Team profile by Dana Grieco

In the rapidly developing field of ocean science and conservation, evidence synthesis and gap maps can provide informed and data-based direction for government, scientific and philanthropic organizations as they decide how to invest limited resources in particular programs and policy interventions.

Evidence gap maps help identify studies that suggest linkages between particular interventions and outcomes (e.g., ecological, social) and can help identify and characterize contexts for understanding tradeoffs and synergies in conservation decision-making. In this era of rapid social and environmental change for the world’s oceans, evidence synthesis is a powerful tool to draw insights from multiple sources to help guide evidence-based decision-making.  

In collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund and building on the work of previous teams, this Bass Connections project continued to create an ocean evidence gap map on coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses. Our project team examined the interdisciplinary literature base, evaluating what natural and social science research reveals about the nature of linkages between conservation interventions (such as catch limits and restoration) and both natural and social outcomes (e.g., fish abundance, ecosystem health and resilience, income and well-being). 

The team also assessed the strength of the evidence and the linkage pathways between both conservation interventions and outcomes and interdisciplinary conservation outcomes. Further analyses will involve looking at linkages between outcomes themselves, for example, between fisheries and food security outcomes from conservation. Our team is not yet done re-screening the literature base, and aims to have a completed Ocean Evidence Gap Map this summer.

As a bi-campus team, we meet weekly on Zoom. Thus, our team really enjoyed meeting in-person at the Duke University Marine Lab and taking a tour of the Bonehenge Whale Center in Beaufort, North Carolina!

Ocean Evidence Gap Map and Synthesis

Poster by Curtis Cha, Sasha Itturalde, Ali Pagliery, Julia Plasynski, Amanda Sajewski and Sadaf Sutaria