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Nous nous trouvons à un carrefour critique pour la gouvernance future de la haute mer, mais l'éloignement perçu de l'océan mondial crée un obstacle psychologique pour que les gens s'y engagent. Compte tenu des défis de la surexploitation, de l'accès inéquitable et d'autres préoccupations en matière de durabilité et d'équité, les mécanismes actuels de gouvernance des océans ne sont pas adaptés à leur objectif. Cette décennie offre des opportunités d'impact direct sur la gouvernance des océans, cependant, déclencher une transformation mondiale sur la façon dont nous utilisons et protégeons la moitié de notre planète nécessite un effort concerté guidé par des valeurs et des principes partagés entre les régions et les secteurs. L'objectif de la série d'ateliers décrits dans ce document était d'entreprendre un processus de réflexion sur l'avenir qui pourrait utiliser le cadre Nature Futures comme un mécanisme pour apporter plus d'énergie transformatrice dans la façon dont les humains conceptualisent la haute mer et donc comment nous visons à gouverner l'océan. Nous avons constaté que l'engagement avec l'avenir à travers des récits de science-fiction permettait une appréciation plus radicale de ce qui pourrait être et que l'infusion d'éléments artistiques dans la science peut inspirer un public au-delà du milieu universitaire. Ainsi, les efforts créatifs de coproduction qui favorisent et encouragent l'imagination pour relever les défis actuels devraient être considérés comme des outils importants dans l'interface science-politique, également comme un moyen de susciter des réponses empathiques. Cette série d'ateliers était une première étape, et, espérons-le, prometteuse, vers la génération d'une pratique plus créative dans la façon dont nous imaginons et agissons pour un avenir meilleur pour la haute mer. Nos encontramos en una encrucijada crítica para la futura gobernanza de la alta mar, pero la lejanía percibida del océano global crea una barrera psicológica para que las personas se involucren con él. Dados los desafíos de la sobreexplotación, el acceso inequitativo y otras preocupaciones de sostenibilidad y equidad, los mecanismos actuales de gobernanza de los océanos no son adecuados para su propósito. Esta década ofrece oportunidades para un impacto directo en la gobernanza de los océanos, sin embargo, desencadenar una transformación global sobre cómo usamos y protegemos la mitad de nuestro planeta requiere un esfuerzo concertado que se guíe por valores y principios compartidos en todas las regiones y sectores. El objetivo de la serie de talleres descritos en este documento era emprender un proceso de pensamiento sobre el futuro que pudiera utilizar el Marco de Futuros de la Naturaleza como un mecanismo para aportar más energía transformadora a la forma en que los humanos conceptualizan la alta mar y, por lo tanto, cómo pretendemos gobernar el océano. Descubrimos que comprometerse con el futuro a través de narrativas de ciencia ficción permitía una apreciación más radical de lo que podría ser e infundir a la ciencia elementos artísticos puede inspirar a audiencias más allá de la academia. Por lo tanto, los esfuerzos creativos de coproducción que promueven y fomentan la imaginación para abordar los desafíos actuales deben considerarse como herramientas importantes en la interfaz ciencia-política, también como una forma de obtener respuestas empáticas. Esta serie de talleres fue un primer paso, y esperemos que prometedor, hacia la generación de una praxis más creativa en la forma en que imaginamos y luego actuamos para un futuro mejor para la alta mar. We find ourselves at a critical crossroads for the future governance of the high seas, but the perceived remoteness of the global ocean creates a psychological barrier for people to engage with it. Given challenges of overexploitation, inequitable access and other sustainability and equity concerns, current ocean governance mechanisms are not fit-for-purpose. This decade offers opportunities for direct impact on ocean governance, however, triggering a global transformation on how we use and protect the half of our planet requires a concerted effort that is guided by shared values and principles across regions and sectors. The aim of the series of workshops outlined in this paper, was to undertake a futures thinking process that could use the Nature Futures Framework as a mechanism to bring more transformative energy into how humans conceptualise the high seas and therefore how we aim to govern the ocean. We found that engaging with the future through science fiction narratives allowed a more radical appreciation of what could be and infusing science with artistic elements can inspire audiences beyond academia. Thus, creative endeavours of co-production that promote and encourage imagination to address current challenges should be considered as important tools in the science-policy interface, also as a way to elicit empathetic responses. This workshop series was a first, and hopefully promising, step towards generating a more creative praxis in how we imagine and then act for a better future for the high seas. نجد أنفسنا في مفترق طرق حاسم للإدارة المستقبلية لأعالي البحار، لكن البعد المتصور للمحيط العالمي يخلق حاجزًا نفسيًا أمام الناس للتعامل معه. بالنظر إلى تحديات الاستغلال المفرط والوصول غير العادل وغيرها من شواغل الاستدامة والإنصاف، فإن آليات إدارة المحيطات الحالية ليست مناسبة للغرض. يوفر هذا العقد فرصًا للتأثير المباشر على إدارة المحيطات، ومع ذلك، فإن إحداث تحول عالمي حول كيفية استخدامنا لنصف كوكبنا وحمايته يتطلب جهدًا متضافرًا يسترشد بالقيم والمبادئ المشتركة عبر المناطق والقطاعات. كان الهدف من سلسلة ورش العمل الموضحة في هذه الورقة هو إجراء عملية تفكير مستقبلي يمكن أن تستخدم إطار عمل مستقبل الطبيعة كآلية لجلب المزيد من الطاقة التحويلية إلى كيفية تصور البشر لأعالي البحار وبالتالي كيف نهدف إلى حكم المحيط. وجدنا أن الانخراط في المستقبل من خلال روايات الخيال العلمي سمح بتقدير أكثر جذرية لما يمكن أن يكون وغرس العلم بالعناصر الفنية يمكن أن يلهم الجماهير خارج الأوساط الأكاديمية. وبالتالي، يجب اعتبار المساعي الإبداعية للإنتاج المشترك التي تعزز وتشجع الخيال لمواجهة التحديات الحالية أدوات مهمة في واجهة العلوم والسياسات، وأيضًا كوسيلة لاستنباط استجابات متعاطفة. كانت سلسلة ورش العمل هذه خطوة أولى، ونأمل أن تكون واعدة، نحو توليد ممارسة أكثر إبداعًا في كيفية تخيلنا ثم العمل من أجل مستقبل أفضل لأعالي البحار.

AbstractHigh tropical and low polar biodiversity is one of the most fundamental patterns characterising marine ecosystems, and the influence of temperature on such marine latitudinal diversity gradients is increasingly well documented. However, the temporal stability of quantitative relationships among diversity, latitude and temperature is largely unknown. Herein we document marine zooplankton species diversity patterns at four time slices [modern, Last Glacial Maximum (18 000 years ago), last interglacial (120 000 years ago), and Pliocene (~3.3–3.0 million years ago)] and show that, although the diversity‐latitude relationship has been dynamic, diversity‐temperature relationships are remarkably constant over the past three million years. These results suggest that species diversity is rapidly reorganised as species' ranges respond to temperature change on ecological time scales, and that the ecological impact of future human‐induced temperature change may be partly predictable from fossil and paleoclimatological records.

The link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) over long temporal scales is poorly understood. Here, we investigate biological monitoring and palaeoecological records on decadal, centennial and millennial time scales from a BEF framework by using deep sea, soft-sediment environments as a test bed. Results generally show positive BEF relationships, in agreement with BEF studies based on present-day spatial analyses and short-term manipulative experiments. However, the deep-sea BEF relationship is much noisier across longer time scales compared with modern observational studies. We also demonstrate with palaeoecological time-series data that a larger species pool does not enhance ecosystem stability through time, whereas higher abundance as an indicator of higher ecosystem functioning may enhance ecosystem stability. These results suggest that BEF relationships are potentially time scale-dependent. Environmental impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning may be much stronger than biodiversity impacts on ecosystem functioning at long, decadal–millennial, time scales. Longer time scale perspectives, including palaeoecological and ecosystem monitoring data, are critical for predicting future BEF relationships on a rapidly changing planet.

ABSTRACTTemperature is considered to be a fundamental factor controlling biodiversity in marine ecosystems, but precisely what role temperature plays in modulating diversity is still not clear. The deep ocean, lacking light and in situ photosynthetic primary production, is an ideal model system to test the effects of temperature changes on biodiversity. Here we synthesize current knowledge on temperature–diversity relationships in the deep sea. Our results from both present and past deep‐sea assemblages suggest that, when a wide range of deep‐sea bottom‐water temperatures is considered, a unimodal relationship exists between temperature and diversity (that may be right skewed). It is possible that temperature is important only when at relatively high and low levels but does not play a major role in the intermediate temperature range. Possible mechanisms explaining the temperature–biodiversity relationship include the physiological‐tolerance hypothesis, the metabolic hypothesis, island biogeography theory, or some combination of these. The possible unimodal relationship discussed here may allow us to identify tipping points at which on‐going global change and deep‐water warming may increase or decrease deep‐sea biodiversity. Predicted changes in deep‐sea temperatures due to human‐induced climate change may have more adverse consequences than expected considering the sensitivity of deep‐sea ecosystems to temperature changes.

The deep sea (>200 m depth) encompasses >95% of the world's ocean volume and represents the largest and least explored biome on Earth (<0.0001% of ocean surface), yet is increasingly under threat from multiple direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures. Our ability to preserve both benthic and pelagic deep-sea ecosystems depends upon effective ecosystem-based management strategies and monitoring based on widely agreed deep-sea ecological variables. Here, we identify a set of deep-sea essential ecological variables among five scientific areas of the deep ocean: (1) biodiversity; (2) ecosystem functions; (3) impacts and risk assessment; (4) climate change, adaptation and evolution; and (5) ecosystem conservation. Conducting an expert elicitation (1,155 deep-sea scientists consulted and 112 respondents), our analysis indicates a wide consensus amongst deep-sea experts that monitoring should prioritize large organisms (that is, macro- and megafauna) living in deep waters and in benthic habitats, whereas monitoring of ecosystem functioning should focus on trophic structure and biomass production. Habitat degradation and recovery rates are identified as crucial features for monitoring deep-sea ecosystem health, while global climate change will likely shift bathymetric distributions and cause local extinction in deep-sea species. Finally, deep-sea conservation efforts should focus primarily on vulnerable marine ecosystems and habitat-forming species. Deep-sea observation efforts that prioritize these variables will help to support the implementation of effective management strategies on a global scale.

AbstractThe region with the highest marine biodiversity on our planet is known as the Coral Triangle or Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA)1,2. Its enormous biodiversity has long attracted the interest of biologists; however, the detailed evolutionary history of the IAA biodiversity hotspot remains poorly understood3. Here we present a high-resolution reconstruction of the Cenozoic diversity history of the IAA by inferring speciation–extinction dynamics using a comprehensive fossil dataset. We found that the IAA has exhibited a unidirectional diversification trend since about 25 million years ago, following a roughly logistic increase until a diversity plateau beginning about 2.6 million years ago. The growth of diversity was primarily controlled by diversity dependency and habitat size, and also facilitated by the alleviation of thermal stress after 13.9 million years ago. Distinct net diversification peaks were recorded at about 25, 20, 16, 12 and 5 million years ago, which were probably related to major tectonic events in addition to climate transitions. Key biogeographic processes had far-reaching effects on the IAA diversity as shown by the long-term waning of the Tethyan descendants versus the waxing of cosmopolitan and IAA taxa. Finally, it seems that the absence of major extinctions and the Cenozoic cooling have been essential in making the IAA the richest marine biodiversity hotspot on Earth.

The deep sea encompasses the largest ecosystems on Earth. Although poorly known, deep seafloor ecosystems provide services that are vitally important to the entire ocean and biosphere. Rising atmospheric greenhouse gases are bringing about significant changes in the environmental properties of the ocean realm in terms of water column oxygenation, temperature, pH and food supply, with concomitant impacts on deep-sea ecosystems. Projections suggest that abyssal (3000–6000 m) ocean temperatures could increase by 1°C over the next 84 years, while abyssal seafloor habitats under areas of deep-water formation may experience reductions in water column oxygen concentrations by as much as 0.03 mL L–1 by 2100. Bathyal depths (200–3000 m) worldwide will undergo the most significant reductions in pH in all oceans by the year 2100 (0.29 to 0.37 pH units). O2 concentrations will also decline in the bathyal NE Pacific and Southern Oceans, with losses up to 3.7% or more, especially at intermediate depths. Another important environmental parameter, the flux of particulate organic matter to the seafloor, is likely to decline significantly in most oceans, most notably in the abyssal and bathyal Indian Ocean where it is predicted to decrease by 40–55% by the end of the century. Unfortunately, how these major changes will affect deep-seafloor ecosystems is, in some cases, very poorly understood. In this paper, we provide a detailed overview of the impacts of these changing environmental parameters on deep-seafloor ecosystems that will most likely be seen by 2100 in continental margin, abyssal and polar settings. We also consider how these changes may combine with other anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing, mineral mining, oil and gas extraction) to further impact deep-seafloor ecosystems and discuss the possible societal implications.