Rapid effects of marine reserves via larval dispersal

Richard Cudney Bueno (2009, [Artículo])

Marine reserves have been advocated worldwide as conservation and fishery management tools. It is argued that they can protect ecosystems and also benefit fisheries via density-dependent spillover of adults and enhanced larval dispersal into fishing areas. However, while evidence has shown that marine reserves can meet conservation targets, their effects on fisheries are less understood. In particular, the basic question of if and over what temporal and spatial scales reserves can benefit fished populations via larval dispersal remains unanswered. We tested predictions of a larval transport model for a marine reserve network in the Gulf of California, Mexico, via field oceanography and repeated density counts of recently settled juvenile commercial mollusks before and after reserve establishment. We show that local retention of larvae within a reserve network can take place with enhanced, but spatially-explicit, recruitment to local fisheries. Enhancement occurred rapidly (2 yrs), with up to a three-fold increase in density of juveniles found in fished areas at the downstream edge of the reserve network, but other fishing areas within the network were unaffected. These findings were consistent with our model predictions. Our findings underscore the potential benefits of protecting larval sources and show that enhancement in recruitment can be manifested rapidly. However, benefits can be markedly variable within a local seascape. Hence, effects of marine reserve networks, positive or negative, may be overlooked when only focusing on overall responses and not considering finer spatially-explicit responses within a reserve network and its adjacent fishing grounds. Our results therefore call for future research on marine reserves that addresses this variability in order to help frame appropriate scenarios for the spatial management scales of interest. © 2009 Cudney-Bueno et al.

article, environmental monitoring, fishery, larva, marine environment, marine species, Mexico, mollusc, nonhuman, oceanography, prediction, animal, biology, environmental protection, food industry, geography, growth, development and aging, larva, met CIENCIAS FÍSICO MATEMÁTICAS Y CIENCIAS DE LA TIERRA CIENCIAS DE LA TIERRA Y DEL ESPACIO OCEANOGRAFÍA OCEANOGRAFÍA

Offshore wind energy climate projection using UPSCALE climate data under the RCP8.5 emission scenario

MARKUS SEBASTIAN GROSS (2016, [Artículo])

In previous work, the authors demonstrated how data from climate simulations can be utilized to estimate regional wind power densities. In particular, it was shown that the quality of wind power densities, estimated from the UPSCALE global dataset in offshore regions of Mexico, compared well with regional high resolution studies. Additionally, a link between surface temperature and moist air density in the estimates was presented. UPSCALE is an acronym for UK on PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe)-weather-resolving Simulations of Climate for globAL Environmental risk. The UPSCALE experiment was performed in 2012 by NCAS (National Centre for Atmospheric Science)- Climate, at the University of Reading and the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. The study included a 25.6-year, five-member ensemble simulation of the HadGEM3 global atmosphere, at 25km resolution for present climate conditions. The initial conditions for the ensemble runs were taken from consecutive days of a test configuration. In the present paper, the emphasis is placed on the single climate run for a potential future climate scenario in the UPSCALE experiment dataset, using the Representation Concentrations Pathways (RCP) 8.5 climate change scenario. Firstly, some tests were performed to ensure that the results using only one instantiation of the current climate dataset are as robust as possible within the constraints of the available data. In order to achieve this, an artificial time series over a longer sampling period was created. Then, it was shown that these longer time series provided almost the same results than the short ones, thus leading to the argument that the short time series is sufficient to capture the climate. Finally, with the confidence that one instantiation is sufficient, the future climate dataset was analysed to provide, for the first time, a projection of future changes in wind power resources using the UPSCALE dataset. It is hoped that this, in turn, will provide some guidance for wind power developers and policy makers to prepare and adapt for climate change impacts on wind energy production. Although offshore locations around Mexico were used as a case study, the dataset is global and hence the methodology presented can be readily applied at any desired location. © Copyright 2016 Gross, Magar. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reprod

atmosphere, climate change, Europe, Mexico, sampling, time series analysis, university, weather, wind power, climate, risk, theoretical model, wind, Climate, Models, Theoretical, Risk, Wind CIENCIAS FÍSICO MATEMÁTICAS Y CIENCIAS DE LA TIERRA CIENCIAS DE LA TIERRA Y DEL ESPACIO OCEANOGRAFÍA OCEANOGRAFÍA