
Kelly Ortega CisnerosUniversity of Cape Town | UCT · Department of Biological Sciences
Kelly Ortega Cisneros
PhD.
About
52
Publications
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Introduction
Kelly Ortega-Cisneros currently works at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town and is a research associate at the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Rhodes University.
Publications
Publications (52)
Ecological indicators used to monitor fishing effects in the context of climate change and variability need to be informative to enable effective ecosystem-based fisheries management. We evaluated the specificity of the response of ecosystem indicators to different fishing and environmental pressure levels using Ecosim and Atlantis
ecosystem models...
This paper presents a new, updated, temporally dynamic Ecosim model for the Southern Benguela (1978–2015) by capturing recent advancements in our understanding of the dynamics and newly available data series from an additional decade of research in the region. The paper documents the model development and the thinking behind incorporating a newly a...
Projections of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems have revealed long-term declines in global marine animal biomass and unevenly distributed impacts on fisheries. Here we apply an enhanced suite of global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP), forced by new-generation Earth...
This study investigates the movement of sardine and anchovy between areas around South Africa, and its possible relationship with key environmental drivers using a Model of Intermediate Complexity for Ecosystems (MICE). This model includes biomass-based, age-and area-structured population dynamics for sardine and anchovy to account for these specie...
As the urgency to evaluate the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems increases, there is a need to develop robust projections and improve the uptake of ecosystem model outputs in policy and planning. Standardising input and output data is a crucial step in evaluating and communicating results, but can be challenging when using models with...
There is an urgent need for models that can robustly detect past and project future ecosystem changes and risks to the services that they provide to people. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) was established to develop model ensembles for projecting long‐term impacts of climate change on fisheries and marine...
Interdisciplinary marine research is pivotal for addressing ocean sustainability challenges but may exclude diverse socio-economic, cultural, or identity groups. Drawing on perspectives of marine Early Career Researchers, we highlight the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in advancing interdisciplinary marine science and present...
Climate change is increasingly affecting the world's ocean ecosystems, necessitating urgent guidance on adaptation strategies to limit or prevent catastrophic impacts. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) is a network and framework that provides standardised ensemble projections of the impacts of climate change...
Challenge 5: Unlock ocean-based solutions to climate change.
Enhance understanding of the ocean-climate nexus and generate knowledge and solutions to mitigate, adapt and build resilience to the effects of climate change across all geographies and at all scales, and to improve services including predictions for the ocean, climate and weather.
Climate change could irreversibly modify Southern Ocean ecosystems. Marine ecosystem model (MEM) ensembles can assist policy making by projecting future changes and allowing the evaluation and assessment of alternative management approaches. However, projected changes in total consumer biomass from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomp...
The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) has dedicated a decade to unravelling the future impacts of climate change on marine animal biomass. FishMIP is now preparing a new simulation protocol to assess the combined effects of both climate and socio-economic changes on marine fisheries and ecosystems. This protoco...
Understanding climate change impacts on global marine ecosystems and fisheries requires complex marine ecosystem models, forced by global climate projections, that can robustly detect and project changes. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) uses an ensemble modelling approach to fill this crucial gap. Yet Fis...
Climate change is affecting ocean temperature, acidity, currents, and primary production, causing shifts in species distributions, marine ecosystems, and ultimately fisheries. Earth system models simulate climate change impacts on physical and biogeochemical properties of future oceans under varying emissions scenarios. Coupling these simulations w...
Interdisciplinary marine research is pivotal for addressing ocean sustainability challenges. While interdisciplinary research brings together a diversity of disciplines, we ask: ‘does it bring together individuals and groups from diverse socio-economic, cultural, or identity backgrounds or does it favour only certain groups?’ This paper draws on th...
There is an urgent need for models that can robustly detect past and project future ecosystem changes and risks to the services that they provide to people. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) was established to develop model ensembles for projecting long-term impacts of climate change on fisheries and marine...
Climate-driven ecosystem changes are increasingly affecting the world’s ocean ecosystems, necessitating urgent guidance on adaptation strategies to limit or prevent catastrophic impacts. The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) is a network and framework that provides standardised ensemble projections of the impact...
This paper describes the rationale and the protocol of the first component of the third simulation round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a, http://www.isimip.org, last access: 2 November 2023) and the associated set of climate-related and direct human forcing data (CRF and DHF, respectively). The observation-based...
This paper describes the rationale and the protocol of the first component of the third simulation round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a, 70 www.isimip.org) and the associated set of climate-related and direct human forcing data (CRF and DHF, respectively). The observation-based climate-related forcings for the...
The management of coastal marine ecosystems requires a multi-sectorial, multidisciplinary approach, where both public and private sectors work together towards the conservation and sustainable use of the ecosystems. In an ideal scenario, the values and interests of all stakeholders should be considered in management strategies aligned with national...
The dynamics of marine systems at decadal scales are notoriously hard to predict—hence references to this timescale as the “grey zone” for ocean prediction. Nevertheless, decadal-scale prediction is a rapidly developing field with an increasing number of applications to help guide ocean stewardship and sustainable use of marine environments. Such p...
This paper interrogates the concept of transdisciplinarity, both theoretically and practically, from a perspective of early career researchers (ECRs) in transformative ocean governance research. Aiming to advance research methodologies for future complex sustainability challenges, the paper seeks to illuminate some common uncertainties and challeng...
Fisheries are highly complex social-ecological systems that often face ‘wicked’ problems from unsustainable resource management to climate change. Addressing these challenges requires transdisciplinary approaches that integrate perspectives across scientific disciplines and knowledge systems. Despite widespread calls for transdisciplinary fisheries...
The Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) modelling framework was used to develop a model of Algoa Bay and test the ecosystem impacts of the implementation of the Addo Elephant National Park Marine Protected Area (MPA). The Ecopath model included 37 functional groups ranging from phytoplankton to top predators and was fitted to 12 and 14 time-series of biomass...
The blue economy has roots in the international arena of sustainable development and sets out to unlock opportunities for economy and society whilst protecting and enhancing marine environments. To date there has been no analysis of how this overarching intention for sustainability has influenced the rapid development of blue economy policies at na...
We propose 'triple-blind review' for peer-reviewed journals - a process that keeps author identities and affiliations blind to manuscript editors until after first appraisal. Blinded appraisal will help to reduce the biases that negatively affect under-represented and minority scientists, ultimately better supporting equity in scientific publishing...
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a relatively new approach to ocean management and has been widely implemented worldwide. Ideally, MSP should be established as a public process that analyzes and distributes human activities across space and time to achieve ecological, economic and social goals, which historically have been accomplished exclusively...
The marine fisheries sector is one of the most important income sectors in South Africa and plays an important role in food security for small-scale and subsistence fishers. Climate-driven impacts have resulted in distribution shifts and declines in abundance of important fisheries targets, with negative consequences to the users dependent on these...
The fisheries for small pelagic species in Angola, Namibia and South Africa fulfil important social and economic roles but have undergone substantial changes in recent years, some of which are likely to be related to climate change. This assessment of vulnerability and possible adaptation options for the main stakeholder groups in these fisheries w...
Calibration of complex, process-based ecosystem models is a timely task with modellers challenged by many parameters, multiple outputs of interest and often a scarcity of empirical data. Incorrect calibration can lead to unrealistic ecological and socio-economic predictions with the modeller’s experience and available knowledge of the modelled syst...
La pesquería de la langosta Panulirus gracilis, en Tumbes, es artesanal empleando redes cortina de fondo, que ocasionan capturas de langostas ovígeras y pequeñas, pesca incidental, fantasma y contaminación marina. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo la evaluación de un modelo de nasa que permita la captura de langosta selectiva y amigable con el ecosis...
RESUMEN Cisneros P, Vera M, Ortega-Cisneros K. 2018. Experiencias en el uso de nasas para la pesca de langosta espinosa Panulirus gracilis en la Región Tumbes, Perú. Bol Inst Mar Perú. 33(1): 35-42.-La pesquería de la langosta Panulirus gracilis, en Tumbes, es artesanal empleando redes cortina de fondo, que ocasionan capturas de langostas ovígeras...
In 2017, South Africa became the first African country to draft Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) legislation. The underlying legal framework supports the achievement of ecological, social and economic objectives, but a national policy to fast track the oceans economy provides a challenge for ecosystem-based approaches to MSP. During the 2018 Internati...
Climate change is altering many environmental parameters of coastal waters and open oceans, leading to substantial present-day and projected changes in the distribution, abundance and phenology of marine species. Attempts to assess how each species might respond to climate change can be data-, resource- and time-intensive. Moreover, in many regions...
The ocean is affected by multiple anthropogenic stressors including climate change, the effects of which are already evident in many ocean ecosystems. The ABACuS v2 end‐to‐end model together with climate projections from the NEMO‐MEDUSA 2.0 model were used to evaluate the effects of fishing, warming and horizontal and vertical mixing on the souther...
Ecosystem models are valuable tools for evaluating the effects of different environmental stressors on an ecosystem and to increase system understanding. The Atlantis modelling framework is an end-to-end model that includes information and processes from the abiotic environment to the human component of a system. An application of Atlantis for the...
The importance of fluctuations in rainfall and riverine flow on ecosystem functioning in a permanently open estuary (POE), the Mlalazi, and 2 temporarily open/closed estuaries (TOCEs), the East Kleinemonde and Mpenjati, were investigated. These systems, located on the east coast of South Africa, are strongly influenced by seasonal changes in rainfa...
Many coastal communities rely on living marine resources for livelihoods and food security. These resources are commonly under stress from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and habitat degradation. Climate change is an additional stressor beginning to impact coastal systems and communities, but may also lead to opportunities for some spec...
This study aimed to determine the variability of carbon and nitrogen elemental content, stoichiometry and diet proportions of invertebrates in two sub-tropical estuaries in South Africa experiencing seasonal changes in rainfall and river inflow. The elemental ratios and stable isotopes of abiotic sources, zooplankton and macrozoobenthos taxa were a...
Estuaries are considered stressed environments because of the high variability in their physico-chemical properties; however, estuarine biota are able to thrive in this perceived stressful environment. The environmental homeostasis hypothesis states that this natural stress provides estuarine communities with the ability to reach stability by compe...
Two-way fixed-effects PERMANOVA on univariate and multivariate measures of community structure.
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Plot of rainfall data in the catchment of the Mlalazi Estuary. Data corresponds to station 478, Empangeni - South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI).
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Correlogram illustrating the relationships among environmental variables. Variables are arranged according to the strength of relationships expressed in a corresponding PCA of all variables. Upper triangular panel contains pair-wise scatter plots for variables. Lower triangular panel contains concentration ellipses (1 SD, mean centered) for the biv...
List of the environmental variables analyzed in this study.
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Two-way fixed-effects PERMANOVA on univariate descriptors of the physical, chemical and nutritional environment on Mtunzini Beach.
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Sandy beach ecological theory states that physical features of the beach control macrobenthic community structure on all but the most dissipative beaches. However, few studies have simultaneously evaluated the relative importance of physical, chemical and biological factors as potential explanatory variables for meso-scale spatio-temporal patterns...
The South African coast has roughly 250 estuaries, and approximately 70% of these have been classified as temporarily open/ closed systems. These environments are highly dynamic and their ecology is strongly influenced by seasonal rain cycles. For example, estuarine phytoplankton decrease in individual size as well as in total productivity during d...
We report 8 species of Ellobiidae from the Peruvian coast, which belong to the subfamilies Ellobiinae: Ellobium stagnale (Orbigny, 1835) and Sarnia frumentum Petit, 1842; Melampodinae: Melampus carolianus (Lesson, 1842), Melampus olivaceus Carpenter, 18574 and Detracia graminea Morrison, 1846; and Pedipedinae: Marinula acuta (Orbigny, 1835), Marinu...