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MARINFORSK-Marine ressurser og miljø

BiodivERsA - The futures of reef services in the Anthropocene

Alternative title: BiodivERsA - Fremtiden for resurser fra og avhengig av korallrev i den antropocene tidsalder

Awarded: NOK 3.5 mill.

Since the preindustrial period, human activities have led to an accelerating rate of biodiversity loss, reducing the nature’s ability to sustain human wellbeing and prosperity. Shallow reefs in the tropical and temperate oceans support the marine life on Earth, providing direct and indirect essential ecosystems services for billions of people. This international interdisciplinary Biodiversa project (The futures of reef services in the Anthropocene) aims to improve our understanding and predict the social-ecological dynamics of shallow reefs ecosystem across scales. The Norwegian partner contribution is to apply state-of-the-art climate modeling to study how climate change affects the physical and biogeochemical drivers, which are critical for the well-being of reef ecosystems. This crucial information is delivered to our international partners to project the dynamics of shallow reef ecosystems and their ability to deliver services during the next century. To achieve this, we used the Norwegian Earth system model to simulate changes in environmental drivers over the historical and future periods under different scenarios (e.g., business as usual and climate mitigation). In addition, we have also developed a high-resolution coupled regional climate model adapted for the Caribbean Sea, a region of importance for shallow reef ecosystem. Results of our model simulations have been transferred to our international partners and used to develop species distribution models to explain and predict spatial variation in species abundance. In addition, additional work is ongoing to assess and determine the impact of climate change on coral reef communities. Internally, we have used our model projections to better understand how climate change affects the rate of ocean acidification in the Nordic Seas under different future scenarios. We have also applied the high-resolution regional model of the Caribbean domain to determine the limitation of global models in providing essential environmental drivers, which the marine ecosystems depend on. Due to their low spatial resolution, we show that global models do not accurately represent extreme events in the ocean, particularly the increasingly relevant marine heat waves. Our high-resolution regional model is able to more accurately reproduce the strength and duration of marine heat wave events, suggesting important limitation of global model projections in assessing future marine ecosystem impacts.

Over the past four years, the Reef Futures team has explored the delivery of five ecosystem services – biomass production, nutrient cycling, carbon cycling, cultural value and nutrition value – from coral reef systems, under different climate scenarios, to more effectively plan for the future and design and implement climate-smart management policies. This international collaboration of marine experts from 18 leading research institutions have developed coupled social-ecological models to identify potential win-win scenarios where biodiversity and shallow reefs ecosystem services are secured under future conditions. From Norway, we have delivered model projections of marine environmental drivers that are crucial for determining ecosystem services provided by coral reefs. This has been achieved through global scale simulations using state-of-the-art Earth system models, consistent with the IPCC-AR6 report. In addition, we have provided new simulations of high resolution for the Caribbean Sea, a domain of interest for the project consortium in determining climate change impact on coral reefs. All model outputs have been archived in public repository and made publicly available. Nationally, in addition to benefits from new interdisciplinary and international collaboration, we have developed new expertise in regional coupled climate modeling that include ocean ecosystem, essential for future research on climate change impact on the tropical marine ecosystem/biodiversity. Finally, the project key findings underline the importance to better manage or even fully protect coastal reefs in future, to meet both social and ecological benefits – findings which clearly resonate with new global commitments to increase protection for marine ecosystems up to 30 per cent coverage by 2030, as agreed at last year’s COP15 biodiversity conference. On 16-17th May, results from Reef Futures were presented to relevant end-users and other Biodiversa projects during the BiodivScen final conference.

On coastal reefs (0-50 m depth), perhaps more than anywhere in the world, natural and human systems share a history of strong dependence that must be taken into account to maintain, on one side, the long-term human development and well-being, and, on the other side, biodiversity. This biodiversity translates directly into services. Reef fishes support the nutritional and economic needs of people in many poor countries while hosting the major part of marine life on Earth (25%). However world's reefs are severely over-fished or have degraded habitats. Avoiding or escaping this negative spiral and identifying the most vulnerable reef social-ecological systems on Earth are among the major issues that scientists and managers are facing today. The project aims to uncover new solutions based on a prospective and integrated modelling approach of reef social-ecological systems at the global scale. The project will quantifying five key services provided by reef fishes: (i) biomass production providing livelihoods, (ii) nutrient cycling that affects productivity, (iii) regulation of the carbon cycle that affects CO2 concentration, (iv) cultural value that sustains well-being tourism activities and (v) nutritional value insuring food security. The project will also determine the conditions under which these ecosystem services are currently maintained or threatened. Based on a global database of fish surveys over more than 5,000 reefs that encompass wide gradients of environments, human influences, and habitats, we will estimate the boundaries or thresholds beyond which these ecosystem services may collapse. Finally, we will predict the potential futures of these services and social-ecological systems under various global change scenarios. Using multiple integrated scenarios and predictive models we will simulate the dynamics of shallow reef ecosystems and their ability to deliver services during the next century.

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MARINFORSK-Marine ressurser og miljø