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Among other things, a globalizing world has challenged the old dichotomy between science and diplomacy and helped to facilitate the advent of Science Diplomacy. This term encompasses a particular form of public diplomacy and refers to the use of scientific collaborations among nations to tackle common challenges. Science Diplomacy operates on the assumption that many of today's problems—food, water, energy, climate, and health—cannot be solved by any single state and, more often than not, require international technical or scientific solutions. Does Science Diplomacy represent a major paradigm change or simply a minor adjustment in the making of foreign policy? In the Indo‐Pacific, the need for Science Diplomacy is clear, but at present there are mixed signals on whether states in the region are really prepared to develop its potential. On one hand, the Square Kilometre Array project—the construction of a large radio telescope in Australia and South Africa from 2018—represents a good example of a multilateral diplomatic effort to facilitate and extend scientific collaboration to dramatically improve human capabilities to survey the sky. On the other, science diplomacy has so far largely failed to live up to its potential to address climate change, the most significant threat to the future of the Indo‐Pacific region and the world beyond. However, successful efforts to make Ross Sea a global marine sanctuary also shows that, despite obstacles, Science Diplomacy can sometime have spillover effects into political decision making with positive outcomes. This mixed picture highlights a paradox. While the emergence of Science Diplomacy reflects a recognition by states that a growing number of national problems require international scientific solutions, such recognition remains patchy and somewhat uneven. Many states, particularly the most powerful ones, continue to be constrained in the international arena by the old Westphalian idea of unfettered state sovereignty.

Human activities drive environmental changes at scales that could potentially cause ecosystem collapses in the marine environment. We combined information on marine biodiversity with spatial assessments of the impacts of climate change to identify the key areas to prioritize for the conservation of global marine biodiversity. This process identified six marine regions of exceptional biodiversity based on global distributions of 1729 species of fish, 124 marine mammals, and 330 seabirds. Overall, these hot spots of marine biodiversity coincide with areas most severely affected by global warming. In particular, these marine biodiversity hot spots have undergone local to regional increasing water temperatures, slowing current circulation, and decreasing primary productivity. Furthermore, when we overlapped these hot spots with available industrial fishery data, albeit coarser than our estimates of climate impacts, they suggest a worrying coincidence whereby the world's richest areas for marine biodiversity are also those areas mostly affected by both climate change and industrial fishing. In light of these findings, we offer an adaptable framework for determining local to regional areas of special concern for the conservation of marine biodiversity. This has exposed the need for finer-scaled fishery data to assist in the management of global fisheries if the accumulative, but potentially preventable, effect of fishing on climate change impacts is to be minimized within areas prioritized for marine biodiversity conservation. ; We thank the continued support of the Phillip Island Nature Parks, Penguin Ecosystem Research Centre. Grants were received from the Penguin Foundation, the Australian Research Council, and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 641762 to the ECOPOTENTIAL project. ; We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). ; Peer reviewed

This study examined the dive behaviour of 20 lactating New Zealand fur seals
(Arctocephalus forsteri) breeding at Fuchsia Gully
(Ohinepuha, 45˚52S, 170˚44E), Otago Peninsula, New Zealand, over
five consecutive austral summers (1993/94–1997/98). We examined
annual variation in dive behaviour by classifying series of dives into dive
bouts using an iterative statistical technique. We found a non-random pattern
of dive bouts and bout classification was relatively insensitive to changes in
the clustering parameters used. Minimum bouts consisted of at least three
dives 10 m occurring within a 20-min period. Bouts were classified into three
bout types (clusters) using a multi-variate clustering procedure. These
clusters described bouts of: (1) long duration with many dives of medium depth
(LONG); (2) short duration with few, shallow dives (SHALLOW); and (3) short
duration consisting of long, deep dives and long surface intervals and bottom
times (DEEP). Diving was primarily nocturnal, and bout type varied
significantly with time of day. The proportion of LONG bouts was greatest at
dusk and least near dawn, SHALLOW bouts predominated during the night, and
DEEP bouts were of importance near dawn. Few dives occurred during the day. We
detected no annual differences in individual parameters of dive behaviour due
to low statistical power. We used randomisation tests to assess whether the
proportion of each bout type might vary in years of differing prey
consumption, but no significant differences were found. Changes in prey
composition were detected in two of these years, which suggests that using the
dive behaviour of generalist predators to detect changes in resource
availability may be a poor option. The high degree of flexibility in foraging
behaviour of the New Zealand fur seal means that, inevitably, analyses of dive
behaviour will have low statistical power. Changes in foraging behaviour may
only be useful to detect very large changes in resource availability.
Alternatively, very large sample sizes may be able to detect more subtle
changes.

This commentary considers the separate but interconnected evolution of science communication and environmental communication as fields of research and practice, and argues for better mutual understanding between the fields, including an understanding of necessary differences. It notes that the repertoires of science communication and environmental communication overlap but have different emphases. Environmental communication emphasises public allegiances with a view to persuasion; science communication has focussed on public understanding and appreciation of science. The potential and the need for closer cooperation are growing as the authority of science is challenged in political arenas. Both fields recognise the important contributions of science to public sense-making and informed decision-making on major issues. Increasing engagement with the science that underpins environmental issues could benefit environmental communicators. In political contexts, science communication could learn from environmental communication's greater attention to advocacy and symbolic representations.

The United Kingdom (UK) has placed itself on a transition towards a low-carbon economy and society, through the imposition of a goal of reducing its 'greenhouse' gas emissions by 80% by 2050. A set of three low-carbon 'Transition Pathways' were developed to examine the influence of different governance arrangements on achieving a low-carbon future. They focus on the power sector, including the potential for increasing use of low-carbon electricity for heating and transport. These transition pathways were developed by starting from narrative storylines regarding different governance framings, drawing on interviews and workshops with stakeholders and analysis of historical analogies. Here the quantified pathways are compared and contrasted with the main scenarios developed in the UK Government's 2011 Carbon Plan. This can aid an informed debate on the technical feasibility and social acceptability of realising transition pathways for decarbonising the UK energy sector by 2050. The contribution of these pathways to meeting Britain's energy and carbon reduction goals are therefore evaluated on a 'whole systems' basis, including the implications of 'upstream emissions' arising from the 'fuel supply chain' ahead of power generators themselves.

Cumulative human impacts across the world's oceans are considerable. We therefore examined a single model taxonomic group, the penguins (Spheniscidae), to explore how marine species and communities might be at risk of decline or extinction in the southern hemisphere. We sought to determine the most important threats to penguins and to suggest means to mitigate these threats. Our review has relevance to other taxonomic groups in the southern hemisphere and in northern latitudes, where human impacts are greater. Our review was based on an expert assessment and literature review of all 18 penguin species; 49 scientists contributed to the process. For each penguin species, we considered their range and distribution, population trends, and main anthropogenic threats over the past approximately 250 years. These threats were harvesting adults for oil, skin, and feathers and as bait for crab and rock lobster fisheries; harvesting of eggs; terrestrial habitat degradation; marine pollution; fisheries bycatch and resource competition; environmental variability and climate change; and toxic algal poisoning and disease. Habitat loss, pollution, and fishing, all factors humans can readily mitigate, remain the primary threats for penguin species. Their future resilience to further climate change impacts will almost certainly depend on addressing current threats to existing habitat degradation on land and at sea. We suggest protection of breeding habitat, linked to the designation of appropriately scaled marine reserves, including in the High Seas, will be critical for the future conservation of penguins. However, large-scale conservation zones are not always practical or politically feasible and other ecosystem-based management methods that include spatial zoning, bycatch mitigation, and robust harvest control must be developed to maintain marine biodiversity and ensure that ecosystem functioning is maintained across a variety of scales.

Cumulative human impacts across the world's oceans are considerable. We therefore examined a single model taxonomic group, the penguins (Spheniscidae), to explore how marine species and communities might be at risk of decline or extinction in the southern hemisphere. We sought to determine the most important threats to penguins and to suggest means to mitigate these threats. Our review has relevance to other taxonomic groups in the southern hemisphere and in northern latitudes, where human impacts are greater. Our review was based on an expert assessment and literature review of all 18 penguin species; 49 scientists contributed to the process. For each penguin species, we considered their range and distribution, population trends, and main anthropogenic threats over the past approximately 250 years. These threats were harvesting adults for oil, skin, and feathers and as bait for crab and rock lobster fisheries; harvesting of eggs; terrestrial habitat degradation; marine pollution; fisheries bycatch and resource competition; environmental variability and climate change; and toxic algal poisoning and disease. Habitat loss, pollution, and fishing, all factors humans can readily mitigate, remain the primary threats for penguin species. Their future resilience to further climate change impacts will almost certainly depend on addressing current threats to existing habitat degradation on land and at sea. We suggest protection of breeding habitat, linked to the designation of appropriately scaled marine reserves, including in the High Seas, will be critical for the future conservation of penguins. However, large-scale conservation zones are not always practical or politically feasible and other ecosystem-based management methods that include spatial zoning, bycatch mitigation, and robust harvest control must be developed to maintain marine biodiversity and ensure that ecosystem functioning is maintained across a variety of scales. ; Los impactos humanos acumulativos a lo largo de los océanos del planeta son considerables. Por eso examinamos un solo modelo de grupo taxonómico, los pingüinos (Sphenischidae), para explorar cómo las especies y las comunidades marinas pueden estar en riesgo de disminuir o de extinguirse en el hemisferio sur. Buscamos determinar la amenaza más importante para los pingüinos y sugerir métodos para mitigar estas amenazas. Nuestra revisión tiene relevancia para otros grupos taxonómicos en el hemisferio sur y en las latitudes norteñas, donde los impactos humanos son mayores. Nuestra revisión se basó en una evaluación experta y una revisión de literaratura de las 18 especies de pingüinos; 49 científicos contribuyeron al proceso. Para cada especie de pingüino, consideramos su rango y distribución, tendencias poblacionales y las principales amenazas antropogénicas en aproximadamente los últimos 250 años. Estas amenazas fueron la captura de adultos para obtener aceite, piel y plumas y el uso como carnada para la pesca de cangrejos y langostas: la recolección de huevos; la degradación del hábitat terrestre; la contaminación marina; la pesca accesoria y la competencia por recursos; la variabilidad ambiental y el cambio climático; y el envenenamiento por algas tóxicas y enfermedades. La pérdida de hábitat, la contaminación y la pesca, todos factores que los humanos pueden mitigar, siguen siendo las amenazas principales para las especies de pingüinos. Su resiliencia futura a más impactos por cambio climático dependerá certeramente de que nos enfoquemos en las amenazas actuales a la degradación de hábitats existentes en tierra y en el mar. Sugerimos que la protección de hábitats de reproducción, en conjunto con la designación de reservas marinas de escala apropiada, incluyendo alta mar, será crítica para la conservación futura de los pingüinos. Sin embargo, las zonas de conservación a gran escala no son siempre prácticas o políticamente viables, y otros métodos de manejo basados en ecosistemas que incluyen la zonificación espacial, la mitigación de captura accesoria, y el control fuerte de captura deben desarrollarse para mantener la biodiversidad marina y asegurar que el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas se mantenga a lo largo de una variedad de escalas. ; Fil: Trathan, Phil N. British Antartic Survey; Reino Unido ; Fil: Garcia Borboroglu, Jorge Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Nacional Patagónico; Argentina ; Fil: Boersma, P. Dee. University of Washington; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Bost, Charles André. Centre d´Etudes Biologiques de Chizé; Francia ; Fil: Crawford, Robert J. M. Department of Environmental Affairs; Sudáfrica ; Fil: Crossin, Glenn T. Dalhousie University Halifax; Canadá ; Fil: Cuthbert, Richard. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; Reino Unido ; Fil: Dann, Peter. Phillip Island Nature Parks; Australia ; Fil: Davis, Lloyd Spencer. University Of Otago; Nueva Zelanda ; Fil: de la Puente, Santiago. Universidad Cayetano Heredia; Perú ; Fil: Ellenberg, Ursula. University Of Otago; Nueva Zelanda ; Fil: Lynch, Heather J. Stony Brook University; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Mattern, Thomas. University Of Otago; Nueva Zelanda ; Fil: Pütz, Klemens. Antarctic Research Trust; Alemania ; Fil: Seddon, Philip J. University Of Otago; Nueva Zelanda ; Fil: Trivelpiece, Wayne. Southwest Fisheries Science Center; Estados Unidos ; Fil: Wienecke, Bárbara. Australian Antarctic Division; Australia