PNAS Archives - Saving Seafood

URI professor part of a worldwide study on impacts of bottom trawling on health of seabeds

January 10, 2021 — A worldwide study on the impacts of bottom trawling, which accounts for a quarter of the world’s seafood harvest and can negatively affect marine ecosystems, has found that seabeds are in good health where trawl fisheries are sustainably managed.

The research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) by a team including co-author Jeremy Collie, Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, builds on recent international collaboration in this field and is the first worldwide study of its kind. It brings together data from 24 large marine regions around the world to establish a relationship between distribution and intensity of trawling activities and the biological state of seabeds.

Read the full story at The University of Rhode Island

Retraction of Flawed Study Implies Larger Problems with Science Used to Support Creation of MPAs

December 14, 2021 — A scientific paper (Cabral et al. 2020, A global network of marine protected areas for food) that claimed that closing an additional 5% of the ocean to fishing would increase fish catches by 20% has been retracted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the journal in which it was published.

At the time of publication, the paper’s findings were immediately covered by The Economist (Stopping some fishing would increase overall catches) and Forbes (Protecting 5% More Of The Ocean Can Increase Fisheries Yield By 20% According To New Research) and other mainstream outlets, including the New York Times, Axios, National Geographic, and The Hill.

Representative Deb Haaland, now the Secretary of the Interior, who recently restored Obama-era prohibitions on fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument without scientific or economic review — and without meeting with affected fishermen — submitted the now-retracted paper as supporting evidence for the “30×30” provisions of the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act. The provision calls on the federal government to conserve at least 30% of Federal waters by the year 2030. (For a longer critique of the 30×30 initiative see this piece by Dr. Roger Mann of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary).

It has since been determined that the paper had both conflict of interest as well as data and model assumption problems.

PNAS determined that the person responsible for assigning Cabral et al.’s peer reviewers, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, currently White House Deputy Director for Climate and Environment, had a conflict of interest. According to the editor-in-chief of PNAS, the frequent collaboration relationship Lubchenco had with the paper’s authors constituted a conflict of interest, as did her personal relationship with one of the authors, Dr. Steve Gaines—her brother-in-law.

Several close collaborators of the Cabral et al. group wrote scientific critiques that pointed out errors and impossible assumptions that suggested the paper was inadequately peer reviewed.

According to an analysis of the paper from Sustainable Fisheries at the University of Washington:

Cabral et al. 2020 assembled a computer model out of several kinds of fishery data to predict where marine protected areas (MPAs) should be placed to maximize global sustainable seafood production. MPAs meant to increase food production do so by reducing fishing pressure in places where it is too high (overfishing). Asia and Southeast Asia have some of the highest overfishingrates in the world—reducing fishing pressure there is a no-brainer, but the model determined many of those areas to be low priority for protection. The results should have been red flag for the peer reviewers of Cabral et al. 2020. Why were MPAs prioritized all around the U.S., where overfishing has been practically eliminated, but not prioritized around India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and China?

Clearly, something was wrong with the model.

For more about the problems with this paper, as well as a look at concerns with another headline-grabbing study that suggested carbon emissions from bottom trawl fishing are similar to emissions from global aviation, see the Sustainable Fisheries analysis here.

Study finds Pacific island nations’ livelihood in peril as marine life moves away from tropics

May 7, 2021 — In response to climate change, several marine species are moving away from the equator – something that could jeopardize livelihoods on Pacific island nations that depend on tuna fishing revenue.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), multiple species studied showed that marine biodiversity on a “global scale” has been responding to the warming climate.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Past decisions in seafood management portend future actions, Rutgers study finds

January 23, 2019 — A study led by Rutgers University has shown that the choice to conserve or overharvest renewable resources such as fish is often due to habits and past decisions, which could help fisheries discover why some succeed at conservation and others fail.

The study, “Path-dependent institutions drive alternative stable states in conservation,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It showed that conservation is significantly easier to continue once it has already been started.

According to lead author Edward W. Tekwa, those who start conserving can often continue with it, but when conservation is not being practiced, the opposite is true.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New study: Industry conservation ethic proves critical to Gulf of Maine lobster fishery

January 22, 2018 — A new study, led by scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and colleagues at the University of Maine and NOAA, demonstrates how conservation practices championed by Maine lobstermen help make the lobster fishery resilient to climate change.

For generations, lobstermen in Maine have returned large lobsters to the sea and have designed a special way of marking egg-bearing lobsters to give them further protection. This conservation culture distinguishes the Gulf of Maine fishery from southern New England, where fishermen have not historically taken the same steps to preserve large, reproductive lobsters.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows how warming waters and contrasting conservation practices contributed to simultaneous record landings in the Gulf of Maine fishery and population collapse in southern New England.

Led by Dr. Arnault Le Bris, the research team used advanced computer models to simulate the ecosystem under varying conditions, allowing them to understand the relative impacts of warming waters, conservation efforts, and other variables. Their results show that, while temperature change was the primary contributor to population changes, conservation efforts made a key difference in population resiliency.

Impacts of warming

Over 30 years (1984-2014), ocean temperatures increased rapidly in both regions. Warming in both regions shifted optimal summer ocean temperatures northeast, causing the southern New England lobster population to decline and the Gulf of Maine population boom. The researchers estimate that, during this 30-year period, the Gulf of Maine population increased by 515%, while the southern New England population declined by 78%. Challenges associated with warmer temperatures include decreased survival of larval lobsters, increased incidence of shell disease, and increased predation.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Researchers and fishing companies form coalition for sustainable seas

August 16, 2017 — A new paper by Henrik Österblom, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Carl Folke and Johan Rockström describes how the authors engaged with large seafood producers to coproduce a global science–business initiative for ocean stewardship. They suggest that this initiative is improving the prospects for transformative change by providing novel links between science and business, between wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture, and across geographical space. They argue that scientists can play an important role in facilitating change by connecting knowledge to action among global actors, while recognizing risks associated with such engagement.

The authors argue that the methods developed through this case study contribute to identifying key competences in sustainability science and hold promises for other sectors as well.

The following is taken from the abstract of “Emergence of a global science-business initiative for ocean stewardship,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

The ocean represents a fundamental source of micronutrients and protein for a growing world population. Seafood is a highly traded and sought after commodity on international markets, and is critically dependent on healthy marine ecosystems. A global trend of wild stocks being overfished and in decline, as well as multiple sustainability challenges associated with a rapid growth of aquaculture, represent key concerns in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Existing efforts aimed to improve the sustainability of seafood production have generated important progress, primarily at the local and national levels, but have yet to effectively address the global challenges associated with the ocean.

This study highlights the importance of transnational corporations in enabling transformative change, and thereby contributes to advancing the limited understanding of large-scale private actors within the sustainability science literature.

Read the full paper here

How In Trouble Are Bluefin Tuna, Really? Controversial Study Makes Waves

March 9, 2016 — Bluefin tuna have been severely depleted by fishermen, and the fish have become a globally recognized poster child for the impacts of overfishing. Many chefs refuse to serve its rich, buttery flesh; many retailers no longer carry it; and consumers have become increasingly aware of the environmental costs associated with the bluefin fishery.

But a group of scientists is now making the case that Atlantic bluefin may be more resilient to fishing than commonly thought — and perhaps better able to rebound from the species’ depleted state. In a paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers suggest that fishery managers reassess the western Atlantic bluefin’s population, which could ultimately allow more of the fish to be caught.

The 10 co-authors, most of whom are scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, say they’ve all but confirmed that bluefin tuna spawn in an area of the Atlantic Ocean previously suspected but not known to be a breeding ground. Not only that; the tuna spawning in this area off the Atlantic Coast are much younger and smaller than the age and size at which it was previously believed the fish become sexually mature, according to the scientists.

This, their paper claims, would make the western Atlantic bluefin tuna “less vulnerable to overexploitation and extinction than is currently estimated.”

But the study is controversial. Several tuna researchers we spoke with warned that the results are preliminary, and it’s much too soon to use them to guide how fisheries are managed

Read the full story from NPR