Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FISHSCALE (Disentangling Cross-Scale Drivers of Coral Reef Fish Community Structure for Ecosystem-Based Management) Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project The FISHSCALE Action reveals how biodiverse and ecologically complex reef fish communities are organised by their environment and impacted by humans. The research catalogues the trophic, behavioural, or morphological characteristics of reef fish species observed across the Pacific (to consider their ecological niches), investigates the natural bounds in how these fishes are distributed across reefs (and ecoregions), and describes how natural ecological patterns are disrupted by local human impacts. For species-rich but data-poor coral reef fisheries, ecosystem-based management is the dominant paradigm. However, its operationalisation is hindered by a lack of information on how environmental processes determine the natural organisation of coral reefs across scales in space and time, and then how that organisation is affected by human impacts. Understanding how natural and human drivers interact to determine ecological organisation on the reef is critical to the local, context specific and spatially explicit application of ecosystem assessments for management. For example, identifying and prioritizing management areas based on recovery potential and degree of depletion from an unimpacted baseline state. Using long-term coral reef monitoring data across 35 central western Pacific islands, the research used Bayesian methods to model ecological patterns relating to biophysical forcing across scales. It quantified how the presence of local human impacts disrupt those biophysical relationships. The research revealed how a classic theory of ecological depth zonation — recognized more than six decades ago as a fundamental structuring force of coral reef communities – is limited for predicting ecological dynamics where human impacts are present on contemporary reefs. The Action identifies contemporary ecological baselines on reefs, defined from remote reefs considered to be among the most intact and near-pristine remaining and least exposed to local human impacts. Climate change and local human impacts are worsening and increasing ecological uncertainty. This uncertainty limits our capacity to make effective ecological predictions from which to base decisions of risk-control management, conservation, policy, and governance. To better deal with this uncertainty, we can measure change from revised contemporary baselines as now more pragmatic points of reference. So, the research explored the ecological impacts of contemporary marine heatwave conditions at one of the last remaining ‘pristine’ coral reef systems on earth. It examines the effects of extreme heat stress on reef fish assemblages at a historically highly productive island in the Pacific Ocean to quantify the ecological effects of climate change in the absence of confounding local human impacts. The broad objectives: 1) Collate a trait database for reef-fishes observed in NOAA’s long-term coral reef monitoring program across the Pacific; 2) Understand how cross-scale biophysical processes determine the distribution of reef-fish assemblages (across reefs, islands and ecoregions); 3) Determine how local human populations disrupt natural patterns governing the ecological organisation of reef fishes; 4) Identify ‘contemporary ecological baselines’ from remote reefs without local human impacts but exposed to climate change. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far The work comprised four work packages (WPs). WP1 involved the collation of reef fish ecological and morphological traits for species observed in the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) for reefs across the Pacific. This trait database has yielded additional internal US government funding for trait-based work within the NCRMP program for integration of trait-based methods into the long-term coral reef monitoring; an international conference presentation; another conference presentation in preparation; 2 journal manuscripts underway (1 invited for submission to npj Ocean Sustainability: linked to WP4); and 2 technical workshops on using R for trait-based methods in ecology. These workshops were additional activities beyond the proposed work, led by the Fellow and designed to enhance researcher training and transfer-of-knowledge at the host and partner institutions. WP2 identifies biophysical drivers of reef fish distribution across spatial scales in the Pacific, and WP3 aimed to determine how local human presence decouples the organisation of reef fishes from these natural biophysical bounds. Here, the Fellow published the results in high-impact journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, delivered an international conference presentation, with another Pacific-wide manuscript underway with project partners at NOAA. As a result of WP1-3, the Fellow is now guest editor for a special-focus journal issue on The ecology of remote oceanic coral reef ecosystems. In WP4, the Fellow is leading a group across NOAA and Bangor University on a manuscript invited for submission to a journal and has been presented at a conference, to the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and to staff at NOAA’s Ecosystem Science Division. For further transfer of knowledge and teaching experience, she provided supervision and mentoring for early career researchers resulting in student research theses, 2 journal publications, another in revision, and 1 in preparation. The datasets computed and compiled during this MSCA will inform the long-term monitoring and management of US Pacific coral reefs, and be used in further publications in the coming years. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) This MSCA advanced science underpinning ecosystem-based management of coral reefs and the field of ecology: NOAA is using the WP1 trait database to integrate trait-based methods into the long-term Pacific reef monitoring. Complementary trait-based indicators are being evaluated and manuscripts being prepared that explore spatial patterns of ecological organisation across the Pacific region. WP2 has produced novel evidence of predictable changes in tropical fish biomass with depth that track expected gradients in energetic resource supply to reefs across distinct biogeographic regions. WP3 results show that where humans reduce standing biomass baselines, observed zonation patterns are altered, limiting the predictive capacity of natural energy supply gradients. The findings call for revisiting 20th century ecological paradigms that no longer capture ecological patterns in a human-dominated world. WP4 identifies ‘contemporary baselines’ for coral reefs. Using revised contemporary baselines as now more pragmatic points of reference, we can make better predictions from which to base decisions of risk-control management, conservation, policy, and governance.This MSCA developed the Fellow’s skills across research methods, expanding her interdisciplinary knowledge and network, to promote best practice in ecological enquiry for contemporary ecosystem-based management (e.g. working group in NOAA on trait-based approaches for monitoring; delivering R workshops on trait-based methods in ecology; open-access publishing of results, data, and code). The project outcomes generate knowledge and improved understanding towards the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, in particular due to collaboration with US agency, NOAA which informs the Ecosystem-Based Management Fishery Ecosystem Plans implemented by the Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council, for each of the four geopolitical regions under the project study. Delivering trait-analyses workshop to Bangor University staff and postgraduate students Covid-19 safe travel to visit project partners at NOAA in Hawaii Attending Reef Conservation UK conference with Bangor University coleagues to present WP4 results Sharing project findings on a research ship Scenes from the Hawaii institute of Marine Biology who hosted me during my visit to NOAA Meeting project partners Tye Kindinger and Joy Smith from NOAA during visit to Oahu
