Future too warm for baby sharks
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au
Abstract: The effective management of marine ecosystems requires strategies that reduce ongoing biodiversity loss with limited conservation resources. Systematic conservation planning provides a powerful framework to foster conservation and optimise allocation of conservation resources. However, conservation planning in the marine realm has mostly accounted for representation of static elements of biodiversity within a network of marine protected areas (MPAs). My PhD project aimed to improve the integration of ecological and threatening processes related to the long-term maintenance of biodiversity, such as larval connectivity and climate warming. By using Brazilian coral reefs as a case study, I developed methodological approaches to MPA network design that improve upon previous approaches to marine conservation for persistence in many ways: (i) by demonstrating how to formulate conservation objectives to specifically address connectivity and climate changes processes; (ii) by interpreting and combining modelling tools with MPA network design that help make conservation planning more informative; and (iii) by showing the value of setting these conservation objectives from the outset of planning. My thesis is that stronger methodological frameworks will operationalize their integration and improve conservation outcomes in the sea.
Bio: Rafael became an oceanographer in 2005 after finishing his undergraduate studies at Federal University of Vitoria, a public research university in Vitoria (central coast of Brazil). He undertook his MSc (Zoology) at the same university working on zooplankton ecology related to tidal regimes in a tropical estuary. Since 2007, Rafael has been working at the Federal Agency for Biodiversity Conservation in Brazil, when he became passionate about marine conservation. He got involved in developing many conservation strategies including the design and management of marine reserves and formulation of the Brazilian National List of Threatened Species. In late 2011, he started pursuing his PhD, which investigates better ways to designing functional network of marine reserves.
New research has found as climate change causes the world’s oceans to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished and into environments that are already difficult for them to survi
A new study shows the coastal protection coral reefs currently provide will start eroding by the end of the century, as the world continues to warm and the oceans acidify. A team of researchers led
A team of scientists led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) won one of the nation’s top science awards at tonight’s ‘Oscars of Australian science’, the Eureka P
An analytical tool will be used to assess the climate risks facing historic World Heritage sites in Africa—the ruins of two great 13th century ports and the remains of a palace and iron-making indus
Abstract: It is a little over a decade since research commenced into the effects of anthropogenic ocean acidification on marine fishes. In that time, we have learned that projected end-of-century
Abstract: Increased uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has caused the world’s ocean to become more acidic. Different marine habitats are known to have varying ranges of CO2 across mul
Abstract: The Allen Coral Atlas (http://allencoralatlas.org) partnership uses high-resolution satellite imagery, machine learning, and field data to map and monitor the world’s coral reefs at unp
Abstract: Climate change is causing the average surface temperature of the oceans to rise and increasing the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves. In addition, absorption of additional CO2
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Abstract: Invasive species management can be the the subject of debate in many countries due to conflicting ecological, ethical, economic, and social reasons, especially when dealing with a species s
Abstract: Ocean acidification, the increase in seawater CO2 with all its associated consequences, is relatively well understood in open oceans. In shelf seas such as the Great Barrier Reef, processe
Abstract: The backdrop of legends and movies, the deep sea has always been unfathomable because we had no idea what existed there. Once thought to be barren of life, we now know this couldn’t be
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University Townsville
Queensland 4811 Australia
Phone: 61 7 4781 4000
Email: info@coralcoe.org.au