackish water, after which they metamorphose and the postlarvae migrate into fresh water. Modelling the multiple factor interactions which may affect the ontogeny of physiological adaptation during larval development provides an opp...
This study tests the predictions of Huston's dynamic equilibrium model of species richness. It examines field data showing the effects of silicates/disturbance and productivity on the number of coexisting species within a functional type (diatoms) in a community. Using multivariate statistical techniques, the pattern of phytoplankton species richne...
A number of experiments were undertaken to better understand and characterize the effects of different gamete concentrations on the efficiency of in vitro fertilization in Crassostrea rhizophorae. Maximum fertilization efficiency was achieved with a broad range of sperm concentrations, thus minimizing the importance of sperm concentration in succes...
1.1. Using oxygen consumption and glycogen utilization rates as indices of metabolic rate, facultative metabolic rate depression was shown to accompany aestivation and anaerobiosis in Pomacea urceus.2.2. Anaerobiosis resulted in lactate accumulation; juveniles and adults both died at the same body tissue lactate concentration.3.3. Juveniles depress...
A comparison of the community structure of the macrobenthos and meiobenthos at six stations in Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda showed that the two components were affected differently by environmental disturbance. Univariate statistical analysis of the macrofauna species data gave clear indications of disturbance at two stations, which did not relate to...
An unusual new species of Ampelisca from Trinidad is described. Unlike other American species of the genus, the head bears a rostrum similar to various oriental species. In other characters, however, the species bears no relationship to Old World species; for example, the American species has a short article 2 of pereopod 5 in contrast to the elong...
Ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs arise from management choices made by humans, which can change the type, magnitude, and relative mix of services provided by ecosystems. Trade-offs occur when the provision of one ES is reduced as a consequence of increased use of another ES. In some cases, a trade-off may be an explicit choice; but in others, trad...
http://www.unep.org/maweb/documents/document.347.aspx.pdf
Trinidad and Tobago like most other small developing island states is quite vulnerable to changes in Climate and Sea Surface Temperature (SST). Climate changes can affect the rainfall regimes, air temperature, soil moisture budgets, water resources and arable land usage. While changes in air and sea surface temperature can adversely affect coral re...
