Beschreibung: Developing enduring capacity to monitor ocean life requires investing in people and their institutions to build infrastructure, ownership, and long-term support networks. International initiatives can enhance access to scientific data, tools and methodologies, and develop local expertise to use them, but without ongoing engagement may fail to have lasting benefit. Linking capacity development and technology transfer to sustained ocean monitoring is a win-win proposition. Trained local experts will benefit from joining global communities of experts who are building the comprehensive Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). This two-way exchange will benefit scientists and policy makers in developing and developed countries. The first step toward the GOOS is complete: identification of an initial set of biological Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) that incorporate the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Essential Biological Variables (EBVs), and link to the physical and biogeochemical EOVs. EOVs provide a globally consistent approach to monitoring where the costs of monitoring oceans can be shared and where capacity and expertise can be transferred globally. Integrating monitoring with existing international reporting and policy development connects ocean observations with agreements underlying many countries' commitments and obligations, including under SDG 14, thus catalyzing progress toward sustained use of the ocean. Combining scientific expertise with international capacity development initiatives can help meet the need of developing countries to engage in the agreed United Nations (UN) initiatives including new negotiations for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, and the needs of the global community to understand how the ocean is changing.

Beschreibung: The trait‐based approach is increasingly used in plankton ecology to understand diversity, community dynamics, and biogeography. While on the global scale phytoplankton traits are fairly well established, zooplankton traits are only beginning to be understood. One taxa‐transcending aspect of zooplankton diversity is the distinction between ambush and active feeding strategies. We present a global‐scale empirical estimate of feeding strategy derived from copepod abundance observations, which for the first time suggests a distinct trait biogeography with ambush feeding as the dominant feeding strategy at higher, but not at lower latitudes. To explain this trait biogeography, we develop a minimalist trade‐off based model of feeding strategies based on encounter rates between zooplankton predators and their phyto‐ and zooplankton prey. Encounter rates are governed by the two traits, size and motility, that trade off against predation risk. Coupled to a three‐dimensional dynamic green ocean model, our idealized encounter model captures the observed feeding strategy biogeography. In the model, this pattern arises from competing dominant food chains within the food web and is shaped by a trophic trait cascade of active vs. passive feeding in adjacent trophic levels. The dominant feeding strategy structures the pathways and efficiency of energy and biomass transfer through the model food web, with consequences for primary production, export and higher trophic levels. Understanding feeding strategies is therefore important for fisheries, biogeochemical cycling, and long‐term predictions of ecosystem dynamics and functioning by global dynamic green ocean models.

Beschreibung: Maintaining healthy, productive ecosystems in the face of pervasive and accelerating human impacts including climate change requires globally coordinated and sustained observations of marine biodiversity. Global coordination is predicated on an understanding of the scope and capacity of existing monitoring programs, and the extent to which they use standardized, interoperable practices for data management. Global coordination also requires identification of gaps in spatial and ecosystem coverage, and how these gaps correspond to management priorities and information needs. We undertook such an assessment by conducting an audit and gap analysis from global databases and structured surveys of experts. Of 371 survey respondents, 203 active, long-term (〉5 years) observing programs systematically sampled marine life. These programs spanned about 7% of the ocean surface area, mostly concentrated in coastal regions of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Seagrasses, mangroves, hard corals, and macroalgae were sampled in 6% of the entire global coastal zone. Two-thirds of all observing programs offered accessible data, but methods and conditions for access were highly variable. Our assessment indicates that the global observing system is largely uncoordinated which results in a failure to deliver critical information required for informed decision-making such as, status and trends, for the conservation and sustainability of marine ecosystems and provision of ecosystem services. Based on our study, we suggest four key steps that can increase the sustainability, connectivity and spatial coverage of biological Essential Ocean Variables in the global ocean: (1) sustaining existing observing programs and encouraging coordination among these; (2) continuing to strive for data strategies that follow FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable); (3) utilizing existing ocean observing platforms and enhancing support to expand observing along coasts of developing countries, in deep ocean basins, and near the poles; and (4) targeting capacity building efforts. Following these suggestions could help create a coordinated marine biodiversity observing system enabling ecological forecasting and better planning for a sustainable use of ocean resources.