2022 SOST Opportunities and Actions Roundtable
Summary: Many underserved communities, from the Arctic to the US territories in the Pacific and in coastal urban and rural areas on the mainland, rely on marine biodiversity for food, recreation, culture, religion, and other aspects of their economy and daily life. Coordinated and sustained observations of marine life are critical for place-based and ecosystem-based management of these resources. The US must better coordinate and build on existing efforts across Federal agencies and sectors to implement a long-term, sustained marine life observation and data sharing capability. Specifically, the US should actively integrate genomics (including environmental DNA or eDNA), passive and active acoustics, underwater video and other optics technologies, satellite remote sensing, animal telemetry, and artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate biology and biodiversity changes. Further, to evaluate ecosystem services and to inform actions to stimulate the Blue Economy, the scientific synthesis needs to be combined with socio-economic analyses. Biodiversity observations need to be integrated with environmental monitoring efforts and databases of environmental data (weather, sea temperature, ocean currents, pH), animal movement, and biodiversity databases. This is being demonstrated by the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), the Animal Telemetry Network (ATN), and the IOOS Regional Associations. The US government can use these approaches to advance New Blue Economy priorities, and to engage in the Marine Life 2030 Programme of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the G7 Future of Seas and Oceans Initiative focused on ‘augmented observatories’.
Sector: Academia, Government
Organization: Marine Biodiversity Observation Network, Marine Life 2030, and University
of South Florida
POC: Frank Muller-Karger, carib@usf.edu
Other Contacts: Gabrielle Canonico, gabrielle.canonico@noaa.gov