Preprint volume - SIBM

Pre-print Volume – Invited presentation
Topic 1: BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION SCIENCE: CONTRIBUTING TO MANAGEMENT
limited mobility, work that has already been undertaken (see, for instance, Gaines et
al., 2007) is sufficient to understand that some larvae and propagules can travel long
distances and populate distant areas including other MPAs, whilst some species travel
no distance at all and the inference must therefore be that they need to be protected
where they are because recolonisation from distant sources is unlikely. OSPAR (2006)
conclude, in the ‘Guiding Principles’ that “Detailed connectivity issues should be
considered only for those species where a specific path between identified places is
known (e.g. critical areas of a life cycle)”.
Achieving principles are a matter of undertaking more survey work and determining,
often pragmatically, how many sites and how many replicates (Representativity and
Replication) are needed. How to make each site large enough (adequate enough) to
include all of the features and protect ecosystem functioning becomes a much greater
challenge for scientists and may not be possible to achieve through algorithms and
other apparently scientific means, but may be done by experience and knowledge with
common sense.
Management. Management needs to know whether the measures adopted to protect a
MPA are working. Well designed monitoring will identify changes that are occurring
within MPAs. However, those changes will need to be interpreted in terms of their
source (for instance, has an increase in a species been directly attributable to good
management or to some natural change in ocean currents etc.?) and whether or not they
‘matter’ (if a species has declined, is it one that is of conservation concern and/or is it
one that is anyway highly variable in occurrence?). Such considerations require
information about what to expect in the way of natural fluctuations including changes
that might take place on a decadal scale. Such changes are poorly known and may need
long-term datasets.
What to do
Habitats. The development of classifications of marine habitats has improved greatly
since the CORINE classification and various initiatives have resulted in the
development of the marine habitats part of the European Union Nature Information
System (EUNIS) classification. Continuity is needed across the EU if we are to provide
policy advisors with a tool for any future iterations of the Habitats Directive and that
are suitable for use in the other measures such as the Water Framework Directive and
the Marine Strategy Directive. However, the broadscale maps being developed (see, for
instance www.jncc.gov.uk/EUSeaMap) do not give the precision needed to identify
where rare or threatened (including sensitive) biotopes occur. Attempts to use physical
data to predict which biotopes will occur where have been partially successful (for
instance, the HabMap project: www.habmap.org). With a well-developed and accepted
classification of habitats, those that are sensitive can be identified using their
component species in the way outlined in the MarLIN programme (Hiscock & Tyler-
Walters, 2006). Those that are ‘important’ (for instance, because they are rare, in
decline or threatened with decline) can be identified using the sort of criteria
summarised in Hiscock (2008) and given in full in Connor et al. (2002). However,
habitats need to be identified to level 4-6 to have meaningful sensitivity or importance
characteristics identified. Mapping the location of biotopes at level 4-6 of the EUNIS
classification reliably is most likely going to be on a spot location basis and the more
‘spots’ we can survey and document, the better will be the ability to identify which
biotopes are rare, sensitive or important, which examples are the richest and where
41 st S.I.B.M. CONGRESS Rapallo (GE), 7-11 June 2010
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