Duke's seamapping dream team

Computer savvy ecologists at Duke are taking spatial analysis offshore as part of a worldwide effort to take stock of what lives in the sea p.3

In order to demonstrate how this data collection covering different oceans, different decades and different species could work together, the SEAMAP team offers a hypothetical question: How do current shipping lanes and maritime transportation affect marine animal migratory patterns? To begin with, Duke scientists would offer their own data set on fisheries efforts around the world. From there, researchers can begin considering the effects on endangered marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles by determining whether intensively fished areas correspond with breeding grounds. But the data sets are collected at different scales of time and space, making comparisons tricky. By offering tools to resample, say satellite-derived sea surface temperature, the SEAMAP system would allow comparisons not possible in the past.

Such analyses are vital as conservationists and fisheries managers begin considering proposals to set up zones in the sea to protect and replenish endangered species, said Read. The interface will allow researchers to more quickly answer questions such as how conservation efforts will impact on whale watches, the swordfish catch and other species in a given area.

“We are exploring conservation zones that are species-specific,” Read said. “That’s one of the ways the interface is most useful. It gives us a much more powerful tool with which to explore different approaches,”

He cited the “sophisticated analysis” that went into the creation of Tortugas Ecological Reserve near the Florida Keys as a model of how this approach can work. Located about 70 miles west of Key West, the Tortugas host a unique collection of marine life in coral reef, hardbottom and seagrass communities. Most of the sanctuaries in the United States provide little protection for marine resources but after years of planning, the state of Florida recently approved two “no take” zones in the Tortugas. Designed to protect the reefs and marine life, the rules prohibit fishing and all removal of marine life, restrict vessel discharges and prohibit anchoring. Some diving and snorkeling is allowed in one of the zones, but with limits.

One reason the OBIS project is so important to researchers like Halpin and Read is that the lack of access to data on marine life has kept them from performing the kind of analysis that went into the Tortugas project. Now that they’re ready to move spatial analysis offshore, they’re dying to get their hands on whatever data is out there.

“In some ways the technology is outstripping the data we have. We’re all dressed up and have no place to go,” Halpin said.

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