Marine Protected AreasWebinars
The MPA Center, EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe), MPA News and OpenChannels sponsor a monthly webinar series focused on building and strengthening MPA networks. Miss a recent webinar? See the archive.
Watch this site for additional information on upcoming MPA Center Webinars.
Addressing marine debris in protected areas: Best practices and examples
Date/Time: Thursday, January 14, 2 pm US EST / 11 am US PST / 7 pm UTC
Speaker: Anna Ruth Robuck of the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center
Marine debris encompasses a wide range of materials of diverse origin, including derelict vessels, fishing gear, plastic debris, and microplastics. Different types of marine debris have been documented to impact every level of biological organization, and many uncertainties about impact remain. The complex and often harmful nature of the problem translates to management and conservation challenges within protected areas, and a “one size fits all” approach to marine debris generally fails to incorporate local needs and nuance. This webinar synthesizes recommendations for protected area managers seeking to reduce marine debris. The recommendations are based upon review of research, case studies, and experience from government, academia, and non-profits. This webinar will also provide some suggested actions and current examples from protected areas addressing marine debris in the US and beyond.
Co-sponsors: NOAA National MPA Center and OCTO (MPA News, OpenChannels, EBM Tools Network)
Coral reef eco-evolutionary dynamics: Adaptation and connectivity in MPA networks under future climate change
Date/Time: Thursday, February 25, 1 pm US EST / 10 am US PST / 6 pm UTC
Speaker: Helen Fox of Coral Reef Alliance
Lisa McManus of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Lukas DeFilippo of University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
While coral reefs face mounting threats, many coral populations are already well adapted to conditions unfavorable to the average coral (e.g., high temperatures, low pH, poor water quality). With the goal of better understanding the drivers of persistence and adaptive capacity and the role of management and MPAs, we developed a general eco-evolutionary framework to explore the influence of network structure and spatial management on a metapopulation’s adaptive response to temperature increase. This framework was applied to coral populations in the Caribbean, Southwest Pacific, and Coral Triangle to determine the characteristics of individual reefs that lead to persistence or decline under climate scenarios and test the efficacy of spatial management strategies (MPAs) in these three regions. We also used eco-evolutionary simulations to explore scenarios of coral propagation, transplantation, and assisted evolution and identified potential benefits and risks of these interventions. We find that corals’ vulnerability to climate change depends strongly on assumptions of their standing genetic variation, which determines the potential for an evolutionary response. One implication of this work is that MPA networks can promote persistence by protecting coral populations adapted to diverse environments so that corals with evolutionarily favored traits reproduce and spread throughout reef networks.
Co-sponsors: NOAA National MPA Center and OCTO (MPA News, OpenChannels, EBM Tools Network)