Migramar: Marine Research and Conservation in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

In February, Alex Hearn (UC Davis) and Randall Arauz (PRETOMA) attended the workshop on climate change and adaptation options for cetaceans and other marine biodiversity of the eastern Pacific.

The event was organized by the Ministry of the Environment of Costa Rica (MINAE), WDCS, EcoAdapt, PROMAR Foundation, TNC, CI, IFAW and WWF, in collaboration with other partners. The workshop took place in San Jose (Costa Rica), and included experts on cetaceans, turtles, sharks and climate change from around the world, with the objective of providing technical advice for the Siena (Italy) Climate Change Workshop of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) later this year.

Through a series of presentations, scientists were informed of the current situation in the Eastern Pacific regarding climate change - it appears that at present, the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) may be masking some of the warming effects, thus perhaps buying some time to design mitigation and adaptation strategies. However, once the PDO enters into a warm phase, in about ten years from now, synergistic effects between the PDO, global warming and El Nino events might be expected.

Climate change will affect marine organisms both directly and indirectly. Warmer waters, with higher levels of CO2 (thus more acidic) will place physiological stress on certain organisms, causing displacement or population health issues, and in some cases local extinctions. Indirectly, loss of key habitats such as mangroves (which are nursery grounds for many species) may also affect reproductive success. Changes in primary productions may cascade up the food web and affect organisms which are very specific in their feeding habits.

Hearn presented the scenario for sharks - which are more likely to be affected by indirect changes in food webs and habitat loss. However, the immediate issue with most shark populations is overfishing, and unless sustainable practices are adopted by fishing fleets in the region, it is unlikely that adaptive measures for climate change would have any positive effect. Hearn and his colleagues suggested that measures should include reducing other stressors on shark populations, protecting key nursery habitats and open water aggregation areas such as seamounts. They also suggested the use of a vulnerability index developed by Chin & Kyne (2007) for the Great Barrier Reef, to look at which climate change drivers affected different groups of sharks (coastal, pelagic etc). To learn more, you can download their discussion document here.

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