Revaluing the Oceans

See D.H. Cushing, The provident sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Callum Roberts, The unnatural history of the sea (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2009); W. Jeffrey Bolster, The mortal sea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).

David Tickler et al., “Far from home: Distance patterns of global fishing fleets,” Science Advances 4, no. 8 (2018): eaar3279.

See Roberts, The unnatural history of the sea; Jeremy B.C. Jackson, “What was natural in the coastal oceans,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98 (2001): 5411–5418; Jeremy B.C. Jackson et al., “Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems,” Science 293 (2001): 629–638; Heike K. Lotze and Boris Worm, “Historical baselines for large animals,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24 (2009): 254–262.

Lotze and Worm, “Historical baselines,” 254–262.

Jennifer Jacquet et al., “Seafood stewardship in crisis,” Nature 467 (2010): 28–29.

See Villy Christensen et al., “Hundred-year decline of North Atlantic predatory fishes,” Fish and Fisheries 4 (2003): 1–24; Julia K. Baum et al., “Collapse and conservation of shark populations of the Northwest Atlantic,” Science 299 (2003): 389–392.

See Jackson, “What was natural,” 5411–5418; Loren McClenachan, “Documenting loss of large trophy fish from the Florida Keys with historical photographs,” Conservation Biology 23 (2008): 636–643; Loren McClenachan et al., “Conservation implications of historic sea turtle nesting beach loss,” Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 4 (2006): 290–296; Heike K. Lotze et al., “Depletion, degradation, and recovery potential of estuaries and coastal seas,” Science 312 (2006): 1806–1809; Daniel Pauly et al., “Fishing down marine food webs,” Science 279 (1998): 860–863; Ransom A. Myers and Boris Worm, “Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities,” Nature 423 (2003): 280–283.

National Research Council USA, Dynamic changes in marine ecosystems: Fishing, foodwebs, and future options (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2006).

Christopher Costello et al., “Global fishery prospects under contrasting management regimes,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 113 (2016): 5125–5129.

Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller, “Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 10244.

Douglas J. McCauley et al., “Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean,” Science 347, no. 6219 (2015): 1255641-1–7.

Loren McClenachan and Andrew B. Cooper, “Extinction rate, historical population structure and ecological role of the Caribbean monk seal,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275 (2008): 1351–1358.

Katherine L. Ayres et al., “Distinguishing the impacts of inadequate prey and vessel traffic on an endangered killer whale (Orcinus orca) population,” PloS One 7 (2012): e36842.

See McClenachan, “Documenting loss,” 636–643; John Thorbjarnarson et al., “Regional habitat conservation priorities for the American crocodile,” Biological Conservation 128 (2006): 25–36.

See Baum, “Collapse and conservation,” 389–392; Nicholas K. Dulvy et al., “You can swim but you can’t hide: The global status and conservation of oceanic pelagic sharks and rays,” Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 18, no. 5 (2008): 459–482.

John Waldman, Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor (New York: Empire State Editions, 2012).

See Baum, “Collapse and conservation,” 389–392; Nancy N. Rabalais et al., “Sediments tell the history of eutrophication and hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico,” Ecological Applications 17 (2007): S129–S143; Thorsten B. H. Reusch et al., “The Baltic Sea as a time machine for the future coastal ocean,” Science Advances 4, no. 5 (2018): eaar8195.

See Amina T. Schartup et al., “Climate change and neurotoxicant in marine predators,” Nature 572 (2019): 648–650; Jenna R. Jambeck et al., “Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean,” Science 347 (2015): 768–771.

See Rabalais et al., “Sediments,” S129–S143; Reusch et al., “The Baltic Sea,” eaar8195; Denise Breitburg et al., “Declining oxygen in coastal waters,” Science 359 (2018): 1–11.

Edward B. Barbier et al., “The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services,” Ecological Monographs 81 (2011): 169–193.

See Elizabeth Mcleod et al., “A blueprint for blue carbon: Toward an improved understanding of the role of vegetated coastal habitats in sequestering CO2,” Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 9 (2011): 552–560; Octavio Aburto-Oropeza et al., “Mangroves in the Gulf of California increase fishery yields,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105 (2008): 10456–10459.

See Stephanie S.Romañach et al., “Conservation and restoration of mangroves: Global status, perspectives, and prognosis,” Ocean and Coastal Management 154 (2018): 72–82; Michelle Waycott, et al., “Accelerating loss of seagrass across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106 (2009): 12377–12381.

See Glenn De’ath et al., “The 27-year decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its causes,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109 (2012): 17995–17999; Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970–2012, eds. Jeremy B.C. Jackson et al. (Gland: Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, 2014); Terry P. Hughes et al., “Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals,” Nature 543 (2017): 373–378.

McCauley et al., “Marine defaunation,” 1255641-1–7.

See Edward E. DeMartini and Jennifer E. Smith, “Effects of fishing on the fishes and habitat of coral reefs,” in Ecology of fishes on coral reefs, ed. Camilo Mora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 135–144; Ricardo O. Amoroso et al., “Bottom trawl fishing footprints on the world’s continental shelves,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 115 (2018): E10275–E10282; Daniel C. Dunn et al., “A strategy for the conservation of biodiversity on mid-ocean ridges from deep-sea mining,” Science Advances 4 (2018): eaar4313.

McCauley et al., “Marine defaunation,” 1255641-1–7.

Douglas P. Nowacek et al., “Marine seismic surveys and ocean noise: time for coordinated and prudent planning,” Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 13 (2015): 378–386.

Hanno Seebens et al., “Predicting the spread of marine species introduced by global shipping,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 113 (2016): 5646–5651.

See Harilaos A. Lessios et al., “Spread of Diadema mass mortality through the Caribbean,” Science 226 (1984): 335–337; Ernesto Weil and Caroline S. Rogers, “Coral Reef Diseases in the Atlantic-Caribbean,” in Coral Reefs: An Ecosystem in Transition, eds. eds. Zvy Dubinsky and Noga Stambler (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 465–491.

See Status and Trends, Jackson et al.; Katie L. Cramer et al., “Anthropogenic mortality on coral reefs in Caribbean Panama predates coral disease and bleaching,” Ecology Letters 15 (2012): 561–567; Katie L. Cramer et al., “Widespread loss of Caribbean acroporid corals was underway before coral bleaching and disease outbreaks,” Science Advances (2020, in press).

Mark A. Albins and Mark A. Hixon, “Invasive Indo-Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans reduce recruitment of Atlantic coral-reef fishes,” Marine Ecology Progress Series 367 (2008): 233–238.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate, 2019, ➝.

See Michael Burrows et al., “The pace of shifting climate in marine ecosystems,” Science 334 (2011): 652–655; Malin L. Pinsky et al., “Marine taxa track local climate velocities,” Science 341 (2013): 1239–1242; Julia S. Stewart et al., “Combined climate- and prey-mediated range expansion of Humboldt squid (Dodiscus gigas), a large marine predator in the California Current System,” Global Change Biology 20, no. 6 (2014): 1832–1843.

William W.L. Cheung et al., “Large-scale redistribution of maximum fisheries catch potential in the global ocean under climate change,” Global Change Biology 16 (2010): 24–35.

See Maria Fossheim et al., “Recent warming leads to a rapid borealization of fish communities in the Arctic,” Nature Climate Change 5 (2015): 673–677; Keith M. Brander, “Climate change not to blame for cod population decline,” Nature Sustainability 1 (2018): 262–264.

Thomas Wernberg, et al., “Climate-driven regime shift of a temperate marine ecosystem,” Science 353 (2016): 169–172.

Eric Post et al., “Ecological consequences of sea ice decline,” Science 341 (2013): 519–524.

See Jeffrey F. Bromaghin et al., “Polar bear population dynamics in the southern Beaufort Sea during a period of sea ice decline,” Ecological Applications 25 (2015): 634–651; Isaac Stanley-Becker, “A ‘mass invasion’ of polar bears is terrorizing an island town. Climate change is to blame,” The Washington Post, February 11, 2019, ➝.

Elisa Seyboth et al., “Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) reproductive success is influenced by krill (Euphasia superba) density and climate,” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 28205.

Emanuele Di Lorenzo and Nathan Mantua, “Multi-year persistence of the 2014/15 North Pacific marine heatwave,” Nature Climate Change 6 (2016): 1042–1047.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg et al., “Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification,” Science 318 (2008): 1737–1742.

Nancy Knowlton, “The future of coral reefs,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98 (2001): 5419–5425.

See Dunn et al., “A strategy,” eaar4313; Terry P. Hughes et al., “Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene,” Science 359 (2018): 80–83.

See Di Lorenzo and Mantua, “Multi-year persistence,” 1042–1047; C. Drew Harvell et al., “Disease epidemic and a marine heat wave are associated with the continental-scale collapse of a pivotal predator (Pycnopodia helianthoides),” Science Advances 5 (2019): eaau7042.

Aldo Cróquer and Ernesto Weil, “Changes in Caribbean coral disease prevalence after the 2005 bleaching event,” Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 87 (2009): 33–43.

See Brian E. Lapointe et al., “Nitrogen enrichment, altered stoichiometry, and coral reef decline at Looe Key, Florida Keys, USA: a 3-decade study,” Marine Biology 166 (2019): 108; Katie L. Barott and Forest L. Rohwer, “Unseen players shape benthic competition on coral reefs,” Trends in Microbiology 20 (2012): 621–628; Jesse R. Zaneveld et al., “Overfishing and nutrient pollution interact with temperature to disrupt coral reefs down to microbial scales,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 11833.

Maya Groner et al., “Rising temperatures, molting phenology, and epizootic shell disease in the American lobster,” The American Naturalist 192 (2018): E163–E177.

Sunke Schmidtko et al., “Decline in global oceanic oxygen content during the past five decades,” Nature 542 (2017): 335–339.

Post et al., “Ecological consequences,” 519–524.

Jeffrey J. Polovina et al., “Ocean’s least productive waters are expanding,” Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008): L03618.

James C. Orr et al., “Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms,” Nature 437 (2005): 681–686.

Julia A. Ekstrom et al., “Vulnerability and adaptation of US shellfisheries to ocean acidification,” Nature Climate Change 5 (2015): 207–214.

Alan Barton et al., “Impacts of coastal acidification on the Pacific Northwest shellfish industry and adaptation strategies implemented in response,” Oceanography 28 (2015): 146–159.

Rebecca Albright et al., “Reversal of ocean acidification enhances net coral reef calcification,” Nature 531 (2016): 362–365.

Jennifer Price, Flight Maps (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

See Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor et al., “The global potential for whale watching,” Marine Policy 34 (2010): 1273–1278; Austin J. Gallagher et al., “Biological effects, conservation potential, and research priorities of shark diving tourism,” Biological Conservation 184 (2015): 365–379.

Heike K. Lotze et al., “Global ensemble projections reveal trophic amplification of ocean biomass declines with climate change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 116 (2019): 12907–12912.

Joe Roman et al., “Whales as ecosystem engineers,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12 (2014): 377–385.

Heike K. Lotze et al., “Critical factors for the recovery of marine mammals,” Conservation Biology 31 (2017): 1301–1311.

Matthew G. Burgess et al., “Protecting marine mammals, turtles, and birds by rebuilding global fisheries,” Science 359 (2018): 1255–1258.

See Joe Roman et al., “Lifting baselines to address the consequences of conservation success,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 30 (2015): 299–302; Kristina M. Cammen et al., “Predator recovery, shifting baselines, and the adaptive management challenges they create,” Ecosphere 10 (2019): e02579.

Gabriel M.S. Vianna et al., “Socio-economic value and community benefits from shark-diving tourism in Palau: A sustainable use of shark populations,” Biological Conservation 145 (2012): 267–277.

Gallagher et al., “Biological effects,” 365–379.

See Carl Safina, Eye of the Albatross (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002), 416; Deborah Cramer, The Narrow Edge: A Tiny Bird, an Ancient Crab, and an Epic Journey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 293.

Barbara A. Block et al., “Tracking apex marine predator movements in a dynamic ocean,” Nature 475 (2011): 86–90.

Barbara A. Block et al., “Electronic tagging and population structure of bluefin tuna,” Nature 434 (2005): 1121–1127.

Salvador J. Jorgensen et al., “Eating or meeting? Cluster analysis reveals intricacies of white shark (Carchadon carcharias) migration and offshore behavior,” PloS One 7 (2012): e47819.

Their movements and histories can be seen at Voyage to the White Shark Café, ➝.

Jane Lubchenco and Kirsten Grorud-Colvert, “Making waves: The science and politics of ocean protection,” Science 350 (2015): 382–383.

David A. Gill et al., “Capacity shortfalls hinder the performance of marine protected areas globally,” Nature 543 (2017): 665–669.

Linwood H. Pendleton, et al., “Food for thought: Debating the effectiveness of marine protected areas,” ICES Journal of Marine Science 75 (2018): 1156–1159.

Octavio Aburto-Oropeza et al., “Large recovery of fish biomass in a no-take marine reserve,” PloS One 6 (2011): e23601.

Jennifer E. Caselle et al., “Recovery trajectories of kelp forest animals are rapid yet spatially variable across a network of temperate marine protected areas,” Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 14102.

Andrew R. Thompson et al., “Larval abundances of rockfishes that were historically targeted by fishing increased over 16 years in association with a large marine protected area,” Royal Society Open Science 4 (2017): 170639.

Lubchenco and Grorud-Colvert, “Making waves,” 382–383.

Tickler et al., “Far from home,” eaar3279.

Cassandra M. Brooks et al., “Watch over Antarctic waters,” Nature 558 (2018): 177–180.

See Laurenne Schiller et al., “High seas fisheries play a negligible role in addressing global food security,” Science Advances 4 (2018): eaat8351; U. Rashid Sumaila et al., “Winners and losers in a world where the high seas is closed to fishing,” Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 8481.

Enric Sala et al., “The economics of fishing the high seas,” Science Advances 4 (2018): eaat2504.

See Block et al., “Tracking apex,” 86–90; Nuno Queiroz et al., “Global spatial risk assessment of sharks under the footprint of fisheries,” Nature 572 (2019): 461–466.

Sumaila et al., “Winners and losers,” 8481.

Kristina Boerder et al., “Global hotspots of transshipment of fish catch at sea,” Science Advances 4 (2018): eaat7159.

Heike K. Lotze et al., “Recovery of marine animal populations and ecosystems,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26 (2011): 595–605.

See Waldman, Heartbeats in the Muck; Holly S. Greening et al., “Seagrass recovery in Tampa Bay, Florida (USA),” in The Wetland Book II: Distribution, Description, and Conservation, eds. C. Max Finlayson et al. (Berlin: Springer Science and Business, 2016), 495–506; Hannah Waters, “Bringing Back Tampa Bay’s Seagrass,” Smithsonian Ocean, January 2017, ➝.

See Rabalais et al., “Sediments,” S129–S143; Reusch et al., “The Baltic Sea,” eaar8195; Lapointe et al., “Nitrogen enrichment,” 108; Frederieke J. Kroon et al., “Towards protecting the Great Barrier Reef from land-based pollution,” Global Change Biology 22 (2016): 1985–2002.

Brian E. Luckhurst, “A fishery-independent assessment of Bermuda’s coral reef fish stocks by diver census following the fish pot ban—a progress report,” Proceedings of the 46th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (1994): 309–323.

Bill McKibben, Falter: Has the human game begun to play itself out? (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2019), 304.

See Peter M. Vitousek et al., “Human domination of earth’s ecosystems,” Science 277 (1997): 494–499; Jeremy B.C. Jackson, “Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105, supplement 1 (2008): 11458–11465.

See Robert H. Bradbury and Robert M. Seymour, “Coral reef science and the new commons,” Coral Reefs 28 (2009): 831–837; Tiffany H. Morrison et al., “Save reefs to rescue all ecosystems,” Nature 573 (2019): 333–336.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson and Steve Chapple, Breakpoint: Reckoning with America’s environmental crises (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 296.