faulker098

Today we will talk about Natalia. Currently, she is doing a PhD thesis in Ecology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. Her thesis associates habitat preferences, demography and molecular tools aiming to assess the vulnerability of the endemic and endangered Greenbeak parrotfish ( Scarus trispinosus ), with the goal of subsidizing actions for the species conservation. Last year she worked very hard to collect data...take a look! Aiming to investigate habitat preferences, underwater visual censuses were conducted along Rio Grande do Norte coast (Brazilian northeast) to collect density and biomass patterns of five endemic Brazilian parrotfish species.  Endemic Brazilian parrotfish individuals. The visual censuses consist of belt transects in which a diver identified, counted and estimated the total length of the parrotfish species inside an area of 40 m² (20 x 2 m).  Natalia during a visual census. Parrotfish biomass was estimated using length-weight relationshi...

More than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries have published a second warning to humanity advising that we need to change our wicked ways to help the planet.  Among them the FEME members signed this call. This new message is an update of the original warning sent from the Union of Concerned Scientists 25 years ago. But today the picture is far worse than it was in 1992. It's true that some progress had been made in some areas - such as cutting ozone-depleting chemicals, and increasing energy generated from renewable sources - but this was far outweighed by the damaging trends. In the past 25 years: The amount of fresh water available per head of population worldwide has reduced by 26%. The number of ocean "dead zones" - places where little can live because of pollution and oxygen starvation - has increased by 75%. Nearly 300 million acres of forest have been lost, mostly to make way for agricultural land. Global carbon emissions and average temperatures have shown contin...

A study conducted at the University of Lund (Sweden) revealed that plastic nanoparticles reduce the survival of zooplankton and penetrate the fish brain, causing behavioral disturbances. This pioneering study was published in the journal Scientific Reports, last month. The increase in the production of plastic material in the last decades around the world has turned plastic waste into a major problem in the oceans. About 60-80% of all marine litter is made out of plastic, affecting at least 660 marine species (the ones we know so far), showing that this material is a serious pollutant for aquatic environments. Through physical-chemical and biological reactions caused by environmental conditions, the plastic material is divided into smaller and smaller pieces, reaching the size of nanoparticles. Being so small is a dangerous characteristic because the plastic nanoparticles are able to overcome biological barriers, penetrating tissues and accumulating in organs, thus a...

In December 2015 we interviewed Mauro Ruffino . In this interview we asked his opinion about the extinction of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture (MPA) and its incorporation into the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), among other questions. At the time, he made it clear that the change was being made in a disorderly way, but that should not be a problem as long as MAPA gave aquaculture, artisanal fishing and industrial fishing the same treatment. Little did we know that that was only the beginning of a political saga involving Brazilian fisheries… The truth is that the story does not really begin in 2015. Since 2011 the institutional fishing sector has been quickly dismantled, probably with the support and applause of many that do not want to see sustainable fishery policies being properly implemented. Specifically, 2011 marks the end of national fisheries statistics and the beginning of an era of political instability. In 2015 we watched, s...

Does plastic around the world really get recycled? Not at all! Only 9% of discarded plastic is recycled. Plastic pollution is threatening the marine ecosystem worldwide. More than 8 billion tons of plastic are produced by humanity, and about 8 million tons are dumped into our oceans every year, where it persists for decades. Over the next years, the amount of marine plastic waste will double if we do not act. A global issue affects our ocean, our health, and our well-being. In fact, oceans host 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, they are the largest ecosystem on Earth, and are an import source of food. Despite the fact that researchers are uncertain about the nature and extent of the risk of marine debris on ecosystems and humans, the concern about plastic persistence and their effects on the oceans has increased since the last decade. Once in the ocean, the huge amount of plastic, although widespread, affects the safety of sea transport, fisheries, tourism, recreation, and biodiversity...

            Worldwide over 600 million people depend directly or indirectly on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods. Fish provide essential nutrition for over 4 billion people and at least 50 percent of animal protein and essential minerals to 400 million people in the poorest countries. In addition to the pressure exerted by human activities, such as over-fishing, habitat degradation and pollution, both fisheries and ecosystems are exposed to threats related to climate change. It is known that climate change is part of Earth's geological history, but that is not all. In the last 150 years we have been observing a rapid warming of the atmosphere, intensified in the last decades and attributed to the increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide from human activities.             Climate variability and change are already affecting aquatic ...

We finally got to the end of our sequence of interviews with the IMBER crew, closing it with a flourish. We had a quick chat with Dr. Paul Suprenand, an expert modeler working with the Ecopath family, who also integrates physiology and ecology to address challenges associated with environmental change, especially related to fisheries. Paul is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at MOTE, in Florida (USA). FEME : What are the advantages and disadvantages of modelling nature? Dr. Paul Suprenand. Source: IMBER PAUL : Nature is a very complex system, it has so many wonderful things to it, but in the model you cannot always capture all these little differences and they could be very important. So, the advantage would be that you have a way to look at some of the most important factors that could influence ecosystems or the animals within the ecosystem. However, you may lose some of the complexity. What is neat about the model is that it is more readily understood; yo...