Historical spatial reconstruction of a spawning-aggregation fishery

The potential of historical ecology to aid understanding of human-ocean interactions throughout the Anthropocene

Marine historical ecology emerged in the scholarly literature with the aim of understanding long-term dynamics in marine ecosystems and the outcomes of past human-ocean interactions. The use of historical sources, which differ in temporal scale and resolution to most scientific monitoring data, present both opportunities and challenges for informing our understanding of past marine ecosystems and the ways in which human communities made use of them. With an emphasis upon marine social-ecological changes over the past 200 years, I present an overview of the relevant historical ecology literature and summarise how this approach generates a richer understanding of human-ocean interactions and the legacies associated with human-induced ecosystem change. Marine historical ecology methodologies continue to be developed, whereas expanded inter- and multidisciplinary collaborations provide exciting avenues for future discoveries. Beyond scholarship, historical ecology presents opportunities to foster a more sustainable relationship with oceans going forward: by challenging ingrained perceptions of what is "normal" within marine ecosystems, reconnecting human communities to the oceans and providing cautionary lessons and exemplars of sustainable human-ocean interactions from the past. To leverage these opportunities, scholars must work alongside practitioners, managers and policy makers to foster mutual understanding, explore new opportunities to communicate historical findings and address the challenges of integrating historical data into modern-day frameworks.

Land use change in the river basins of the Great Barrier Reef, 1860 to 2019: A foundation for understanding environmental history across the catchment to reef continuum

Land use in the catchments draining to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon has changed considerably since the introduction of livestock grazing, various crops, mining and urban development. Together these changes have resulted in increased pollutant loads and impaired coastal water quality. This study compiled records to produce annual time-series since 1860 of human population, livestock numbers and agricultural areas at the scale of surface drainage river basins, natural resource management regions and the whole Great Barrier Reef catchment area. Cattle and several crops have experienced progressive expansion interspersed by declines associated with droughts and diseases. Land uses which have experienced all time maxima since the year 2000 include cattle numbers and the areas of sugar cane, bananas and cotton. A Burdekin Basin case study shows that sediment loads initially increased with the introduction of livestock and mining, remained elevated with agricultural development, and declined slightly with the Burdekin Falls Dam construction.

Shifting Gears for the Use of the Shifting Baseline Syndrome in Ecological Restoration

There are two barriers to accomplishing restoration of ecosystems: insufficient information about historical baselines to guide restoration, and shifts between the actual baselines and perceptions about historical conditions. These two conditions generate a phenomenon called shifting baseline syndrome (SBS). Our study systematically reviewed and quantitatively analyzed the SBS studies. There is an increase and subsequent stabilization in the number of publications, 32% of scientific articles added new information and 5% of them delivered biological and social information required to demonstrate the SBS presence. Meta-analysis conducted showed an inconsistency between biological and social data. The inclusion of a greater amount of species in the biological data compared to social data produced the inconsistency. There must be an improvement in reporting both biological and social information to assess SBS. The integration of both sources of information would also enhance the success of restoration projects. The consideration of perceptions about resource users are also in accordance with global agreements about sustainable use of natural resources and ecological restoration.

An Empirical and Mechanistic Explanation of Abundance-Occupancy Relationships for a Critically Endangered Nomadic Migrant

The positive abundance-occupancy relationship (AOR) is a pervasive pattern in macroecology. Similarly, the association between occupancy (or probability of occurrence) and abundance is also usually assumed to be positive and in most cases constant. Examples of AORs for nomadic species with variable distributions are extremely rare. Here we examined temporal and spatial trends in the AOR over 7 years for a critically endangered nomadic migrant that relies on dynamic pulses in food availability to breed. We predicted a negative temporal relationship, where local mean abundances increase when the number of occupied sites decreases, and a positive relationship between local abundances and the probability of occurrence. We also predicted that these patterns are largely attributable to spatiotemporal variation in food abundance. The temporal AOR was significantly negative, and annual food availability was significantly positively correlated with the number of occupied sites but negatively correlated with abundance. Thus, as food availability decreased, local densities of birds increased, and vice versa. The abundance-probability of occurrence relationship was positive and nonlinear but varied between years due to differing degrees of spatial aggregation caused by changing food availability. Importantly, high abundance (or occupancy) did not necessarily equate to high-quality habitat and may be indicative of resource bottlenecks or exposure to other processes affecting vital rates. Our results provide a rare empirical example that highlights the complexity of AORs for species that target aggregated food resources in dynamic environments.

Popular media records reveal multi-decadal trends in recreational fishing catch rates

Despite threats to human wellbeing from ecological degradation, public engagement with this issue remains at low levels. However, studies have shown that crafting messages to resonate with people’s personal experiences can enhance engagement. Recreational fishing is one of the principal ways in which people interact with aquatic environments, but long-term data from this perspective are considered rare. We uncovered 852 popular media records of recreational fishing for an Australian estuary across a 140-year period. Using information contained in these articles we analysed the species composition of recreational catches over time and constructed two distinct time series of catch and effort (n fish fisher^-1 trip^-1; kg fish fisher^-1 trip^-1) for recreational fishing trips and fishing club competitions (mean n and kg fish caught across all competitors, and n and kg fish caught by the competition winner). Reported species composition remained similar over time. Catch rates reported from recreational fishing trips (1900–1998) displayed a significant decline, averaging 32.5 fish fisher^-1 trip^-1 prior to 1960, and 18.8 fish fisher^-1 trip^-1 post-1960. Mean n fish fisher^-1 competition^-1 (1913–1983) also significantly declined, but best n fish fisher^-1 competition^-1 (1925–1980) displayed no significant change, averaging 31.2 fish fisher^-1 competition^-1 over the time series. Mean and best kg fish fisher^-1 competition^-1 trends also displayed no significant change, averaging 4.2 and 9.9 kg fisher^-1 competition^-1, respectively. These variable trends suggest that while some fishers experienced diminishing returns in this region over the last few decades, the most skilled inshore fishers were able to maintain their catch rates, highlighting the difficulties inherent in crafting conservation messages that will resonate with all sections of a community. Despite these challenges, this research demonstrates that popular media sources can provide multiple long-term trends at spatial scales, in units and via a recreational experience that many people can relate to.