Author Archives: Abigail McQuatters-Gollop
Senior Policy Fellow: I’m now a (part-time) civil servant (advisor)!
In fall of 2018 Defra (UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs) advertised for a Senior Policy Fellow – Marine to work with Prof Ian Boyd (Chief Scientific Advisor) and his team to develop a systems approach to thinking … Continue reading
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Brexit and Ecology
Originally posted on Ecology for the Masses:
The last three years have seen some serious political upheaval in the European region, Brexit being perhaps the pinnacle of that. It’s an issue on which everyone has an opinion and which no…
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Influencing the future of UK fisheries – providing evidence as a witness in Parliament
The UK practices evidence-based environmental policy making, where scientific data and research play a key role in informing decisions about how we manage the environment. Much of the UK’s scientific knowledge, however, lies outside of Parliament and Government. Parliamentary Inquiries … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Fisheries, Knowledge Exchange, Marine Conservation, Uncategorized
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How can we use marine biodiversity indicators for marine conservation policy and management?
Indicators are effective tools for summarising and communicating key aspects of ecosystem state and have a long record of use in marine pollution and fisheries management. The application of biodiversity indicators to assess the status of species, habitats, and functional … Continue reading
Posted in Knowledge Exchange, Marine Conservation
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How can marine parks enhance coastal cities?
The UK has 15 National Parks. All of these are terrestrial and celebrate our moors, mountains, and broads. Unlike other countries like Malaysia, Greece, India, Thailand, and Costa Rica, amongst others, as of spring 2019 the UK does not have … Continue reading
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Assessing pelagic habitats: Changes in plankton diversity
EU Member States are required to assess the Good Environmental Status (GES) of their pelagic habitats under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). OSPAR has coordinated this process in the Northeast Atlantic, supporting the development of a suite of three … Continue reading
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Using plankton lifeforms to assess the state of the pelagic habitat
Change in plankton communities can affect the functioning of marine ecosystems. Plankton play a critical role in global oxygen production (one out of every two breaths we take was produced by phytoplankton!), are integral to nutrient and carbon cycling, and … Continue reading
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Increasing Confidence in Evaluating GES for Regional Assessments of Pelagic Habitats – ICEGRAPH
We’ve just had a new project funded! ICEGRAPH: Increasing Confidence in Evaluating GES for Regional Assessments of Pelagic Habitats is a £190,000 project funded by EMFF/MMO to fill some of the scientific gaps around assessing state and understanding change in pelagic … Continue reading
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Putting a historical plankton dataset to work for marine policy challenges
In marine ecology, it is widely accepted that monitoring data spanning long time-scales are essential for understanding ecosystem change, especially for the detection of community shifts linked to climate variability. Data spanning multiple decades are also essential for biodiversity policy, … Continue reading
Posted in Knowledge Exchange, Marine Conservation, Plankton, Policy
Tagged conservation, knowledge exchange, Marine Conservation, marine policy, Plankton, policy, policy makers, SAHFOS, students
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Science-policy collaboration is the key to sustainable management of Japanese marine ecosystems 海洋生態系の持続可能な管理に向けた科学と政策の協働
During the week of October 28, 2018, hundreds of top marine scientists are meeting at the annual PICES conference in Yokohama to discuss the latest research on Pacific marine ecosystems and the implications for their sustainable management. As many of … Continue reading
Posted in Knowledge Exchange, Marine Conservation, Policy
Tagged conservation, japan, Marine Conservation, marine policy, PICES, policy makers
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