Latest news with #MigratoryConnectivityintheOcean
National Observer
15-05-2025
- Science
- National Observer
‘Astonishing journeys': online tool tracking migratory animals highlights challenge of protecting them
This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration Off the east coast of Florida, female loggerhead turtles swim more than 1,000km north, hugging the edge of the continental shelf to get to feeding grounds. Humpback whales move through Moreton Bay off the Brisbane coast in Australia, on their way to feed around the Balleny Islands more than 4,000km away off the Antarctic coastline, where wandering albatross circle above, travelling 1,000km a day. In the Netherlands, Arctic terns set off from breeding colonies on one of the bird kingdom's longest migrations – a 90,000km round trip, to east Antarctica and back again. It is hard for plodding, land-bound Homo sapiens to fathom the distances covered by these species, or their total disregard for the perils of the high seas, or the country boundaries humans have drawn. But all these journeys, and many hundreds more, have been brought together for the first time in a new online tool that reveals the movements of more than 100 species that migrate across the planet's oceans. 'They're absolutely astonishing journeys and they're far more common than we give them credit for. All sorts of species do this,' says Daniel Dunn, an associate professor and director of the University of Queensland's Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. 'Some of these birds spend less energy flying than they do standing on the ground. They can sleep while they're flying, somehow putting half their brain to sleep while the other half is paying attention.' Almost half of all species that migrate over or in the ocean are feared to be in decline – and they are presenting conservationists with a unique and confounding challenge. How can a country help save a species that spends its time feeding or breeding in one place, if that same species is put under threat when it leaves? One study, for example, found nine threatened migrating shorebird species that visit Australia each year are being hunted while they travel. Dunn and his colleagues have been working on the problem, reviewing more than 1,000 studies on the movements of migratory species and then loading the best of the data into a public web system known as Mico (Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean). The system, detailed in an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications, is the first attempt to give policymakers a clear idea of where species go, how they are connected and what it will take to save them. Dr Lily Bentley, a marine conservation ecologist specialising in migratory species and lead author of the article, said the Mico system was also useful for seeing what is not known about migratory species. What the system shows, rather than a comprehensive map of all migratory animals, is the first attempt to synthesise all the studies that have tracked species. For example, Mico shows the vast global distribution of blue whales – the places where the biggest animals on Earth are known to live. But the tool also shows there have been practically no tracking studies of the whales anywhere around the entire African continent. Bentley said it was 'very much the first step'. 'If you're at a big international meeting and someone wants to know what species goes where, now we can have an answer.' Conservationists and policymakers are working on two big global agreements that the Mico team hope will benefit from their work. Dunn says one example is the '30 x 30' target – a global plan backed by more than 120 countries to protect 30% of the planet's land and ocean by 2030. 'Part of that target requires that the [protected areas] are well connected, but we are still trying to work out how we determine that. 'We can't wait, because the stresses on the animals are not waiting. We need to provide that initial information.' A second global deal, adopted in 2023 after 20 years of negotiations, is a treaty looking to increase the number of protected areas in the high seas. 'These two things could be amazing for migratory species if we get the areas right,' said Bentley. 'Migratory species move between jurisdictions, so you have to bring more and more people to the table and that's a hard thing to do. '[Mico] takes us a step further to making sure we're telling policymakers which areas of the high seas are important to protect.' Rebecca Hubbard is the global director of the High Seas Alliance, a group of more than 60 non-governmental organisations working on the high seas treaty. Hubbard, who attended a presentation of the Mico system this week, said it would help, 'particularly on the high seas that are half of our planet and two-thirds of the ocean'. 'We're now having to conserve our species on a global scale. We always need more data, but we also need to be able to see patterns in that data. [Mico] is incredibly useful in translating a lot of individual bits of information into a broader signal.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Interactive Map Reveals Ocean Pathways Vital For 109 Species
Earth's oceans may seem like an expanse of the same water to us, but try telling that to a sea turtle or a whale shark. To trace the invisible routes that more than 100 migratory marine species regularly take across international lines, scientists in Australia and the US have now created an interactive map that reveals the narrow paths connecting ocean habitats. Many marine species rely on specific routes to traverse their watery domain. These roads offer seafaring travelers the right conditions, at the right time of year, to guide them through otherwise hostile landscapes. But we humans have drawn our own lines across these paths, based on our fisheries, shipping routes, and national borders. It's more obvious to us when nature is fragmented on land; the passageways connecting marine ecosystems are often intangible to us landlubbers. The new map, named the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) database, makes it easier for scientists, policymakers, and regular people to see where migratory marine species may be falling through the cracks. From birds and marine mammals to fish and turtles, the database includes information on 109 species, based on around 30 years of data, and reveals where in the world they're going to and from – including which species cross into whose national waters. "The tool connects almost 2,000 crucial habitats and spotlights the importance of cross-boundary cooperation," says movement ecologist Lily Bentley, from the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia, who led the development of the database's models. All of the species recorded in MiCO have less protection at some point in their life history due to differences in jurisdictions. That means no country is able to fully protect migratory species without help from others. "A classic example are green turtles that nest in Costa Rica and migrate north through Nicaragua and out to islands in the Caribbean," marine conservation scientist Daniel Dunn, also from UQ, told ScienceAlert. "While largely protected in Costa Rica (and nesting in a protected area), it is legal to fish for turtles in Nicaragua and huge numbers are lost off the coast there every year." In 2023, a UN report found climate change is having catastrophic effects on migratory species, because temperature changes affect the timing, abundance, range, and survival of key food sources, like krill, which are the foundation species of many marine food webs. Climate change is also constricting the ranges of many species towards the poles, messing with ocean currents, and overcrowding key breeding and feeding sites. While the migration paths in MiCO are snapshots in time, the team hopes that eventually, information from different time periods may be used to identify changes in connectivity. "This is really critical because we know those changes are happening – for instance, the opening of the Northern Passage absolutely changes the permeability of the Arctic to a variety of species (and ships)," Dunn said. MiCO also reveals gaps in migratory species research. There's insufficient data on more than two-thirds of marine migratory species, and the team hopes that over the years MiCO will incorporate data on more of these underrepresented species. "The extensive migratory information revealed within the MiCO system only scratches the surface of the true connectivity of the global oceans," the team writes. The process of mapping out existing data also revealed sampling biases that researchers can now address. For instance, seabird data are biased towards polar regions and lack representation in the tropics, despite those regions being among the most species-rich and human-impacted areas. The map also shows obvious geographic biases reflecting the wealth and distribution of university researchers. This research is published in Nature Communications, and anyone may explore the MiCO database here. 28 Most Populous US Cities Are Sinking, New Survey Finds NASA Reveals 'Higher Than Expected' Sea Level Rise in 2024 Microplastics Persist in Drinking Water Despite Treatment Plant Advances
