A paper “Alongshore distribution and abundance of fish larvae off the coast of Kenya” by Mwaluma, et al has been published in the African Journal of Marine Science. Below is the Abstract of the paper

Knowledge is limited on the fish larval assemblage in shallow lagoonal reefs along the Kenyan coast. Fish larvae from five lagoons, spanning 120 km on the Kenyan coast, were sampled in March 2007 and April 2008 to compare interannual spatial variations in species composition, abundance and diversity along the coast. In all, 2 644 fish larvae were sampled, comprising 26 families and 37 species in 2007 and 43 families and 73 species in 2008. The larval assemblage was dominated by Gobiidae, Blenniidae, Pomacentridae and Gerreidae during both years. Larvae hatched from non-pelagic mode of spawning constituting 92% of total numbers. Mean larval abundance (no. 100 m^–3 ± SE) along the coast ranged from 5.0 ± 1.0 to 414 ± 226, with highest densities occurring on the  northern sites of Watamu (414 ± 226) and Malindi (31 ± 10). Interannual variation in larval abundance between 2007 (2.17 ± 0.3) and 2008 (2.16 ± 0.1) was not significant (p > 0.05). Shannon-Wiener species diversities between sites ranged from 1.2 ± 0.4 to 2.3 ± 0.3, with highest diversities occurring in Mombasa (2.2 ± 0.5) and Nyali (2.3 ± 0.3). In 2007, the occurrence of preflexion larvae increased northwards from Mombasa (18.2%) to Watamu (86.4%), whereas in 2008, the reverse was the case with the incidence of preflexion larvae reducing northwards from Mombasa Marine Park (76%) to Watamu Marine Park (2%). These trends indicate interannual variation in larval source sites for fish species. Correspondence analysis revealed distinct larval assemblages at sites along the coast, which varied between years.

Full citation: Mwaluma, J.M., Kaunda-Arara, B. and Rasowo, J. 2010. Alongshore distribution and abundance of fish larvae off the coast of Kenya. African Journal of Marine Science 2010, 32(3): 581–589

The December Issue of the WIOMSA Newsbrief is out and contains the following interesting articles:

1.  Twenty Four MPA practitioners undergo an intensive training course

2. 21 Projects represented at the 9th MASMA Grantees Meeting

3. KMFRI Hosts Colorful National Aquatic Research Conference

4. New Publication

5. Pond Mariculture in Tanzania: From Milkfish Farming to other Species

6. Forging a Common Position in Climate Change Negotiations

7. Meeting of the Bureau of the Nairobi Convention

8. WIOMSA News in brief

9. Photo Gallery

 Download the full Issue from: 

http://wiomsa.net/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=53&task=view.download&catid=71&cid=771

A paper “Outside the law? Analyzing policy gaps in addressing fishers’ migration in East Africa” by Beatrice Crona and Sergio Rosendo has been accepted for publication in the Marine Policy Journal. The abstract is attached below:

Coastal areas, and their small-scale fisheries, are important targets for both internal and transboundary migration partly because high mobility is an inherent feature of many artisanal fisheries livelihoods. As climatic changes are forecast to occur, environmental changes may trigger increased flows of migrant fishers. Policies that seek to promote development in ways that do not extensively degrade natural resources will thus have to deal with likely increases in flows of people across administrative boundaries. However, to date little attention has been directed at this issue and little is known about how policies related to coastal resources and development address these issues. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing policies and legal documents related to coastal resource management and development to examine the extent to which they recognize and integrate fishers’ migration in their provisions. Migrant well-being and vulnerabilities are also addressed by examining the extent to which existing policies dealing with socio-economic development and environmental management address migrants and their needs. The analysis shows that policies related to governance of marine resources and coastal development lack an acknowledgment of fishers’ migration issues and suggests that this signals an important gap in policy. The implications of this are discussed. The paper also highlights the fact that the invisibility of the issue in policy means that institutions developed to deal with coastal management at the community level may not have sufficient support from legal and policy documents, and may not be developed or equipped to handle the possible conflicts and difficult trade-offs that need to be addressed as a result of current and potentially increasing fishers’ mobility.

This work was funded by WIOMSA, under the Marine Science for Management (MASMA) programme.

Electronic access to journals is improving dramatically in eastern and southern Africa — but actual use by academics and students is not keeping pace, according to a report.

A study published by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) last month (November) found that availability of the world’s top 20 journals across 15 disciplines is approaching that of European universities.

But it also found that problems further down the line mean that papers are not actually getting read.

“Academics often report that poor journals access is a serious barrier to their work but they are not aware of how much is actually already available through their library subscriptions,” Jonathan Harle, author of the study and programme officer for research at the ACU, told SciDev.Net.

The full article is available at http://www.scidev.net/en/news/african-academics-slow-to-use-online-journals-.html

The oceans are acidifying at probably the fastest rate for 65 million years — with unknown implications for the three billion people who depend on fish for protein, a report released at the 2010 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 16), in Mexico has said.

Rising CO2 emissions, a quarter of which eventually dissolve in the oceans to produce carbonic acid, have caused a 30 per cent drop in ocean pH values, reflecting an increase in ocean acidity, according to the report, produced by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“If we go on at the same rate we will have a 120 per cent increase in acidity by the end of the century,” said Carol Turley, the report’s lead author and knowledge exchange coordinator at the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme.

Africa’s academies should take a leading role in lobbying their governments for science funding, argues Linda Nordling.

Should African academies lobby governments? Lobbying seems at odds with the usual role of such institutions in national policymaking — that of providing politically neutral science-based evidence for policy decisions.

Indeed, the world of lobbying presents a challenge for academies, which are seldom attracted to the wheeling and dealing on which it operates.

Certainly there is a danger that lobbying can damage an academy’s credibility. Taking sides in a debate in which the science remains uncertain would be inappropriate for such institutions.

Read the full article from: http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/africa-analysis-when-science-academies-should-lobby.html

(Mombasa, Kenya – December 13, 2010). Corals and a thin pink and hard alga known by reef ecologists as crustose coralline algae are what build tropical coral reefs. Both produce the calcium carbonate that makes reefs grow and produce the massive reef flats that fringe most of the tropical nations.

These under appreciated coralline algae are known to bind and stabilize reef skeletons and sand and to also enhance the recruitment of small corals by providing a place for their larvae to settle through chemical cues that they release that attract the corals. Some research has suggested that the types of grazing animals on the reef influence these important algae and therefore the growth of coral reefs. But, how management of fisheries might influence them over time and other influences, such as climate disturbances, is not known.

In a new paper published in the December issue of the scientific journal Ecology, Jennifer O’Leary of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society found that, over 18 years, grazing reduced the abundance of these algae when sea urchins were the common grazer but grazing fishes had the opposite effect. They combined this 18-year study with a shorter length experiment that confirmed that sea urchins graze more destructively on coralline algae than grazing fishes.

In fished reefs, there are few predators of sea urchins and sea urchins proliferate such that the coralline algae become rare. This means that these reefs are expected to grow slower than reefs where the sea urchin predators are abundant and grazing fishes common.

Because the study followed these algae over 18 years, the authors found that the grazing effect was stronger and more persistent than the strong El Niño that devastated coral reefs throughout the tropics in 1998. The study shows that managing coral reef fisheries can affect coral reef growth and improving the management of tropical fisheries can help these reefs to grow and persist in a changing climate.

Full citation: O’Leary JK, McClanahan TR. 2010. Fishing induced trophic cascades results in coralline algal loss: a case study in Kenya challenges paradigms regarding grazer effects. Ecology 91: 3584-3597.

WWF has recently established a major regional programme – the “Coastal East Africa Initiative” (CEA-NI) – based in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, working on biodiversity conservation and sustainable development issues across Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique region.

WWF is seeking to recruit qualified candidates for 3 positions to work on the CEA-NI: Governance Advisor; Government Aid Agencies Officer; and Ruvuma Landscape Coordinator.

Full terms of references for the above positions are available from: http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/jobs/?197716/Coastal-East-Africa-Initiative

 The deadline for applications is 20 December 2010.

A consultant is now sought to provide the following services: a)Assess the status and quality of the identified existing databases, their present use, and their potential use for the development of long-term indices for fisheries management purposes. b)Where existing databases have previously been analyzed and relevant trends of fishing effort, catches and catch rates have already been shown, these should be illustrated and discussed. c)Where database have not previously been analysed, a basic analysis of selected data to show long-term trends in fishing effort, catches by species (or species group), and catch rates relative to area, season and gear types must be performed. The limitations of the data and analyses must be highlighted. d)Biological data available on selected databases must be explored, and estimates must be made of basic biological parameters of priority species, i.e. trends in length composition, sex ratios, length at sexual maturity, growth rates, mortality rates, and reproductive seasonality. e)A detailed Specialist Report must be produced under the headings: Introduction, Methodology, Review of available knowledge and information, Retrospective analyses of databases, Conclusions and recommendations. f)Provide a metadata information on all the dataset used in the study and its use.

Download the full announcement from http://www.swiofp.net/tenders-and-vacancies/consultant-eoi-for-retrospective-analyses-swiofp-component-2