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ENVST-UA 323 Marine Ecology & Conservation Fall 2019, M/W 11-12:15pm Prerequisite: ENVST-UA 100 Envr. Systems Science Location: BOBS_LL145 Professor: Jennifer Jacquet jacquet@nyu.edu Office hours: M 12:30-2pm Office location: 285 Mercer Street, 10th floor Google calendar: http://goo.gl/QMPxO

The Course Objectives: Welcome! This course analyzes several aspects of our oceans, with particular emphasis on human impacts and examines some of the recent major threats, including lack of governance for the high seas, deep-sea mining, and the effects of climate change on aquatic animals. We will focus ecological relationships between marine organisms and their environment, with the introduction of humans as marine predators and ecological disturbers. We will review recent peer-reviewed marine ecology studies as well as popular articles to familiarize ourselves with the latest research. The first half of the course focuses more on basic ecology while the second half focuses more on anthropogenic impacts (e.g., overexploitation, pollution, invasive species, and climate change) and proposed and tested solutions. Required texts: The peer-reviewed research articles listed on the daily calendar (available on NYU Classes) The Grade: 40% written assignments (4 worth 10% each) 25% mid-term exam* (Wednesday Oct. 30th) 35% final exam* (in class Wednesday Dec.11th) *Exams will be a combination of multiple choice questions and short answers. Plagiarism: results in failure in the class and referral to an academic dean. Plagiarism includes: copying sentences or fragments from any source without quotes or references; not citing every source used in your papers; citing internet information without proper citation; presenting someone else’s work as your own; or copying verbatim from any source. You are subject to CAS’s guidelines on plagiarism: http://cas.nyu.edu/page/ug.academicintegrity Disability disclosure statement: academic accommodations are available to any student with a chronic, psychological, visual, mobility, learning disability, or who is deaf or hard of hearing. Students should please register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998-4980.

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Schedule: Class date Topic

(key concepts) Readings/media (prepare before coming to class) Assignment/

exam Sept. 4 (Wed.)

Introduction GUEST JAMES ESTES

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Sept. 9 (Mon.)

Human drivers of change in the ocean + current affairs (overexploitation, habitat loss, pollution, climate change, invasive species)

1) Estes et al. 2011. Trophic downgrading of planet Earth. Science 333: 301-306. 2) Hance, J. Could we set aside half of the earth for nature? The Guardian June 15, 2016. 3) Jacquet & Jackson. 2018. High stakes on the high seas. Science Advances 4(8):eaau8235.

Sept. 11 (Wed.)

Ocean ecology (benthic, pelagic, temperate, tropical, plankton, nekton, seamount, continental shelf)

1) Pauly, D. 1995. Ocean Ecology. Pages 1-17 In: W.A. Nierenberg (ed.) Encyclopedia of Environmental Biology. Academic Press, San Diego, Volume 3.

Sept. 16 (Mon.)

Darwin, taxonomy, diversity, species, and life histories (biodiversity)

1) Sala & Knowlton 2006. Global marine biodiversity trends. Annual Review of Environmental Resources 31:93-122. 2) Radiolab ‘Colors’ -- ‘Rippin’ the Rainbow a New One’

Sept. 18 (Wed.)

Marine habitats (rocky shore, coral reefs, kelp)

1) Ramirez-Llodra et al. 2011. Man and the last great wilderness: human impact on the deep sea. 2) Heffernan, O. “Deep Sea Dilemma” Nature 571, 465-468 (2019).

Sept. 23 (Mon.)

VISIT TO THE RIVER PROJECT

1) Waldman, 2012. Chapter 1, Heartbeats in the Muck. Fordham University Press: New York.

Assignment 1 due

Sept. 25 (Wed.)

Food webs (primary producer, apex predator, trophic level, trophic cascade, keystone species) Marine mammals

1) Estes et al. 1998. Killer whale predation on sea otters linking oceanic and nearshore ecosystems. Science 282: 473-476. 2) Graham et al. 2018. Seabirds enhance coral reef productivity and functioning in the absence of invasive rats. Nature 559.

Sept. 30 (Mon.)

Population dynamics (density dependence, Allee effect, logistic vs. exponential growth, marine extinctions, r/K selection theory)

1) Dulvy et al. 2003. Extinction vulnerability in marine populations. Fish and Fisheries 4:25-64.

Oct. 2 (Wed.)

Coral reefs (theory of coral reef formation, fringe, barrier, atoll, zooxanthellae, mutualism, inter-species cooperation)

1) Bshary, R. 2002. Biting cleaner fish use altruism to deceive image-scoring client reef fish. Proceeding Royal Society London B 269: 2087-93. 2) Knowlton and Jackson 2008. Shifting baselines, local impacts, and global change on coral reefs. PLoS Biology 6(2): e54.

Oct. 7 (Mon.)

Human expansion and conquest of the oceans (fishing, whaling, industrialization)

1) Erlandson et al. 2007. The kelp highway hypothesis. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2:161-174. 2) Pauly. Aquacalypse Now. The New Republic September 28, 2009.

Oct. 9 (Wed.)

Altered ecosystems (shifting baselines)

1) Saenz-Arroyo et al. 2005. Rapidly shifting environmental baselines among fishers of the Gulf of California. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences, 272, 1957. 2) Steneck et al. 2011 Creation of a gilded trap by the high economic value of the Maine lobster fishery. Conservation Biology 5, 904-912.

Assignment 2 due

Oct. 14 (Mon.)

NO CLASS FALL BREAK

Oct. 16 (Wed.)

GUEST HENRIK OSTERBLOM 1) Cury et al. 2011. Global seabird response to forage fish depletion -- one-third for the birds. Science 334: 1703-06. 2) Österblom et al. 2015 Transnational Corporations as ‘Keystone Actors’ in Marine Ecosystems. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0127533.

Oct. 21 (Mon.)

Fishing + overfishing (longlining, trawling, maximum sustainable yield, catch per unit effort, open access, bycatch, ghost fishing)

1) Pauly, D. et al. 1998. Fishing down the marine food web. Science 279: 860-863.

Oct. 23 (Wed.)

Solutions to overfishing 1) Jacquet & Pauly 2007. The rise of consumer awareness campaigns in an era of collapsing fisheries. Marine Policy 31: 308-313. 2) McCauley et al. 2016. Ending hide and seek at sea.

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Science 351: 1148-1150. Oct. 24 (Thurs.)

GHOST FLEET SCREENING GHOST FLEET SCREENING

Oct. 28 (Mon.)

Subsidies and slavery-at-sea as drivers of overfishing

1) Ewell et al. under review. An Evaluation of Regional Fisheries Management Organization At-Sea Compliance Monitoring and Observer Programs. 2) Urbina. ‘Sea slaves’: the human misery that feeds pets and livestock. New York Times July 27, 2015.

Assignment 3 due

Oct. 30 (Wed.)

MID-TERM EXAM MID-TERM EXAM

Nov. 4 (Mon.)

GUEST JEREMY JACKSON 1) Jackson et al. 2001. Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293: 629-637.

Nov. 6 (Wed.)

Marine protected areas (spillover effect, high seas)

1) Roberts et al. 2001. Effects of marine reserves on adjacent fisheries. Science 294: 1920-1923. 2) McCook et al. 2010. Adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef: A globally significant demonstration of the benefits of networks of marine reserves. PNAS.

Nov. 11 (Mon.)

Antarctica 1) White and Costello 2014. Close the high seas to fishing? PLoS Biology 12(3): e10011826. 2) Watch THE LAST OCEAN

Assignment 4 due

Nov. 13 (Wed.)

Ocean ranching & aquaculture (hatcheries, mangroves, fishmeal, feed conversion ratios, welfare, food security, bivalves)

1) Naylor & Burke. 2005. Aquaculture and ocean resources: raising tigers of the sea. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30: 185-218. 2) Jacquet et al. 2017. Bivalves are better: Ecological, food security, and welfare considerations of farming aquatic animals. Solutions. 3) Jacquet et al. 2019. The case against octopus farming. Issues in Science and Technology, 35(2): 37-44.

Nov. 18 (Mon.)

Aquarium trade (CITES)

1) Rhyne et al. 2012. Revealing the Appetite of the Marine Aquarium Fish Trade: The Volume and Biodiversity of Fish Imported into the United States. PLoS ONE 7(5): e35808. 2) Watch BLACKFISH

Nov. 20 (Wed.)

Climate change (thermal tolerance, coral bleaching, krill, poleward migration)

1) Munday et al. 2010. Replenishment of fish populations is threatened by ocean acidification. PNAS 170: 12930–12934 2) Cheung et al. 2013. Signature of ocean warming in global fisheries catch. Nature 497: 365-368. 3) Breitburg et al. 2018. Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters. Science 359.

Nov. 25 (Mon.)

GUEST NANCY KNOWLTON TBD

Nov. 27 (Wed.)

CLASS CANCELLED THANKSGIVING

Dec. 2 (Mon.)

Marine pollution, invasions & solutions (eutrophication, dead zones, acoustic feedersballast water, ‘tens’ rule, vessel fouling, biocontrols)

1) Diaz & Rosenberg. 2008. Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems. Science 321: 926-929. 2) Eriksen et al. 2014. Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea. PLoS ONE 9(12): e111913. 3) Kormann, C. “A Grand Plan to Clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” New Yorker, February 4, 2019

Dec. 4 (Wed.)

GUEST BECCA FRANKS Fish behavior, cognition, and welfare

1) Brown, C. 2015. Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Animal Cognition 18:1-17. 2) Fife-Cook & Franks. 2019. Positive Welfare for Fishes: Rationales and Areas for Future Study, Fishes.

Dec. 9 (Mon.)

Wrap up and final exam review

Bring questions for final exam

Dec. 11 (Wed.)

FINAL EXAM (IN CLASS) FINAL EXAM (IN CLASS)