Research team provides novel baseline data on leopard seals, the mysterious apex predators of Antarctica

Baylor researchers and collaborators seek answers to how leopard seals survive in the extreme polar environment in first-of-its-kind study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: BAYLOR MARINE BIOLOGIST SARAH KIENLE WAS PART OF A RESEARCH TEAM THAT COLLECTED BASELINE DATA ON THE ECOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF 22 LEOPARD SEALS, THE FIRST TIME THIS KIND OF DATA HAS BEEN GATHERED ON THE ENIGMATIC APEX PREDATOR OF THE ANTARCTIC. view more 

CREDIT: RESEARCH TEAM

WACO, Texas (Aug. 26, 2022) – Baylor University marine biologist Sarah Kienle, Ph.D., has always been fascinated by leopard seals. These prehistoric, reptilian-looking seals are often portrayed as scary villains in movies such as “Happy Feet” and “Eight Below,” but little is known about their basic biology. The combination of the extreme climate in Antarctica, the species’ solitary habits and their lethal reputation makes leopard seals one of the most difficult top predators to study on Earth.

In a first-of-its-kind study funded by the National Science Foundation awarded to professor Daniel Costa (lead PI; UCSC), associate professor Stephen Trumble, Ph.D. (Baylor), professor Shane Kanatous, Ph.D. (Colorado State University), wildlife biologist Mike Goebel, Ph.D. (NOAA), and professor Daniel Crocker, Ph.D. (Sonoma State University), the PIs and Kienle (a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher at the time) set out with one shared goal: to learn more about leopard seals. Over the course of two years, the research group studied 22 leopard seals off the Western Antarctic Peninsula, an area rapidly warming and changing. They weighed and measured each seal and followed each seal’s activities and dive patterns using satellite/GPS tags. 

In the study published in Frontiers of Marine Science – “Plasticity in the morphometrics and movements of an Antarctic apex predator, the leopard seal” – Kienle (first author) and the team documented the flexible behaviors and traits that may offer leopard seals the resilience needed to survive the extreme climate and environmental disturbances occurring around Antarctica.

This study greatly increases our understanding of leopard seals’ life history, spatial patterns and diving behavior,” Kienle said. “We show that these leopard seals have high variability (or, flexibility) in these different traits. Across the animal kingdom, variability is vital for animals adapting and responding to changes in their environment, so we’re excited to see high variability in this Antarctic predator.”

Among the research team’s discoveries detailed in the journal article: 

Adult female leopard seals are much larger than adult males; in fact, females are 1.5 times larger and longer.

• The team measured one of the largest leopard seals ever, an adult female they nicknamed “Bigonia,” who weighed 540 kg (1,190 lbs.).
• Female-biased sexual dimorphism (where females are larger) is unusual among marine mammals, a diverse group that includes polar bears, whales, dolphins, seals and sea lions, but leopard seals are the most extreme example of female-biased dimorphism among the 130+ species of marine mammals.
• Why females are larger than males is not known, although Kienle explained other studies show that larger females are better at defending feeding areas, as well as stealing prey from smaller seals. Larger females also eat bigger, energy-rich prey, including fur seals and penguins, while males and smaller females often eat smaller prey like krill and fish. This suggests that the larger body size in adult females is beneficial and offers a selective advantage that Kienle and team will continue to explore.

 From the movement data, female leopard seals spent more time “hauled out” – or coming out of the water to rest on ice or land – than males.

• Two adult female leopard seals in this study spent two weeks straight hauled-out on ice in the middle of the ocean, not eating and not getting in the water. Kienle and colleagues suggest that this two-week haul-out period is when female leopard seals give birth and nurse their pup.
• At the end of the two weeks, females return to water and begin diving for food again, and, at the same time, they likely wean their pup. It’s a short period to spend with their pups because the leopard seal is doing all of these really energetically demanding things without any food.

Male and female leopard seals swim short and long distances in both coastal and open-ocean habitats.

• One seal only traveled 46 km from where the team worked with the seal, staying in and around islands off the Antarctic Peninsula.
• Another seal, however, traveled 1,700 km during that same period away from the tagging location, swimming to an island more than a thousand kilometers away.

Leopard seals of both sexes are short, shallow divers—diving to an average of 30 meters and taking three-minute-long dives.

• Other seals can dive thousands of meters deep and hold their breath for more than 40 minutes. However, the research team recorded the longest and deepest dive ever recorded for leopard seals made by a male nicknamed “Deadpool,” who dove to 1,256 meters for 25 minutes.

“It’s interesting to see such variation [in movements and dive behavior] in a relatively small number of animals. To me, this means that leopard seals are highly flexible in their movement patterns, and that’s a really good thing in terms of adapting to changes in your environment,” Kienle said.

What’s next for this team of leopard seal biologists? Kienle said the team continues to analyze additional data from these same 22 leopard seals for publication. Kienle also is excited to compare how the leopard seals from this study compare to other populations of leopard seals across the Southern Ocean. 

“I have so many more questions, and I’m excited to continue learning about leopard seals for years to come. There’s so much more to discover about this incredible Antarctic predator,” said Kienle, who leads the Comparative Ecophysiology of Animals Lab at Baylor that focuses on understanding how different animals work in the context of their environment.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

In addition to Kienle and Trumble, the research team included Michael E. Goebel, Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, La Jolla, CA, and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA; Erin LaBrecque, Marine Mammal Commission, Bethesda, MD; Renato Borras-Chavez, Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES), Department of Ecology, Pontificia Universidad Cato´ lica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, and Instituto Antartico Chileno (INACH), Punta Arenas, Chile; Shane B. Kanatous, Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; Daniel E. Crocker, Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; and Daniel P. Costa, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation grant #1644256.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments in the sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences, as well as 10 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. Faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit baylor.edu/artsandsciences.

  

CAPTION

Leopard Seals are among the most difficult top predators to study due to the combination of the extreme climate in Antarctica, the species’ solitary habits and their lethal reputation.

CREDIT

Research team

 

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DOI

10.3389/fmars.2022.976019 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Research Team Provides Novel Baseline Data on Leopard Seals, the Mysterious Apex Predators of Antarctica

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Aug-2022

Hydropower dams induce widespread species extinctions across Amazonian forest islands

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

Hydropower developments should avoid flooding forests to minimise biodiversity loss and disruptions to ecosystems in Amazonian forest islands, new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) finds.  

Deforestation, habitat loss and fragmentation are linked and are driving the ongoing biodiversity crisis, with hydropower to blame for much of this degradation. In lowland tropical forests, river damming typically floods vast low-elevation areas, while previous ridgetops often become insular forest patches.   

In a new study, scientists from UEA, Portugal and Brazil used network theory to understand how insular habitat fragmentation affects tropical forest biodiversity. This approach perceives habitat patches and species as connected units at the whole-landscape scale, encompassing a species-habitat network.  

The study, ‘Emergent properties of species-habitat networks in an insular forest landscape’, is published today in the journal Science Advances.  

The authors studied 22 habitat patches, consisting of forest islands and three continuous forest sites, which were created by the Balbina Hydroelectric Reservoir, one of the largest in South America. The 608 species surveyed represented eight biological groups: mid-sized to large mammals; small non-flying mammals; understorey birds; lizards; frogs; dung beetles; orchid bees and trees.  

The study revealed widespread species extinction, especially of large-bodied species, but this varied across different groups of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates. Island size determined the persistence of species diversity, with just a few islands holding the most diversity.   

Large tracts of tropical forests become rarer as they are subdivided and isolated into small habitat patches. The removal of larger forest sites will exert the greatest impact, likely inducing secondary extinctions of species that occur only at a single site or those that have larger spatial requirements.   

Conversely, small forest patches proportionally harbour more species than one or a few larger patches of equal total area, so the loss of smaller sites is also expected to cause secondary extinctions.   

Prof Carlos Peres, co-author of the study, is Professor of Environmental Studies at UEA. He said: “Tropical developing countries are still hellbent on creating vast hydropower reservoirs under the banner of ‘green’ energy.   

“This is a double-jeopardy because we lose both the unique lowland biodiversity and the carbon stocks of the now inundated old-growth forests.  

“Such actions also generate a powerful methane pump, never mind the huge financial costs of mega-dams compared to diffuse in-situ electrification based on low-impact renewables.   

“We need a much better strategic dialogue between sustainable energy security and biodiversity conservation, particularly in the world’s most biodiverse emergent economies.”  

Dr Ana Filipa Palmeirim, a researcher from CIBIO-University of Porto, led the study, which investigated a complex landscape as a single unit. She said: “This approach allowed us to unveil previously unknown patterns, such as the simplification of the network structure and changes in important network parameters due to the loss of species affected by the dam.”  

Dr Carine Emer, a co-author of the study from the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, said: “The beauty of this study lays in the combination of sophisticated network and statistical analyses, with the natural history of high-quality species inventories from an astonishing tropical living lab.   

“More than 3,000 islands were created 35 years ago due to the Uatumã River damming, and by studying these we were able to understand the functioning of such a complex and rich human-modified landscape.”   

The study was a collaboration between UEA in the UK; the Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO) and the University of Porto, in Portugal; the Research Institute of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden; the State University of Santa Cruz; the State University of Mato Grosso; and the Farroupilha Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology, in Brazil. The study would not be possible without the logistical support provided by the staff of the Biological Reserve (REBIO) of Uatumã.  

‘Emergent properties of species-habitat networks in an insular forest landscape’ is published in Scientific Advances on 26 August 2022.  

 

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Emergent properties of species-habitat networks in an insular forest landscape’

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Aug-2022

Researchers find crucial evidence to explain anomalously fast convergence between India and Asia in Mesozoic

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

Closure of the Neo-Tethys Ocean and the subsequent formation of the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most significant tectonic events on Earth. How the Indian subcontinent drifted northward anomalously fast and collided with Asia is an essential problem in solving global changes in tectonics, climate and ecosystems.

Double subduction of the Neo-Tethys Ocean is a leading model in interpreting this anomalous convergence speed. But no compelling evidence from the entire Himalaya and adjacent regions has been reported before.

Recently, YANG Shun, a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), under the supervision of Profs. HE Yumei and JIANG Mingming, along with their team of collaborators, reported crucial seismic evidence of slab remnants in the present upper mantle to strongly support the double subduction model.

This work was published in Science Advances on August 26.

The Myanmar region occupies the eastern end of the Indian-Asian collisional system. Due to less reworking from continental collision, it is an ideal place to probe possible slab remnants of double subduction. However, until recently, it was a blank area for seismic observation and structural imaging of the Earth's interior.

The research group on the structure of Earth's deep interior at IGG/CAS has deployed pioneering seismic arrays in association with the China-Myanmar Geophysical Survey in the Myanmar Orogen (CMGSMO) in Myanmar since 2016. Using data from the novel seismic arrays, the researchers investigated upper mantle structures beneath Myanmar with high resolution.

By compiling seismic tomography and waveform modeling, the researchers revealed for the first time two subparallel subducted slabs preserved in the present upper mantle beneath the Neo-Tethyan tectonic regime.

After comparing the new slab image with data on the time-space distribution of subduction-related magmatism and ophiolites in Myanmar, the researchers concluded that the new evidence supports double subduction of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. Further geodynamic numerical modeling subsequently explained why the slab remnants were preserved intact in the upper mantle without breaking off and sinking into the deep.

The study provides convincing, multidisciplinary geoscientific evidence to consolidate the double subduction model of the Neo-Tethys Ocean.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the Myanmar Geoscience Society, Yangon University and Dagon University.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abo1027 

ARTICLE TITLE

Slab remnants beneath the Myanmar terrane evidencing double subduction of the Neo-Tethyan Ocean

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Aug-2022

U-M analysis challenges U.S. Postal Service electric vehicle environmental study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Biden this month contains $3 billion to help the U.S. Postal Service decarbonize its mail-delivery fleet and shift to electric vehicles.

On the heels of the Aug. 16 bill-signing ceremony at the White House, a new University of Michigan study finds that making the switch to all-electric mail-delivery vehicles would lead to far greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than previously estimated by the USPS.

In its analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle program, the Postal Service underestimated the expected greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles and overestimated the emissions tied to battery-electric vehicles, according to U-M researchers.

"Our paper highlights the fact that the USPS analysis is significantly flawed, which led them to dramatically underestimate the benefits of BEVs, which could have impacted their decision-making process," said Maxwell Woody, lead author of the new study, published online Aug. 26 in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The NGDV program calls for the purchase of up to 165,000 new mail delivery trucks over the next decade. The Postal Service said in February that at least 10% of the new mail trucks would be electric. But following blistering criticism from many quarters, the agency upped that number in July.

Though the Postal Service now says at least 40% of the new delivery vehicles will be electric, the flaws in the USPS environmental analysis remain and need to be addressed, said Woody, a research area specialist at the Center for Sustainable Systems, which is part of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

The new study takes a second look at the two delivery-vehicle scenarios the Postal Service evaluated in its 340-page Final Environmental Impact Statement on the NGDV project, published Jan. 7.

That document compared the expected environmental impacts of a delivery fleet with 10% battery-electric vehicles and 90% gasoline-powered trucks (called the ICEV scenario for internal-combustion engine vehicles) to a fleet with 100% battery-electric vehicles (called the BEV scenario).

U-M researchers conducted a cradle-to-grave greenhouse-gas emissions assessment—known as a life-cycle assessment, or LCA—of the two scenarios and reached some vastly different conclusions than the Postal Service did.

The U-M team determined that:

• Lifetime greenhouse gas emissions under the ICEV scenario would be 15% higher than estimated by the Postal Service, while emissions tied to the BEV scenario would be at least 8% lower than estimated by the agency.​​

• When anticipated improvements to electric vehicles and future electrical-grid decarbonization are factored in, a fully electric USPS delivery fleet would result in up to 63% lower greenhouse gas emissions than the agency estimated, over the lifetime of the fleet.

• An all-electric fleet would reduce lifetime greenhouse gas emissions by 14.7 to 21.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents when compared to the ICEV scenario. The USPS estimate was 10.3 million metric tons.

The Postal Service declined to comment on the U-M study.

In February, the agency announced it had completed the environmental review for its Next Generation Delivery Vehicle program and was moving ahead with plans to start purchasing the new trucks. At least 10% of the delivery vehicles would be zero-emissions electric models, while the remainder would be powered by gasoline.

In response, attorneys general from 16 states (including Michigan), the District of Columbia and several environmental groups sued the mail agency to block the original purchase plan or to force the Postal Service to buy more electric trucks. The agency later pledged to electrify at least 40% of its new delivery fleet.

The authors of the new study say the main reasons their findings differ substantially from the USPS results are:

• The U-M study includes greenhouse gases generated throughout a delivery vehicle's lifetime, including the mining and manufacturing of materials, vehicle assembly, vehicle operations and service (known as use-phase emissions) and end-of-life disposal. The Postal Service analysis looked only at use-phase emissions.

• The new study includes projections of how electrical-grid emissions are likely to change over the estimated 20-year service life of next-generation delivery vehicles, as renewables increasingly replace fossil fuels. The USPS analysis did not address this factor, which is known as grid decarbonization.

• The U-M study uses a more accurate method to calculate vehicle operating emissions, one that relies on fuel economy and fuel combustion intensity rates. The USPS analysis of projected operating emissions was based on estimated per-mile emissions rates.

"While our emissions results and USPS emissions values are on the same order of magnitude, the details of the USPS FEIS seem to have significant miscalculations and vary greatly from the established literature on vehicle LCAs," the study's authors wrote.

Study senior author Greg Keoleian said the new findings suggest the Postal Service should be deploying electric delivery trucks at a rate much higher than 40%. The failure to do so exposes a lack of sustainability leadership by the agency, he said.

Many of the largest private fleet operators—including FedEx, UPS, Amazon and Walmart—have begun electrifying their fleets and have more ambitious electrification and decarbonization targets than the current USPS purchase plan, he said.

"Each gas vehicle purchased locks in infrastructure for at least 20 years, which will cause the federal government to fall behind private vehicle fleets and will drive future greenhouse gas emissions that could be dramatically reduced by greater electric delivery vehicle deployment," said Keoleian, director of the U-M Center for Sustainable Systems.

Ultimately, the USPS decision about next-generation delivery vehicles was based more on cost than climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions, he said. The agency estimated that an all-electric delivery fleet would have a total cost of ownership about $3.3 billion higher than a fleet with just 10% electric vehicles.

However, the recently signed U.S. Inflation Reduction Act includes $3 billion to help the U.S. Postal Service meet zero-emission vehicle goals: $1.29 billion for the purchase of zero-emission delivery vehicles and $1.71 billion for infrastructure to support those vehicles.

The additional funds will likely reduce cost-based objections to a fully electric postal delivery fleet.

On top of that, the authors of the new study say the mail agency's estimate of a $3.3 billion cost savings for the ICEV scenario failed to account for the climate and public health damages associated with continued use of fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

"Given the long lifetimes expected of these vehicles, committing to such a course contradicts U.S. climate policy and environmental justice goals, squanders an opportunity to deploy BEVs in an ideal use case, exposes a lack of sustainability leadership, and jeopardizes our ability to meet national and international climate targets," the study authors wrote.

In addition to Woody and Keoleian, the authors of the Environmental Science & Technology paper are Parth Vaishnav and Michael Craig of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

The work was supported by Ford Motor Co. through a Ford-University of Michigan Alliance Project Award, by the Responsible Battery Coalition and by the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

Study: Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the USPS Next Generation Delivery Vehicle Fleet (DOI 10.1021/acs.est.2c02520)

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JOURNAL

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.2c02520 

Tracking small-scale fishers

Researchers gauge the willingness of small-scale fishers to adopt vessel tracking systems

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

 

IMAGE: A RESEARCHER DISCUSSES VESSEL TRACKING SYSTEM GEAR WITH A GROUP OF ARTISANAL FISHERS IN INDONESIA view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO CREDIT: COURTESY IMAGE

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Roughly half of all global seafood is caught by artisanal fishers — individuals who operate on small, often subsistence scales, and who generally fish a short distance from the coast. Though diminutive in comparison to larger-scale commercial operations, these enterprises are essential to the food security and livelihoods of their communities, and their sheer number makes artisanal fishers an important sector to monitor and manage, as well as to advocate for, as the global fishing industry continues to grow and climate change causes shifts in their food supply.

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” said conservation professional and academic Juan Andrés Silva, formerly a researcher with the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab) in UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. “You can call them ‘small-scale,’ but their importance and impact are huge.” Despite this impact, artisanal fishers, he said, are “a very invisible sector,” and one worth trying to get a sense of.

In an effort to do so, Silva and his colleagues embarked on an experiment to gauge how well small-scale fishers would take to adopting vessel tracking technology originally developed for larger oceangoing ships. The researchers partnered with the organization Global Fishing Watch for this project, and their results are published in the journal Ocean & Coastal Management.

Options for Adoption
As satellite-enabled networks, vessel tracking systems (VTS) were originally conceived to prevent maritime collisions, but have been deemed useful for other purposes as well, including monitoring fishing activity in sensitive marine areas and looking out for forced labor on the high seas. 

“According to the data we have, about 86% of the estimated 2.5 million motorized fishing vessels in the world are under 12 meters. Of those, less than 0.4% use some type of VTS,” said Silva, who conducted research for this study during his time with emLab . “So we’re talking about a massive number of fishing vessels that account for a big part of the global catch that don’t have this technology. 

“And they certainly have an important impact because they usually fish closer to the coast where the bulk of biodiversity is and where coastal development happens,” he continued. “So understanding fishing behavior allows for better marine spatial planning and better fisheries management, and can also contribute to increased safety at sea.”

That said, the success of any system for monitoring artisanal fishers depends on the individuals themselves. So, the researchers approached fishers in Mexico and Indonesia to conduct a discrete choice experiment and evaluate under what conditions they would be willing to adopt the technology.

In their survey, the researchers offered the fishers several packages with different options and features, such as safety, privacy and ownership of data. They asked the fishers how much they would be willing to pay to have the equipment installed on their boats or, alternatively, if they were willing to receive payment in exchange for their participation in the program.

“One thing to keep in mind about small-scale fishers is their incredible diversity,” Silva said. “There was a lot of variability in their attributes, including their levels of education, or previous exposure to technology, much of which would influence their attitudes toward using new equipment on their boats.

 

“One of the biggest concerns was that it would be a nuisance for them to have extra stuff on their boats,” he added. For instance in Mexico, many fishers who were given a long, orange device they would come to call “the carrot” found it annoying to have to maintain and recharge the gear, even though it would be useful for their safety. In other cases, fishers, unsatisfied with their catch quotas, might reject the VTS because it would inhibit their extralegal fishing efforts to earn more money.

 

In their sample of 211 fishers — 124 in Indonesia and 87 in Mexico — the majority (67%) were willing to pay to participate in their preferred VTS program, while 13% would participate if the program was free. Meanwhile, 11% would not opt into any program, and 9% would if they were paid to do so.

Overall, the researchers found that safety functionality (particularly for fishers who share space with large vessels) and ownership of their fishing activity data played a large part in fishers’ willingness to accept the new tech. Those who perceived governmental and administrative corruption as their main problem were often willing to pay more to participate in the VTS program, as compared to those whose main problem was illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, pollution or extreme weather.

There are other benefits to fishers using the VTS, according to Silva, particularly for fishing collectives that are more organized and supported.

“For example, there was a case in Baja, Mexico, in which the fishers actually used historical tracking data that, coupled with catch and income data, allowed them to negotiate fair compensation from the government for temporary fishing closures,” he said. “So data could also be a source of empowerment for fishers.”

This study is the first foray into small-scale fishers’ preferences in a VTS program and potential incentives that may encourage their participation. More research would have to be conducted into the highly diverse world of the artisanal fisher to encourage wide adoption, Silva said.

“From a research point of view we never intended to be super exhaustive, and there isn’t a conclusion in this study that applies to the whole world,” he said. “But we do want to gain a good picture of this ‘invisible sector,’ and understanding their motives and behavior allows for better planning and management.”

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JOURNAL

Ocean & Coastal Management

ARTICLE TITLE

Assessing the drivers of vessel tracking systems adoption for improved small-scale fisheries management

Study: Slogans protesting federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate displayed three themes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR TIM F. LIAO FOUND THREE DISTINCT THEMES IN THE PROTEST SLOGANS DENOUNCING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S COVID-19 VACCINE-OR-TEST MANDATE FOR LARGE EMPLOYERS view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO PROVIDED

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When the Biden administration announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Nov. 4 for businesses with 100 or more employees, protests erupted in cities across the U.S.

A recent study of the slogans displayed by protestors found three distinct themes.

Tim F. Liao, a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, analyzed the content of 150 images with anti-vaccination themes that were published online by news media between the day of the announcement and Jan. 13, the day after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the federal vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses.

Using a popular search engine, Liao located and collected images containing text with the keywords “anti-vaccine,” “protest,” “U.S.” and “America” and grouped them based on similar messages or intents.

Liao found that three major themes emerged: Support for individual freedom/rights, opposition to government control, and anti-science misinformation or disinformation.

While misinformation may contain incorrect or debunked material, it is not intentionally deceptive, whereas disinformation contains purposely false allegations that are intended to deceive or mislead consumers, according to the study.

“The majority of the slogans opposing COVID-19 vaccines were about evenly divided between assertions of individual rights and resistance to government control, which composed 46% and 44% of the sample, respectively,” said Liao, who also holds appointments in statistics and East Asian languages and cultures at the university.

“The remaining 10% of the slogans contained anti-science misinformation/ disinformation such as false claims about the safety or origin of the vaccines or conspiracy theories.”

Some of the popular slogans in the first two categories were “my body, my choice,” “medical freedom” and “stop the mandate,” Liao found.

Among the disinformation slogans in the sample were false declarations that the vaccines were poison, known to cause seizures and not placebo-tested, Liao found.

CAPTION

A word cloud, created by researcher Tim F. Liao, shows the most frequently used words in the protest slogans, with those in larger text appearing the most.

CREDIT

Graphic by Tim Liao

“It’s important to note that slogans asserting individual rights and resistance to government control may be two sides of the same coin, as individuals who strongly believe in personal liberties are likely to oppose any policies that they perceive as infringing on those liberties,” Liao said.

Likewise, individuals who believe disinformation are more likely to resist a mandate and assert the primacy of personal rights, he said.

Slightly more than 67% of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated – defined as having received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine – by the time Liao completed the study on May 24, according to the study.

Published in the journal Frontiers in Communication, the study sheds light on the sentiments of people who oppose vaccinations in general or perceived government overreach, as well as the power wielded by propaganda and misinformation in undermining public health directives.

In response to the ongoing proliferation of misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, the World Health Organization issued a warning that the “infodemic” of inaccurate information poses as great a risk to public health as the disease itself, according to the WHO website.

Some researchers have called for “psychological inoculation” – informational campaigns that prepare people to identify and disregard false and misleading messages about the vaccines, according to the study.

With new omicron variants circulating and fewer people wearing masks in public, vaccination is becoming the main defense against the disease, Liao wrote.

“Anti-science misinformation must be vehemently corrected,” Liao said. “The only way forward is to correct the misinformation and disinformation about vaccinations and for the federal government to emphasize each person’s civic responsibilities – which include vaccination – for the benefit of society and our collective future.”

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Communication

DOI

10.3389/fcomm.2022.941872 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Understanding anti-COVID-19 vaccination protest slogans in the U.S.

Climate change is increasing frequency of fish mass die-offs

A study of die-offs finds that air and water temperatures are reliable predictors of fish mass mortality events and projects significant increases in the frequency of such events.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

 

IMAGE: PAST AND FUTURE SUMMERKILL MODELING. view more 

CREDIT: SIMON TYE

As the planet’s climate has gotten warmer, so has the prevalence of fish die-offs, or mass mortality events. These die-offs can have severe impacts on the function of ecosystems, imperil existing fish populations and reduce the global food supply. And the frequency of these events appears to be accelerating, with potentially dire consequences for the world if global carbon emissions are not substantially reduced over the 21st century.

Those are the findings of a recent paper co-authored by two members of the University of Arkansas Department of Biological Sciences: doctoral student Simon Tye and associate professor Adam Siepielski, along with several of their colleagues.

The paper, “Climate warming amplifies the frequency of fish mass mortality events across the north temperate lakes,” compiled 526 documented cases of fish die-offs that occurred across Minnesota and Wisconsin lakes between 2003 and 2013. The researchers determined there were three main drivers of these events: infectious diseases, summerkills and winterkills.

The researchers then narrowed their focus to summerkills — fish mortalities associated with warm temperatures. They found a strong relationship between local air and water temperatures and the occurrence of these events, meaning they increased in frequency as temperature increased. Moreover, their models that used either air or water temperature provided similar results, which is important because air temperature data is more widely available than water temperature data across the world.

Finally, with a historical baseline established, the team used air and water temperature-based models to predict frequencies of future summerkills.

The results were sobering. Based on local water temperature projections, the models predicted an approximate six-fold increase in the frequency of fish mortality events by 2100, while local air temperature projections predicted a 34-fold increase. Importantly, these predictions were based on temperature projections from the most severe climate change scenario, which was the only scenario with the necessary data for these analyses.

As Tye explained, “If there are eight summerkills per year now, the models suggest we could have about 41 per year based on water temperature estimates or about 182 per year based on air temperature estimates.”

“We think predictions from the water temperature model are more realistic, whereas predictions from the air temperature model indicate we need to better understand how and why regional air and water temperature estimates differ over time to predict how many mortality events may occur.”

Nevertheless, their models reveal strong associations between rising temperatures and frequencies of ecological catastrophes.

Though the study used data related to temperate northern lakes, Tye said the study is pertinent to Arkansas. “One of the findings of the paper is that similar deviations in temperature affect all types of fish, such that a regional heatwave could lead to mortalities of both cold- and warm-water fish,” he said.

“Specifically, climate change is more than gradually increasing temperatures because it also increases temperature variation, such as we experienced much of this summer,” he explained “In turn, our findings suggest these rapid changes in temperature affect a wide range of fish regardless of their thermal tolerance.”

Siepielski added, “This work is important because it demonstrates the feasibility of using readily obtainable data to anticipate fish die offs.

“As with many examples of how climate warming is negatively affecting wild animal populations, this work reveals that temperature extremes can be particularly detrimental.”

“The large scale of the project, using thousands of lakes and over a million air and temperature data points, is particularly impressive,” Siepielski added. “Lakes outside the study area, including those in Arkansas and surrounding areas, are not likely to be immune to these events increasing in frequency.”

Siepielski encouraged citizens of Arkansas to help document these events when they find evidence of them, even on their own property, by contacting the relevant authorities.

The paper was published in Limnology and Oceanography Letters. Tye and Siepielski are joined by co-authors Andrew Bray, Andrew L. Rypel, Nicholas B.D. Phelps and Samuel B. Fey.

 

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JOURNAL

Limnology and Oceanography Letters

DOI

10.1002/lol2.10274 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate warming amplifies the frequency of fish mass mortality events across north temperate lakes