Illuminating the benefits of marine protected areas for ecotourism, and vice versa
New research provides strong evidence of the benefit of marine protected areas for the scuba diving industry in Southern California, highlight that diving community should be considered a key stakeholder in decision-making about the future of MPAs
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A SCUBA DIVER SWIMS THROUGH GIANT KELP
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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — As California, the U.S. and the world work to make good on commitments to conserve 30% of oceans and lands by 2030, all strategies are on the table — and under the microscope. When it comes to the ocean, one valuable tool is marine protected areas (MPAs), regions that are defined, designated and managed for long-term conservation. Among other benefits, MPAs protect habitats and promote species diversity. They also hold value for communities and industries.
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute have published a new study on the impact of MPAs on the recreational scuba diving industry in California’s Northern Channel Islands. Their conclusions provide strong evidence of the benefit of MPAs for the scuba diving industry in Southern California and highlight that the diving community should be considered a key stakeholder in decision-making about the future of MPAs.
“UCSB has a strong history of conducting marine science in the Channel Islands,” noted first author Molly Morse, senior manager with the campus-based Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory. “We hope this research contributes to that legacy of highlighting the measurable value of these ecosystems not only as a critical resource to fishers but also to those of us that place significant value in experiencing and exploring the ‘Galapagos of North America’ with our mask and fins.”
To conduct their study, the team analyzed patterns from millions of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data points from for-hire scuba diving vessels to glean long-term insight into how MPAs shape ecotourism at large. (AIS is an onboard vessel broadcast system that shares high-resolution vessel location and behavioral information.) Based on a set of behavioral criteria confirmed through interviews with for-hire dive vessel captains, the researchers were able to identify vessel behaviors linked to non-extractive ecotourism (e.g., underwater wildlife viewing, photography) versus recreational lobster fishing, and to compare the location of these activities within MPAs, on the MPA borders, or outside of MPAs.
They found that from 2016-2022, dive vessels engaged in ecotourism prefer MPAs, and that dive vessels primarily conducting recreational lobster fishing prefer MPA border zones. Specifically, a high proportion of the most popular ecotourism dive sites (38%) were located in MPAs, a large proportion of the total number of unique ecotourism dive events (45%) were conducted within MPAs, and vessels engaged in ecotourism diving exhibited high selection of MPAs.
Meanwhile, scuba diving vessel behavior in the lobster scenario, in which vessels were putatively engaged largely in recreational lobster fishing, showed quite different patterns. The majority of the lobster fishing dive events (78%) occurred outside of the MPAs, but these dive vessels exhibited preferential selection for the buffer zones around the MPAs. Of owner/operator survey respondents, 83% said they noticed that hunting (i.e., spearfishing, lobster fishing) was better near an MPA due to the so-called “spillover effect,” where species are so abundant and productive in an MPA that they spill over into surrounding areas – like interest yielded from a savings account.
That effect is partly what attracts divers to these particular MPAs, according to Morse. But the biggest draws?
“People come from around the state and around the world to dive the Channel Islands, drawn by playful sea lions, underwater cathedrals of emerald kelp forests and giant sea bass weighing four times more than the divers themselves,” she said. “The dive captains we interviewed stated that the MPAs of the Northern Channel Islands — Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel — enabled more of these experiences for their clientele.”
Past considerations about the establishment of new MPAs or changes to existing MPA management have tended to focus on engagement with fishers (large- and small-scale) and evaluations of how this management tool affects fishing. “Given the significant role of the scuba sector in the blue economic portfolio of small and large coastal communities,” Morse added, “it is important to understand how this stakeholder community relates to and is influenced by MPAs. Ocean ecotourism is a fast-growing sector of coastal economies with a significant stake in the health of coastal biodiversity and the future of coastal planning.”
This study’s focus on scuba diving — an important sector of the Southern California marine ecotourism industry — is unique. Ecotourism is among the largest sectors in the ocean economy, constituting some 50% of all global tourism, equal to $4.6 trillion, the authors note. Yet it is an understudied benefit of marine protected areas.
“We stand at a critical time in history as state, national and world leaders contemplate how to achieve goals of protecting 30% of land and water by 2030,” said co-author Douglas McCauley, a professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology and director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory. “Research like this sheds light on the diverse benefits that marine protected areas create for our local communities and economy. And these MPAs are only 20 years old; I think we can conjecture based on other research that these benefits will only increase as these protected areas mature.”
JOURNAL
Marine Policy
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
30-Nov-2023
Sea fireflies synchronize their sparkle to seek soulmates
ITHACA, N.Y. -- In sea fireflies’ underwater ballet, the males sway together in perfect, illuminated synchronization, basking in the glow of their secreted iridescent mucus.
“It’s extreme,” said Nicholai M. Hensley, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s an illustration of convergent evolution and a striking example of synchronized bioluminescent mating displays. The males are putting it all out on the dance floor. It’s a big bright display.”
Hensley is the lead author of new research unwrapping the vivid mating ritual of minute crustaceans called ostracods, which was published Nov. 29 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Ostracods are tiny crustaceans – the size of sesame seeds – found just offshore in the sandy seagrass and reef areas of marine waters. Males of the shrimplike species, called “entraining grassbed downer” or EGD for short, create distinct patterns of bioluminescence to attract females by secreting packets of protein from a specialized gland. In response, the females angle themselves to the bright blue luminous displays and swim toward the males.
“It starts with one male secreting a little ball of glowing mucus,” Hensley said. “Then repeats this several times while swimming and it creates a kind of Morse code pattern of light in the water. Then other males start their synchronous luminous displays and soon underwater – when it is dark – it looks like stars blinking with tiny trails of light.”
The synchronized swim doesn’t happen randomly, the scientists noticed. In fact, the mating dance sequence only happens after sunset at nautical twilight when the moon isn’t bright in the night sky.
The ostracod species EGD was first discovered in 2017 by James Morin, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology (A&S) and Todd Oakley, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, while they explored near the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Bocas del Toro island research station in Panama.
Morin, who has studied the mechanisms of bioluminescence in marine organisms since 1980, said there are more than 100 species of signaling ostracods in the Caribbean.
“What’s really remarkable about EGD is the duration, the brightness and the density,” Morin said. He recounted while diving at night how a cloudy wave of glowing ostracods moved past him. “It was a remarkable experience. They really jump out at you. I’ve worked with ostracods for years and this species is spectacular.”
Ostracod shared a common ancestor with fireflies about 500 million years ago during the Cambrian era, Hensley said, but courtship using the light likely evolved about 20 million years ago.
But why should sea firefly males go through these gyrations? Other scientific evidence shows that synchronous male behavior entices groups of females, Hensley said. “We’re not sure about the function of synchrony itself,” he said. “All we know now is that these displays are used to attract mates.”
Hensley conducted this research as a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to authors Hensley and Oakley, the co-authors on this paper, “Collective Synchrony of Mating Signals Modulated by Ecological Cues and Social Signals in Bioluminescent Sea Fireflies,” were Trevor J. Rivers, Ph.D. ’07, assistant teaching professor at the University of Kansas; Gretchen A. Gerrish, Ph.D. ‘07, director, Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Raj Saha, Roux Institute, Northeastern University, Portland, Maine.
The National Science Foundation funded this research.
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JOURNAL
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
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