Research Dataset Catalog and ShareScore Ratings | ScienceDex

dryad36/100

Coral restoration – a systematic review of current methods, successes, failures and future directions

Coral reef ecosystems have suffered an unprecedented loss of habitat-forming hard corals in recent decades. While marine conservation has historically focused on passive habitat protection, demand for and interest in active restoration has been growing in recent decades. However, a disconnect between coral restoration practitioners, coral reef managers and scientists has resulted in a disjointed field where it is difficult to gain an overview of existing knowledge. To address this, we aimed to synthesise the available knowledge in a comprehensive global review of coral restoration methods, incorporating data from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, complemented with grey literature and through a survey of coral restoration practitioners. We found that coral restoration case studies are dominated by short-term projects, with 60% of all projects reporting less than 18 months of monitoring of the restored sites. Similarly, most projects are relatively small in spatial scale, with a median size of restored area of 100 m2. A diverse range of species are represented in the dataset, with 229 different species from 72 coral genera. Overall, coral restoration projects focused primarily on fast-growing branching corals (59% of studies), and report survival between 60 and 70%. To date, the relatively young field of coral restoration has been plagued by similar 'growing pains' as ecological restoration in other ecosystems. These include 1) a lack of clear and achievable objectives, 2) a lack of appropriate and standardised monitoring and reporting and, 3) poorly designed projects in relation to stated objectives. Mitigating these will be crucial to successfully scale up projects, and to retain public trust in restoration as a tool for resilience based management. Finally, while it is clear that practitioners have developed effective methods to successfully grow corals at small scales, it is critical not to view restoration as a replacement for meaningful action on climate change.

opencc-zeroJan 2020View details →

dryad36/100

Population structure in landrace barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) during the late 19th century crop failures in Fennoscandia

Agricultural disasters and the subsequent need for supply of relief seed can be expected to influence the genetic composition of crop plant populations. The consequences of disasters and seed relief have, however, rarely been studied since specimens sampled before the events are seldomly available. A series of crop failures struck northern Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden and Finland) during the second half of the 19th century. In order to assess population genetic dynamics of landrace barley (Hordeum vulgare), and consequences of crop failure and possible seed relief during this time period, we genotyped seeds from 16 historical accessions originating from two time periods spanning the period of repeated crop failure. Reliable identification of genetic structuring is highly dependent on sampling regimes and detecting fine-scale geographic or temporal differentiation requires large sample sizes. The robustness of the results under different sampling regimes was evaluated by analyzing subsets of the data and an artificially pooled dataset. The results led to the conclusion that six individuals per accession were insufficient for reliable detection of the observed genetic structure. We found that population structure among the data was best explained by collection year of accessions, rather than geographic origin. The correlation with collection year indicated a change in genetic composition of landrace barley in the area after repeated crop failures, likely a consequence of introgression of relief seed in local populations. Identical genotypes were found to be shared among some accessions, suggesting founder effects and local seed exchange along known routes for trade and cultural exchange.

opencc-zeroOct 2019View details →

zenodo36/100

Data for high-clay content submarine slope failure flume experiments. Experiment 50% clay, static 3, part 3.

These video and photographic data support the following manuscripts:Silver, M.M.W., Dugan, B., 2020, The influence of clay content on submarine slope failure: insights from laboratory experiments and numerical models, Geological Society of London, Special Publications, 500, 301-309, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1144/SP500-2019-186">https://doi.org/10.1144/SP500-2019-186</a>. Silver, M.M.W., Dugan, B., 2023, Cohesion, permeability, and slope failure dynamics: implications for failure morphology and tsunamigenesis from benchtop flume experiments, Marine Geology, 462, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2023.107079">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2023.107079</a>.Log sheets are included for each experiment file.