Biology subjects

Zamborain-Mason, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Zamborain-Mason, J..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Potential yield and food provisioning gains from rebuilding the worlds coral reef fish stocks

Many coral reefs have fish stocks that are depleted below the level at which sustainable production is maximized. Lower production means that millions of people are losing out on potential food, income and livelihoods. Rebuilding these stocks to maximize sustainable production can contribute towards ending hunger and malnutrition but requires active and effective fisheries management. Yet, for fish stock recovery plans to be implemented, recovery benefits, targets and timeframes need to be quantified. Here, using 1211 individual reef sites and 23 jurisdictions identified globally as being below maximum sustainable production levels, we show that reefs have the potential to increase sustainable yields by nearly 50% if allowed to recover towards their maximum production levels. For individual jurisdictions this recovery represents from 20,000 up to 162 million additional sustainable servings of reef fish per year in comparison to current sustainable production, meeting recommended seafood intake for up to 1. 4 million additional people a year. However, such growth and food provisioning will require fish stocks to double their standing biomass (increase by a median of 32 t/km2). Recovery timeframes range from 6.4 years under the most stringent scenario (a seascape moratorium) to 49.7 years under the maximum harvest scenario that results in recovery. We find that locations with the greatest potential for sustainable gains in yield are among those with the greatest food and micronutrient deficiencies, underscoring both the challenges and opportunities in recovering fish assemblages to achieve their maximum sustainable potential. Significance StatementCoral reef fisheries are a critical food source for people throughout the tropics. However, most reefs around the globe have fish biomass values below those enabling maximal sustainable production, risking food availability, income, and livelihoods. Rebuilding fish assemblages can increase sustainable food supplies, and, if these are well distributed, directly contribute towards enhanced food security. We show that recovering fish stocks on coral reefs can significantly increase the number of sustainable fish servings produced per year and the number of people meeting fish intake recommendations, particularly for countries with high malnutrition. Our study highlights the sustainable food provisioning potential of recovering reef fisheries and quantifies how much recovery would be needed and the time such recovery would take.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

The nutritional value of invertebrate aquatic foods

Aquatic invertebrates are a diverse, nutrient-dense, and socio-ecologically important food whose contribution to human nutrition is frequently overlooked. We quantify their contribution to global nutrient supplies and estimate the nutrient content of >50,000 macroinvertebrate species. Current aquatic invertebrate production supplies the equivalent annual requirement for >6 billion people in terms of vitamin B12 and selenium; >1 billion people for copper, omega 3 fatty acids, iodine and zinc; and >100 million people for nutrients such as vitamins B2 and B3, iron, manganese, and magnesium. Nutrient composition differs among taxonomic groups, consumption patterns, and environmental and life-history factors. Our study highlights the benefits of integrating aquatic invertebrates into dietary portfolios across global societies, mainstreaming their nutritional importance in development projects, sustainability assessments and food policy.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

The contribution of aquatic foods to human nutrient intake and adequacy in a Small Island Developing State

Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are experiencing a nutrition transition, wherein high prevalence of malnutrition co-occurs with growing rates of diet-related non-communicable diseases. Sustainably managed and accessible aquatic foods can serve as a rich and bioavailable source of nutrients, helping communities achieve healthy diets and meet key sustainable development goals (e.g., SDG 1 No Poverty, SDG 2 Zero Hunger, and SDG 14 Life Below Water). However, to properly harness aquatic food systems in nutrition interventions, we must first understand aquatic foods role in nutrient intake and adequacy. Here, using a nationally representative survey from Kiribati, we quantify the contribution of aquatic foods to nutrient intake and adequacy, and examine the spatial variability in nutrient intake adequacies. We find aquatic foods are the main contributors of most nutrients we examined, providing > 80% of vitamin B12, retinol, and heme iron, and > 50% of niacin, vitamin A, protein, vitamin E, potassium, and total iron consumed. Consumption of aquatic foods contributes to meeting key nutrient adequacies (e.g., niacin) and provides complete adequacy for vitamin B12 and protein. However, despite high aquatic food consumption, we find high levels of nutrient inadequacies (11 of the 17 nutrients with dietary reference intakes). Overall, our study quantifies the nutritional importance of aquatic foods in an emblematic SIDS, emphasizing their vulnerability to declining aquatic resources. We also highlight the need for cross-scale context-specific targeted nutrition interventions, even when aquatic food consumption is high, to enable SIDS to meet key SDGs.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Downscaling global reference points to assess the sustainability of local fisheries

Multispecies coral reef fisheries are typically managed by local communities who often lack research and monitoring capacity, which prevents estimation of well-defined sustainable reference points to perform locally relevant fishery assessments. Recent global advances in modelling coral reef fisheries have developed pathways to use environmental indicators to estimate multispecies sustainable reference points. These global reference points are a promising tool for assessing data-poor reef fisheries but need to be downscaled to be relevant to resource practitioners. Here, using a small-scale multispecies reef fishery from Papua New Guinea, we estimate sustainable reference points and assess the sustainability of the fishery by integrating global-scale analyses with local-scale environmental conditions, fish catch, reef area, standing biomass estimates, and fishers perceptions. We found that assessment results from global models applied to the local context of our study location provided results consistent with local fishers perceptions. Specifically, our downscaled results suggest that the fishing community is overfishing their reef fish stocks (i.e., catching more than can be sustained) and stocks are below BMMSY (i.e., below biomass levels that maximize production), making the overall reef fishery unsustainable. These results were consistent with fisher perceptions that reef fish stocks were declining in abundance and mean fish length, and that they had to spend more time finding fish. Our downscaled site-level assessment reveals severe local resource exploitation, whose dynamics are masked in national-scale assessments, emphasizing the importance of matching assessments to the scale of management. More broadly, our study shows how global reference points can be applied locally when long-term data are not available, providing baseline assessments for sustainably managing previously un-assessed multispecies reef fisheries around the globe.

ecology↗