The Southwest Marine Fisheries Center is proposing that a marine reserve be set

Question

The Southwest Marine Fisheries Center is proposing that a marine reserve be set aside to serve as a refuge for several species including lobsters (benthic species) and rockfish (demersal species). Absolutely no fishing will be allowed in these areas. It is expected that fish/invertebrates in these areas will provide larvae/juveniles for surrounding areas as well, thus maintaining population sizes outside the refuge. How would you determine which areas should be designated as a refuge? What physical and biological aspects would need to be examined? For example, how would prevailing currents impact your choice? How many refuges (and how large) would be desirable and how would they be related to each other? How would you design your refuge system to withstand potential climate changes? For instance, how might El Niño or ocean warming due to climate change affect survival in your refuge and what might the impacts be to fisheries?

Explanation / Answer

A marine protected area (MPA) is essentially a space in the ocean where human activities are more strictly regulated than the surrounding waters - similar to parks we have on land. These places are given special protections for natural or historic marine resources by local, state, territorial, native, regional, or national authorities.

a national or international ‘sanctuary’, on the other hand, is a very large area designated as a refuge from hunting. This includes national waters where whale and/or dolphin hunting is banned, as well as the large ocean international whale sanctuaries set up through the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, or national authorities and differ substantially among nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life.

Stressors that affect oceans include "the impact of extractive industries, localised pollution, and changes to its chemistry (ocean acidification) resulting from elevated carbon dioxide levels, due to our emissions". MPAs have been cited as the ocean's single greatest hope for increasing the resilience of the marine environment to such stressors.Well-designed and managed MPAs developed with input and support from interested stakeholders can conserve biodiversity and protect and restore fisheries.

Typical MPAs restrict fishing, oil and gas mining and/or tourism. Other restrictions may limit the use of ultrasonic devices like sonar (which may confuse the guidance system ofcetaceans), development, construction and the like. Some fishing restrictions include "no-take" zones, which means that no fishing is allowed. Less than 1% of US MPAs are no-take.

Ship transit can also be restricted or banned, either as a preventive measure or to avoid direct disturbance to individual species. The degree to which environmental regulations affect shipping varies according to whether MPAs are located in territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, or the high seas. The law of the sea regulates these limits.

Most MPAs have been located in territorial waters, where the appropriate government can enforce them. However, MPAs have been established in exclusive economic zones and in international waters. The following are the most common management systems:

seasonal and temporary management—Activities, most critically fishing, are restricted seasonally or temporarily, e.g., to protect spawning/nursing grounds or to let a rapidly-reducing species recover.

Multiple-use MPAs—These are the most common and arguably the most effective. These areas employ two or more protections. The most important sections get the highest protection, such as a no take zone and are surrounded with areas of lesser protections.

Community involvement and related approaches—Community-managed MPAs empower local communities to operate partially or completely independent of the governmental jurisdictions they occupy. Empowering communities to manage resources can lower conflict levels and enlist the support of diverse groups that rely on the resource such as subsistence and commercial fishers, scientists, recreation, tourism businesses, youths and others.

MPA networks—"A group of MPAs that interact with one another ecologically and/or socially form a network".[20] These networks are intended to connect individuals and MPAs and promote education and cooperation among various administrations and user groups. "MPA networks are, from the perspective of resource users, intended to address both environmental and socio-economic needs, complementary ecological and social goals and designs need greater research and policy support"Emerging or established MPA networks can be found in Southeast Australia, Belize, the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Mexico.

Ocean currents are the greatest force of climate on the planet. The hydrosphere, along with the atmosphere, keep us in a fairly comfortable environment around the globe.
MPAs can be an effective tool to maintain fish populations. The general concept is to create overpopulation within the MPA. The fish expand into the surrounding areas to reduce crowding, increasing the population of unprotected areas.This helps support local fisheries in the surrounding area, while maintaining a healthy population within the MPA. Such MPAs are most commonly used for coral reef ecosystems.

identified several traits with relatively high heritabilities, such as upstream migration date and spawning date, where we expect climate change to induce strong selection. Evolutionary responses in these traits are likely, as has been shown for other cases of environmental change influencing refuge.

In terms of global climate change, environmental factors that are expected to have the greatest direct effects on estuarine and marine systems are temperature change, sea-level rise, availability of water from precipitation and runoff, wind patterns, and storminess
The ocean currents are driven by wind, thermohaline circulation, and the Coriolis effect. Basically, the large surface and subsurface currents (ocean conveyor) distribute heat from hot to cold, south to north (technically, low latitude to high latitude, because if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, it will be flowing equator to south, not north). As an example, in the Northern Hemisphere, Atlantic Ocean, the Sun is at its strongest, and heats the surface waters (which doesn't mean just a few feet, in means perhaps 100 meters or more deep - which is "surface" when you consider that the water is about 14,000 feet deep). These surface waters become very warm, and due to Earth's rotation and wind currents, will begin to move west, carrying that heat with them.

The Coriolis force, in the Northern Hemisphere, is always trying to "bend things to the right" of whichever direction they're traveling. So by the time the current makes it to the Caribbean, it has begun to turn north, very slowly dissipating its heat, making the West Indies popular honeymoon destinations. It continues to "turn right" and becomes the Gulf Stream, which warms the Eastern Seaboard as it passes, continuing to cool. It finally makes another right, and passes near the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, and Iceland, becoming rather cold - but still warm, obviously, because if it wasn't, it would have frozen. Even though the current is significantly cooler than when it started at the Equator, it still retains enough heat to warm Northwestern Europe enough to be habitable. The British Isles might not have been colonized if there had been no circulation - just too cold to live there. The current then flows south, and finally makes another right, and becomes the Equatorial Current once more. Here, it's heated again to its maximum temperature, and the cycle continues without stop. . This has impacts on the sustainability of fisheriesand aquaculture, on the livelihoods of the communities that depend on fisheries, and on the ability of the oceans to capture and store carbon (biological pump). The effect of sea level rise means that coastal fishing communities are in the front line of climate change, while changing rainfall patterns and water use impact on inland (freshwater) fisheries and aquaculture.

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