Colin Ebert (BA Geography, 2005) and Shaun Walbridge (BS Geography, 2004) are among the coauthors of a report on ecological change in marine ecosystems in the latest edition of the journal Science (Halpern, B. S., Walbridge, S., Selkoe, K. A., Kappel, C. V., Micheli, F., D’Agrosa, C., et al. (2008). A Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems. Science, 319(5865), 948-952). According to their abstract, “The management and conservation of the world’s oceans require synthesis of spatial data on the distribution and intensity of human activities and the overlap of their impacts on marine ecosystems. We developed an ecosystem-specific, multiscale spatial model to synthesize 17 global data sets of anthropogenic drivers of ecological change for 20 marine ecosystems. Our analysis indicates that no area is unaffected by human influence and that a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers. However, large areas of relatively little human impact remain, particularly near the poles. The analytical process and resulting maps provide flexible tools for regional and global efforts to allocate conservation resources; to implement ecosystem-based management; and to inform marine spatial planning, education, and basic research” (for the full text, see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5865/948).
Of the 19 coauthors, 1 is from the UCSB Bren School of Environmental Science and Management (Hunter S. Lenihan), 1 is from the UCSB Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology (Elizabeth Madin), and 6 are from the UCSB National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) (Benjamin Halpern, Kimberly Selkoe, Carrie Kappel, Matthew Perry – as well as Colin and Shaun). NCEAS, located in downtown Santa Barbara, is a UCSB research center which “supports cross-disciplinary research that uses existing data to address major fundamental issues in ecology and allied fields, and their application to management and policy.” For more about the research and analysis discussed in the article, see http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/GlobalMarine (which also provides a link for viewing the cumulative impact map in Google Earth).
