The futures of reef services in the Anthropocene

REEF-FUTURES

Call

Project Website

Principal Investigator

David Mouillot, University of Montpellier, France

Partners

John Kittinger, Arizona State University, United States Aaron MacNeil, Dalhousie University, Canada Valeriano Parravicini, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France Loic Pellissier, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Edgar Graham, University of Tasmania, Australia Emily Darling, Wildlife Conservation Society, United States Laurent Vigliola, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France Sonia Bejarano, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Germany Steven Lade, Stockholm University, Sweden William Cheung, University of British Columbia, Canada Jerry Tjiputra, Uni Research, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Norway Camilo Mora, University of Hawaii, United States Pieter van Beukering, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Josh Cinner, James Cook University, Australia Christina Hicks, Lancaster University, United Kingdom Deron Burkepile, University of California, Santa Barbara, United States

Funders

Project Objective

The project aims to move beyond the typical over-simplified ‘human impacts’ storyline and focus on uncovering new solutions based on a prospective and integrated modelling approach of reef social-ecological systems at the global scale with three objectives: 1. 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. 2. Determine the conditions (socioeconomic and environmental) 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 (fishing impact), and habitats, we will estimate the boundaries or thresholds beyond which these ecosystem services may collapse. 3. Predict the potential futures of these services and social-ecological systems under various global change scenarios. Using multiple integrated scenarios (human demography, economic development and climate change) and predictive models we will simulate the dynamics of shallow reef ecosystems and their ability to deliver services during the next century,

Call Objective

The Call addresses two major (non-exclusive) priorities: - Development and application of scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services across spatial scales of relevance to multiple types of decisions; - Consideration of multiple dimensions of biodiversity and ecosystem services in biodiversity scenarios.

Region

Country

Duration

36 months

Call Date

October 2, 2017

Project Award Date

July 13, 2018