Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly applied in conservation management to predict suitable habitat for poorly known populations. High predictive performance of SDMs is evident in ...validations performed within the model calibration area (interpolation), but few studies have assessed SDM transferability to novel areas (extrapolation), particularly across large spatial scales or pelagic ecosystems. We performed rigorous SDM validation tests on distribution data from three populations of a long-ranging marine predator, the grey petrel Procellaria cinerea, to assess model transferability across the Southern Hemisphere (25-65°S). Oceanographic data were combined with tracks of grey petrels from two remote sub-Antarctic islands (Antipodes and Kerguelen) using boosted regression trees to generate three SDMs: one for each island population, and a combined model. The predictive performance of these models was assessed using withheld tracking data from within the model calibration areas (interpolation), and from a third population, Marion Island (extrapolation). Predictive performance was assessed using k-fold cross validation and point biserial correlation. The two population-specific SDMs included the same predictor variables and suggested birds responded to the same broad-scale oceanographic influences. However, all model validation tests, including of the combined model, determined strong interpolation but weak extrapolation capabilities. These results indicate that habitat use reflects both its availability and bird preferences, such that the realized distribution patterns differ for each population. The spatial predictions by the three SDMs were compared with tracking data and fishing effort to demonstrate the conservation pitfalls of extrapolating SDMs outside calibration regions. This exercise revealed that SDM predictions would have led to an underestimate of overlap with fishing effort and potentially misinformed bycatch mitigation efforts. Although SDMs can elucidate potential distribution patterns relative to large-scale climatic and oceanographic conditions, knowledge of local habitat availability and preferences is necessary to understand and successfully predict region-specific realized distribution patterns.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Ocean temperature changes around New Zealand are estimated from satellite sea surface temperature (SST) products since 1981, two high resolution expendable bathythermograph transects (HRXBT) since ...1986 and 1991, and Argo data since 2006. The datasets agree well where they overlap. Significant surface warming is found in subtropical waters. Greatest warming is east of Australia and in the central Pacific. All NZ coastal waters are warming, with strongest warming east of Wairarapa and weakest between East Cape and North Cape. Temperature changes are surface intensified, extending to ∼200 m in the northeast and at least 850 m in the eastern Tasman. Significant interannual variability is coherent over a large area of ocean north of the Subtropical Front and modulates extreme events. NZ air temperatures are highly correlated at interannual timescales with SSTs over a broad region of ocean north of the Subtropical Front from the eastern Tasman to east of the dateline.
Gastric adenocarcinoma is globally the third leading cause of death due to malignancy, with the bulk of this disease burden being suffered by low and middle income countries (LMIC), especially in ...Asia. The majority of these cancers develop as a result of a chronic gastritis that arises in response to infection with the stomach-dwelling bacterium, Helicobacter pylori. A vaccine against this pathogen would therefore be a powerful tool for preventing gastric adenocarcinoma. However, notwithstanding a proof-of-concept that vaccination can protect children from acquisition of H. pylori infection, there are currently no advanced vaccine candidates with only a single vaccine in Phase I clinical trial. Further, the development of a vaccine against H. pylori is not a current strategic priority of major pharmaceutical companies despite the large global disease burden. Given the involvement of such companies is likely to be critical for late stage development, there is therefore a need for an increased appreciation of the burden of this disease in LMIC and more investment to reinvigorate research in H. pylori vaccine Research and Development.
We test the paradigm that in a future warmer ocean, shallower winter mixing will lead to less net primary production (NPP), by investigating whether warming between 2002 and 2018 led to changes in ...NPP in the Tasman Sea/New Zealand region. The 2002-18 trend in sea surface temperature (SST) was positive over most of the region, and was driven by increasingly warmer summers and marine heat waves (MHWs) rather than year-round warming. In contrast, the trends in sea surface chlorophyll (SSC) and NPP were generally positive over the Subtropical Front (STF) and in a subtropical band north-east of New Zealand, but negative elsewhere. Regressions between SSC and SST, and between spring SSC and the coldest SST during the preceding winter, show similar spatial patterns to the SSC trend. We suggest these findings reflect different ecosystem functioning in the subtropical and subantarctic biomes that are separated by the STF. We conclude that any future warming is likely to lead to less production in the Tasman Sea, but more production over the STF. Three recent MHWs had different impacts on production, but generally led to less surface biomass north of the STF and more biomass south of the front.
We review the advances in ‘blue water’ physical oceanography of the seas around New Zealand since the last major review in 1985. By 1985, a basic description had been made of the circulation around ...New Zealand. Since then, dramatic increases in data from satellites, hydrographic cruises, surface drifters and profiling floats have improved knowledge on the locations, strengths and variability of the currents, water masses and fronts in the region. We have better estimates of the surface and deep circulation, and a better understanding of the dynamical processes driving this circulation and its variability. This review covers the open ocean, including water masses, ocean currents, tides and numerical modelling, and discusses the future of New Zealand oceanography.
Fisheries harvest has pervasive impacts on wild fish populations, including the truncation of size and age structures, altered population dynamics and density, and modified habitat and assemblage ...composition. Understanding the degree to which harvest‐induced impacts increase the sensitivity of individuals, populations and ultimately species to environmental change is essential to ensuring sustainable fisheries management in a rapidly changing world. Here we generated multiple long‐term (44–62 years), annually resolved, somatic growth chronologies of four commercially important fishes from New Zealand's coastal and shelf waters. We used these novel data to investigate how regional‐ and basin‐scale environmental variability, in concert with fishing activity, affected individual somatic growth rates and the magnitude of spatial synchrony among stocks. Changes in somatic growth can affect individual fitness and a range of population and fishery metrics such as recruitment success, maturation schedules and stock biomass. Across all species, individual growth benefited from a fishing‐induced release of density controls. For nearshore snapper and tarakihi, regional‐scale wind and temperature also additively affected growth, indicating that future climate change‐induced warming and potentially strengthened winds will initially promote the productivity of more poleward populations. Fishing increased the sensitivity of deep‐water hoki and ling growth to the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). A forecast shift to a positive IPO phase, in concert with current harvest strategies, will likely promote individual hoki and ling growth. At the species level, historical fishing practices and IPO synergized to strengthen spatial synchrony in average growth between stocks separated by 400–600 nm of ocean. Increased spatial synchrony can, however, increase the vulnerability of stocks to deleterious stochastic events. Together, our individual‐ and species‐level results show how fishing and environmental factors can conflate to initially promote individual growth but then possibly heighten the sensitivity of stocks to environmental change.
The World's oceans are experiencing rapid warming and prolonged exploitation of fisheries. These stressors occur against a backdrop of large and small‐scale natural environmental variation. The somatic growth of New Zealand fishery species is driven by both basin‐wide and regional environmental change, and a fishing‐induced release from density dependent control heightens this sensitivity. Furthermore, historical fishing and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation synergize to strengthen spatial synchrony in average growth between populations separated by 400–600 nautical miles of ocean. Our results show how fishing and environmental factors can conflate to initially promote individual growth but then heighten population sensitivity to environmental change.
Abstract
Multidecadal trends in ocean heat and freshwater content are well documented, but much less evidence exists of long-term changes in ocean circulation. Previously, a 12-yr increase, 1993 to ...2004, in the circulation of the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre interior was described. That analysis was based on differences between early Argo and 1990s hydrographic data and changes in sea surface height. Here, it is shown that the trend of increasing circulation continues through 2014, with some differences within the Argo decade (2005 to 2014). Patterns that indicate or are consistent with increasing equatorward transport in the eastern portion of the South Pacific Gyre are seen in Argo temperature and steric height, Argo trajectory velocity, altimetric sea surface height, sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, and wind stress. Between 2005 and 2014 the geostrophic circulation across 35°S, from 160°W to South America, was enhanced by 5 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 10
6
m
3
s
−1
) of added northward flow. This was countered by a southward transport anomaly between the date line and 160°W. Corresponding temperature trends span the full 2000-m depth range of Argo observations. The 22-yr trend, 1993 to 2014, in sea surface height at 35°S, 160°W is 8 cm decade
−1
. Trends in sea surface temperature over 34 yr, 1981 to 2014, show a similar spatial pattern to that of sea surface height, with an increase of 0.5°C decade
−1
at 35°S, 160°W. These multidecadal trends support the interpretation of the 40°S maximum in global ocean heat gain as resulting from anomalous wind forcing and Ekman convergence.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Deployment of Deep Argo regional pilot arrays is underway as a step toward a global array of 1250 surface-to-bottom profiling floats embedded in the upper-ocean (2000 m) Argo Program. Of the ...80 active Deep Argo floats as of July 2019, 55 are Deep Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangian Observer (SOLO) 6000-m instruments, and the rest are composed of three additional models profiling to either 4000 or 6000 m. Early success of the Deep SOLO is owed partly to its evolution from the Core Argo SOLO-II. Here, Deep SOLO design choices are described, including the spherical glass pressure housing, the hydraulics system, and the passive bottom detection system. Operation of Deep SOLO is flexible, with the mission parameters being adjustable from shore via Iridium communications. Long lifetime is a key element in sustaining a global array, and Deep SOLO combines a long battery life of over 200 cycles to 6000 m with robust operation and a low failure rate. The scientific value of Deep SOLO is illustrated, including examples of its ability (i) to observe large-scale spatial and temporal variability in deep ocean temperature and salinity, (ii) to sample newly formed water masses year-round and within a few meters of the sea floor, and (iii) to explore the poorly known abyssal velocity field and deep circulation of the World Ocean. Deep SOLO’s full-depth range and its potential for global coverage are critical attributes for complementing the Core Argo Program and achieving these objectives.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•This study analyses the variability of all the New Zealand currents simultaneously.•There is no evidence of trends in the transports of the New Zealand currents.•The currents have shown little ...correlation with each other and with winds.
Several fast, narrow boundary currents flow along the eastern margin of New Zealand forming part of the western boundary current system of the South Pacific. In this study, using over 20 years of satellite altimeter observations and in situ data, we investigate the mean and variability of the current transports at seasonal, interannual and decadal time scales. We relate the means and fluctuations of the currents to the Southern Oscillation Index and to potential drivers of the circulation, including local and basin-scale winds. We also investigate the barotropic and baroclinic responses of the currents to basin-scale wind forcing using Rossby wave models. We find the currents are highly variable and there are no discernible trends in the transports since 1993. There is little coherence between transports along the boundary, suggesting a range of mechanisms drive the variability of the currents individually rather than the system as a whole. There is little correspondence between transports in any of the boundary currents and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. We also find that the transports are not well described by the arrival of linear Rossby waves. At decadal time scales, only transports in the Subantarctic Front show a close correspondence with the variability of the wind stress curl averaged over the South Pacific. Seasonality is significant in two of the currents, likely driven by seasonality in local winds. In contrast with the larger East Australian Current, which forms part of the same South Pacific western boundary current system, we see collectively little evidence of a link between trends and variability in the New Zealand boundary currents and large-scale or local wind forcing.
Children have mild severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) confirmed disease (COVID-19) compared to adults and the immunological mechanisms underlying this difference remain ...unclear. Here, we report acute and convalescent innate immune responses in 48 children and 70 adults infected with, or exposed to, SARS-CoV-2. We find clinically mild SARS-CoV-2 infection in children is characterised by reduced circulating subsets of monocytes (classical, intermediate, non-classical), dendritic cells and natural killer cells during the acute phase. In contrast, SARS-CoV-2-infected adults show reduced proportions of non-classical monocytes only. We also observe increased proportions of CD63+ activated neutrophils during the acute phase to SARS-CoV-2 in infected children. Children and adults exposed to SARS-CoV-2 but negative on PCR testing display increased proportions of low-density neutrophils that we observe up to 7 weeks post exposure. This study characterises the innate immune response during SARS-CoV-2 infection and household exposure in children.