12
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Managing a sustainable deep-sea ‘blue economy’ requires knowledge of what actually lives there

      discussion

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Ensuring that the wealth of resources contained in our oceans are managed and developed in a sustainable manner is a priority for the emerging 'blue economy'. However, modern ecosystem-based management approaches do not translate well to regions where we know almost nothing about the individual species found in the ecosystem. Here, we propose a new taxon-focused approach to deep-sea conservation that includes regulatory oversight to set targets for the delivery of taxonomic data. For example, a five-year plan to deliver taxonomic and genomic knowledge on a thousand species in regions of the ocean earmarked for industrial activity is an achievable target. High-throughput, integrative taxonomy can, therefore, provide the data that is needed to monitor various ecosystem services (such as the natural history, connectivity, value and function of species) and to help break the regulatory deadlock of high-seas conservation.

          Related collections

          Most cited references25

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          The perils of DNA barcoding and the need for integrative taxonomy.

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found
            Is Open Access

            Ecosystem function and services provided by the deep sea

            The deep sea is often viewed as a vast, dark, remote, and inhospitable environment, yet the deep ocean and seafloor are crucial to our lives through the services that they provide. Our understanding of how the deep sea functions remains limited, but when treated synoptically, a diversity of supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services becomes apparent. The biological pump transports carbon from the atmosphere into deep-ocean water masses that are separated over prolonged periods, reducing the impact of anthropogenic carbon release. Microbial oxidation of methane keeps another potent greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere while trapping carbon in authigenic carbonates. Nutrient regeneration by all faunal size classes provides the elements necessary for fueling surface productivity and fisheries, and microbial processes detoxify a diversity of compounds. Each of these processes occur on a very small scale, yet considering the vast area over which they occur they become important for the global functioning of the ocean. The deep sea also provides a wealth of resources, including fish stocks, enormous bioprospecting potential, and elements and energy reserves that are currently being extracted and will be increasingly important in the near future. Society benefits from the intrigue and mystery, the strange life forms, and the great unknown that has acted as a muse for inspiration and imagination since near the beginning of civilization. While many functions occur on the scale of microns to meters and timescales up to years, the derived services that result are only useful after centuries of integrated activity. This vast dark habitat, which covers the majority of the globe, harbors processes that directly impact humans in a variety of ways; however, the same traits that differentiate it from terrestrial or shallow marine systems also result in a greater need for integrated spatial and temporal understanding as it experiences increased use by society. In this manuscript we aim to provide a foundation for informed conservation and management of the deep sea by summarizing the important role of the deep sea in society.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Polychaete species diversity in the central Pacific abyss: local and regional patterns, and relationships with productivity

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Reviewing Editor
                Role: Senior Editor
                Journal
                eLife
                Elife
                eLife
                eLife
                eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
                2050-084X
                27 November 2018
                2018
                : 7
                : e41319
                Affiliations
                [1 ]deptLife Sciences Department Natural History Museum LondonUnited Kingdom
                [2 ]Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) YokosukaJapan
                [3 ]deptDepartment of Marine Sciences University of Gothenburg GothenburgSweden
                [4 ]Gothenburg Global Diversity Centre GothenburgSweden
                [5 ]NORCE BergenNorway
                eLife United Kingdom
                eLife United Kingdom
                eLife United Kingdom
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9489-074X
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8252-3504
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5035-4021
                https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6854-2031
                Article
                41319
                10.7554/eLife.41319
                6257809
                30479272
                3ffb26e3-243c-486d-8e79-45aaf70cb70f
                © 2018, Glover et al

                This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 23 August 2018
                : 13 November 2018
                Funding
                Funded by: UK Seabed Resources Ltd;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000780, European Commission;
                Award ID: 603418
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000936, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011672, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund;
                Award ID: 182518473
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001862, Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas;
                Award ID: 2014-12285-29251-29
                Award Recipient :
                The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
                Categories
                Feature Article
                Ecology
                Evolutionary Biology
                Point of View
                Custom metadata
                High-throughput, integrative taxonomy has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the resources in our oceans are managed and developed in a sustainable manner.

                Life sciences
                deep sea,taxonomy,biodiversity,sustainable development,blue economy,point of view,other
                Life sciences
                deep sea, taxonomy, biodiversity, sustainable development, blue economy, point of view, other

                Comments

                Comment on this article