This week members of the Conservation Innovation lab, Erin Murphy, Dr. Miranda Bernard and Dr. Leah Gerber, published ” Evaluating the role of market-based instruments in protecting marine ecosystem services in wild-caught fisheries,” in Ecosystem Services. This work emerged from a partnership between the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes and Dr. Kevin J. Dooley, of The Sustainability Consortium.

The movement from single-species to ecosystem-based fisheries management indicates the importance of ecosystem-level thinking for achieving sustainable fisheries; however, it is not clear that fishery-specific market-based instruments effectively align with the principles of the ecosystem-based approach. In this study, we review the written indicators of seven market-based instruments to evaluate the level of protection they provide to marine ecosystem services that may be impacted by fisheries. We found that many of the ecosystem services, which may impact during their operations, are not completely protected by the instruments written indicators. Through this analysis we hope to promote a dialogue between scientists and decision-makers to encourage the use of ecosystem service indicators in market-based instruments used to promote sustainable fisheries.

This work was funded by the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.

Members of the conservation innovation lab recently published “A decision framework for estimating the cost of marine plastic pollution interventions”, in Conservation Biology. This paper, published with members of the Plastic Pollution Emissions Working Group, presents a framework for evaluating the net cost of marine plastic pollution interventions. We also applied the framework to two quantitative case studies and four qualitative case studies to explore how context of implementation influenced net costs.

Download the paper here: Murphy et al. 2021

The lab sent Dr. Miranda Bernard off to the Duke Marine Lab to start her Smith Fellowship this week. Though her passion and supportive nature will be missed in the lab, we are all very excited to see what this next chapter of her career brings. Good luck Miranda! We love you!

Figure. The three core values embraced by the ESSA community will have a ripple effect from the student to the global scale.

The Earth System Science for the Anthropocene (ESSA) community has a call for Summer Graduate Grant proposals! Any interested graduate students currently enrolled at ASU who need summer support for research, materials, hiring undergraduate research assistants, stipends, etc. are encouraged to apply!

See the request for proposals here.

And contact essa@asu.edu for more details.

As part of the citizen scientist initiative taking place throughout April, we will be hosting a welcome webinar on Thursday, April 1, at 9:00 a.m. (AZ time).

As part of this collaboration,  members of the ASU community and the entire state of Arizona will be helping us document flowering plants and pollinators on ASU Phoenix-area campuses

Learn more and register.

Lab members Erin Murphy, Leah Gerber, and Miranda Bernard published a new paper, Applying a jurisdictional approach to support sustainable seafood, in Conservation Science and Practice. Seafood certification and ratings systems have established strong benchmarks for sustainability, but alone they are not sufficient for ensuring sustainable seafood consumption. In this paper, the authors propose that market‐based approaches and ecosystem‐based governance initiatives are integrated using a jurisdictional approach. Jurisdictional approaches are place‐based initiatives deployed in key commodity producing regions to drive sustainability through aligned incentives among government, market, and producer actors.

This research emerged from the Conservation International-ASU partnership.

Throughout April, which is also Earth Month and Citizen Science Month, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes invites the ASU community and the entire state of Arizona to participate in a citizen science project to help us document flowering plants and pollinators on ASU’s Phoenix-area campuses.

Watch the promo video.

Pollinators are vital to healthy ecosystems. Birds, bats, butterflies, bees and many other species are necessary for the health of flowering plants, food crops and the global economy.

We simply could not live without them.

As part of this initiative, citizen scientists will use their smartphones to snap and load photos of flowering plants and pollinators via the iNaturalist app.

Continue reading →

In January 2021, Katie Surrey (PhD student, Biology and Society) and Zackary Graham (PhD candidate, Animal Behavior) published a piece on Medium that outlines the racial inequalities behind the concept of accessing nature, and how the benefits derived from being in the outdoors are unequally experienced by all members of the population. The piece emerged as the result of the graduate seminar course that is offered by the Animal Behavior department every semester. This year the class focused on reviewing and discussing urban wildlife ecology studies through the lens of racial inequities, as highlighted in a recent paper published by scientist Dr. Christopher Schell, (et. al., 2020). Katie and Zack wanted the important and relevant discussions being held in the seminar to extend beyond the (virtual) classroom walls and conceived of this piece as part of their final class project. With input and support from colleagues, the final article supplies a brief summary of the existing scientific literature on the many physical and psychological benefits of regular access to nature and emphasizes how future studies need to consider the implications of racial discrepancies and historical disenfranchisement in the form of redlined cities. Continue reading →

Lab students Arielle Amrein and Katie Surrey on a boat in Panama. Photo credit: Dr. Leah Gerber

Two Conservation Innovation students (Arielle Amrein, MS and Katie Surrey) co-authored a paper that was recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science, presenting the results of their pilot study that was conducted last summer in Las Perlas archipelago, Panama. The study was a result of the ASU collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and the research team and co-authors included Dr. Leah Gerber (Center for Biodiversity Outcomes), Dr. Hector Guzman (STRI) and Dr. Susana Cardenas (USFQ). The project assessed how local whale watching activities were affecting the behavior of the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) population. 

Whale watching is a popular ecotourism activity around the world and is a significant source of income for local communities, and provides financial and educational support for conservation efforts.  However, as the sustainability of whale-based ecotourism depends on the behavior and health of whale populations, it is crucial that ecotourism industries consider the impact of their activities on whales. Previous research has determined that animals experience stress due to high frequency and proximity of human activity, and although Panama implemented regulations in 2007 that prohibits whale-based tourism from disturbing whales, (which is explicitly measured by changes in whale behavior), there is no systematic monitoring of whale watching activity to enforce the regulations, and as a result there is currently little compliance from tour operators and tourists. The unmonitored activities of these boats often bring them in close range of the whales who are usually breeding mothers with calves, which may have long-term effects on the overall survival of the individuals and thereby threaten the conservation of the species. Continue reading →

In September, graduate students from the Conservation Innovation lab published a memo addressing how to reinvigorate recycling in Arizona through state-level policy reform. By interviewing recycling coordinators from across the state, they learned that the majority of municipalities have been forced to alter their programs due to changing international markets and a lack of state-level support. Despite these challenges, interviewees view an investment in the recycling sector as an opportunity to improve the economic, environmental and social well-being of their community.

In response to these challenges, the authors identified ways Arizona policy-makers can reinvigorate recycling in Arizona.

To support this effort, please sign this petition asking the state to fund the recycling program and share this graphic on social media.

This memo was written by Erin Murphy, Miranda Bernard, Infynity Hill, Alex Tunas-Corzon and Levi Helm.

During the past few years, we at the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes have had the pleasure of collaborating with The Nature Conservancy’s NatureNet Science Fellows Program and various ASU units to fund two postdoctoral research associates.

The NatureNet Science Fellows Program has continued to expand and again this year they have opened the fellowship to applicants from all accredited universities with the opportunity to receive research grants.

New this year, masters and PhD students are eligible to apply in addition to postdocs. Also, TNC is now fully funding these fellowships. The RFP closes on January 1, 2021.

Help us spread the word with your research network and any potential applicants who would be a great fit. Research stipend amounts for each category appear below and are available on the website, along with a program overview, project list, eligibility requirements and application instructions.

If you have any questions, please contact Kassie Morton, Global Science Project Manager, Global Science, The Nature Conservancy at kassie.morton@tnc.org

Continue reading →