ARTIS Exchange Overview
We will host hackathon-style ARTIS Exchange events that will bring individuals and small teams of early career researchers to the University of Washington for a 2.5-day hackathon-style research event. Participants will gain access to the full ARTIS data and visualization tools and will receive feedback and input on their projects from the ARITS team. During this sprint event, each individual/team will focus on answering a pressing question about global aquatic food trade and its interaction with the environment and/or nutrition security. Participation in the ARTIS Exchange events will be supported by funding from NSF.
The primary goals are to:
1) engage a broad group of data users who can subsequently further distribute the data product
2) incorporate feedback from diverse users
3) facilitate interdisciplinary and synthetic research among diverse early career scholars.
The primary goals are to:
1) engage a broad group of data users who can subsequently further distribute the data product
2) incorporate feedback from diverse users
3) facilitate interdisciplinary and synthetic research among diverse early career scholars.
ARTIS Exchange 2024
Applications for ARTIS Exchange 2024 are currently closed.
Event date: July 31-August 2, 2024
Event location: University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Event date: July 31-August 2, 2024
Event location: University of Washington, Seattle, WA
ARTIS Exchange 2024 Projects
International nutrient flows and Sustainable Development Goals in Pacific food systems
Keiko Nomura, Min Gon Chung, Harrison Hartle, and Jianguo (Jack) Liu (advisor)
International seafood trade plays a crucial role in distributing essential dietary nutrients globally, but it is susceptible to disruptions from environmental and socioeconomic events. These disruptions, including natural disasters, pandemics, and geopolitical issues, can significantly impact seafood production and imports. Such perturbations are particularly concerning for nutrient-insecure countries, which are more vulnerable to supply chain changes. The Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are especially at risk, given their dependence on food imports, rising unhealthy food imports, and diet-related health issues like non-communicable diseases. Additionally, the flow of fisheries-derived nutrients from PICTs to more nutrient-secure countries and the region’s low socioeconomic status heighten their sensitivity to these impacts. This project aims to understand how seafood-derived nutrient flows are influenced by social-ecological factors and their effects on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the PICTs. We will leverage empirical data and theoretical modeling to analyze: i) net nutrient flows via marine capture fisheries trade; ii) social-ecological impacts on nutrient flow network structures; and iii) the influence of nutrient flows on relevant SDGs. Environmental, fisheries, and geopolitical factors will be examined to see how they affect fisheries production or trade affinities, and SDG progress metrics related to health, inequality, and resource production will be assessed. Our research seeks to address: What are the patterns of international trade and nutrient flows from marine capture fisheries? How do these networks evolve over time in relation to various conditions? How can understanding these dynamics enhance the relationships between SDGs and seafood systems in the PICTs?
Trade discrepancies can help inform interventions to improve fisheries sustainability
M. Isidora Ávila-Thieme, C. Josh Donlan (advisor), Gloria Luque (advisor), and Stefan Gelcich (advisor)
Global seafood production gaps produced by demand exceeding production, along with impacts from environmental change, pose a risk to the sustainability of many fisheries. This includes small-scale fisheries (SSF), which often lack scientific information, strong management measures, and effective enforcement. Currently, SSF contributes a large share of its catch to international trade, and its role as a supplier is expected to increase as providing market access to SSF is one of the sustainable development goals (SDG14.b). This can be an important cause of overfishing, especially for fisheries with low levels of compliance. Trade analyses can help identify potential discrepancies in trade flows (e.g., estimated exports exceed production) and help to characterize fisheries based on relative risk profiles. Here, we will assess trade flow discrepancies in 28 Chilean SSF of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem. For each fishery, we will analyze the export dynamics of the last five years (2016-2020) and compare them with national production based on ARTIS and Chilean governmental databases. ARTIS can assign the source of exports into domestic, foreign, and unknown. The last category is a discrepancy that can be real or produced by an error in the model. Therefore, we will disentangle the factors that explain the origin of the unknown sources to have more accurate estimates of exports. Finally, we
will integrate fisheries discrepancies with their status to sort their risk profile from high to low. We expect discrepancies can inform interventions to improve fisheries sustainability.
Resolving Trade Patterns of Seafood Byproducts for fishmeal and oil in the ARTIS Database
Gage Clawson and Rich Cottrell (advisor)
An increasing proportion of fishmeal and oil used in animal feeds is sourced from fish byproducts, or "trimmings" (e.g., entrails, skins, tails, heads, scales, bones). Using trimmings allows marine ingredient manufacturers to reduce waste by using parts of wild-caught and farmed fish that might otherwise be discarded. Trimmings represent a potential circular benefit to fishmeal and oil industries, however, these by-products are underused and understudied. In particular, the trade patterns of these resources are poorly understood, both spatially and temporally, resulting in a paucity of data. With the newly developed ARTIS database, we aim to track fishmeal derived from trimmings through global trade data. We will identify the species composition and origins of trimmed marine ingredients and explore trade patterns for these resources to understand current utilisation for animal feeds globally. Ultimately, understanding the provenance of these feed ingredients has implications for the sustainability and nutritional value of fed animal systems.
Drivers of serial exploitation for luxurious marine biological products
Leonardo Manir Feitosa and Christopher Free (advisor)
Exploitation of marine species for luxury consumption has been occurring for centuries. Luxury products are status symbols that set their consumers apart from ordinary ones, positioning them as an exclusive good in high demand and limited supply. Given the expansion of luxury markets due to a growing middle class, rising per capita wealth, and expanding global trade connections, the geographical and taxonomic footprint of harvests for luxury goods has accelerated. This expansion has created a pattern of serial exploitation and depletion across the world’s aquatic species. In this project, we will evaluate what are the drivers of serial exploitation associated with the harvest of marine luxury biological products, including abalone, shark fins, fish swim bladders, and live reef fish. We hypothesize that such a pattern could be driven by the geographic distance from harvest point to the end-market, the trade strength between importing and exporting countries, the weak socioeconomic and governance features of exporting countries, and the evolutionary relatedness between main target species and their substitutes. By determining which are the main drivers, we can further predict which species are likely to enter trade in the future and where they will probably come from. Such information is critical for wildlife trade agreements such as CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and could help to transform wildlife trade policy from a reactive paradigm to a proactive one.
Global trade of nationally endangered seafood species
Rosa Mar Dominguez-Martinez, Carissa Klein (advisor), Leslie Roberson (advisor), and Glenn Sant (advisor)
Commercial fishing is a major factor in the decline of ocean biodiversity. The IUCN Red List of endangered species is a comprehensive resource for the global conservation status of species, but regional populations can differ from their global listing. For instance, a species might be globally threatened and listed on the IUCN Red List but stable in a specific country, or vice versa. Understanding these differences is crucial for developing effective policies and regulations, particularly targeting the import, export and harvest of endangered species. Some countries have their own lists of threatened species under national laws, such as Australia’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the USA’s Endangered Species Act. However, there is no comprehensive database compiling these national lists, which could greatly improve global seafood sustainability efforts. In this project, we will create a detailed database of nationally threatened species and assess the extent to which each species is exported as seafood. Based on results from Australia, which found that 107
kilotons of four threatened species were exported, we expect that other nations are also exporting threatened species. The results will help policymakers align conservation efforts with trade practices to ensure sustainable seafood resources.
Evaluating the trade of shark species under global finning regulations
Sara Orofino, Kaiwen (Kevin) Wang, Echelle Burns, and Gavin McDonald (advisor)
Sharks are important apex predators, yet over one third of Chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimeras) are threatened by overfishing. The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in national and international measures aimed at reducing the wasteful practices associated with shark finning, where valuable fins are retained and carcasses are discarded, by requiring fins to be naturally attached or in a prescribed fin-to-carcass ratio. However, a recent global study on shark mortality found little evidence that finning regulations were effective in decreasing shark mortality in national waters and perhaps even led to increased mortality. These findings were corroborated by expert interviews suggesting that finning regulations may have incentivized the retention of whole sharks and contributed to the creation or expansion of markets for shark meat. This project aims to assess the causal relationship between shark finning regulations and the biomass of traded sharks by leveraging ARTIS trade data and a time series of national finning regulations. The creation or expansion of markets for shark meat poses a significant threat to the continued overexploitation of threatened shark populations; identifying the causes underlying this ongoing threat to sharks is of paramount importance for shark conservation.
Keiko Nomura, Min Gon Chung, Harrison Hartle, and Jianguo (Jack) Liu (advisor)
International seafood trade plays a crucial role in distributing essential dietary nutrients globally, but it is susceptible to disruptions from environmental and socioeconomic events. These disruptions, including natural disasters, pandemics, and geopolitical issues, can significantly impact seafood production and imports. Such perturbations are particularly concerning for nutrient-insecure countries, which are more vulnerable to supply chain changes. The Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are especially at risk, given their dependence on food imports, rising unhealthy food imports, and diet-related health issues like non-communicable diseases. Additionally, the flow of fisheries-derived nutrients from PICTs to more nutrient-secure countries and the region’s low socioeconomic status heighten their sensitivity to these impacts. This project aims to understand how seafood-derived nutrient flows are influenced by social-ecological factors and their effects on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the PICTs. We will leverage empirical data and theoretical modeling to analyze: i) net nutrient flows via marine capture fisheries trade; ii) social-ecological impacts on nutrient flow network structures; and iii) the influence of nutrient flows on relevant SDGs. Environmental, fisheries, and geopolitical factors will be examined to see how they affect fisheries production or trade affinities, and SDG progress metrics related to health, inequality, and resource production will be assessed. Our research seeks to address: What are the patterns of international trade and nutrient flows from marine capture fisheries? How do these networks evolve over time in relation to various conditions? How can understanding these dynamics enhance the relationships between SDGs and seafood systems in the PICTs?
Trade discrepancies can help inform interventions to improve fisheries sustainability
M. Isidora Ávila-Thieme, C. Josh Donlan (advisor), Gloria Luque (advisor), and Stefan Gelcich (advisor)
Global seafood production gaps produced by demand exceeding production, along with impacts from environmental change, pose a risk to the sustainability of many fisheries. This includes small-scale fisheries (SSF), which often lack scientific information, strong management measures, and effective enforcement. Currently, SSF contributes a large share of its catch to international trade, and its role as a supplier is expected to increase as providing market access to SSF is one of the sustainable development goals (SDG14.b). This can be an important cause of overfishing, especially for fisheries with low levels of compliance. Trade analyses can help identify potential discrepancies in trade flows (e.g., estimated exports exceed production) and help to characterize fisheries based on relative risk profiles. Here, we will assess trade flow discrepancies in 28 Chilean SSF of the Humboldt Current Ecosystem. For each fishery, we will analyze the export dynamics of the last five years (2016-2020) and compare them with national production based on ARTIS and Chilean governmental databases. ARTIS can assign the source of exports into domestic, foreign, and unknown. The last category is a discrepancy that can be real or produced by an error in the model. Therefore, we will disentangle the factors that explain the origin of the unknown sources to have more accurate estimates of exports. Finally, we
will integrate fisheries discrepancies with their status to sort their risk profile from high to low. We expect discrepancies can inform interventions to improve fisheries sustainability.
Resolving Trade Patterns of Seafood Byproducts for fishmeal and oil in the ARTIS Database
Gage Clawson and Rich Cottrell (advisor)
An increasing proportion of fishmeal and oil used in animal feeds is sourced from fish byproducts, or "trimmings" (e.g., entrails, skins, tails, heads, scales, bones). Using trimmings allows marine ingredient manufacturers to reduce waste by using parts of wild-caught and farmed fish that might otherwise be discarded. Trimmings represent a potential circular benefit to fishmeal and oil industries, however, these by-products are underused and understudied. In particular, the trade patterns of these resources are poorly understood, both spatially and temporally, resulting in a paucity of data. With the newly developed ARTIS database, we aim to track fishmeal derived from trimmings through global trade data. We will identify the species composition and origins of trimmed marine ingredients and explore trade patterns for these resources to understand current utilisation for animal feeds globally. Ultimately, understanding the provenance of these feed ingredients has implications for the sustainability and nutritional value of fed animal systems.
Drivers of serial exploitation for luxurious marine biological products
Leonardo Manir Feitosa and Christopher Free (advisor)
Exploitation of marine species for luxury consumption has been occurring for centuries. Luxury products are status symbols that set their consumers apart from ordinary ones, positioning them as an exclusive good in high demand and limited supply. Given the expansion of luxury markets due to a growing middle class, rising per capita wealth, and expanding global trade connections, the geographical and taxonomic footprint of harvests for luxury goods has accelerated. This expansion has created a pattern of serial exploitation and depletion across the world’s aquatic species. In this project, we will evaluate what are the drivers of serial exploitation associated with the harvest of marine luxury biological products, including abalone, shark fins, fish swim bladders, and live reef fish. We hypothesize that such a pattern could be driven by the geographic distance from harvest point to the end-market, the trade strength between importing and exporting countries, the weak socioeconomic and governance features of exporting countries, and the evolutionary relatedness between main target species and their substitutes. By determining which are the main drivers, we can further predict which species are likely to enter trade in the future and where they will probably come from. Such information is critical for wildlife trade agreements such as CITES and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and could help to transform wildlife trade policy from a reactive paradigm to a proactive one.
Global trade of nationally endangered seafood species
Rosa Mar Dominguez-Martinez, Carissa Klein (advisor), Leslie Roberson (advisor), and Glenn Sant (advisor)
Commercial fishing is a major factor in the decline of ocean biodiversity. The IUCN Red List of endangered species is a comprehensive resource for the global conservation status of species, but regional populations can differ from their global listing. For instance, a species might be globally threatened and listed on the IUCN Red List but stable in a specific country, or vice versa. Understanding these differences is crucial for developing effective policies and regulations, particularly targeting the import, export and harvest of endangered species. Some countries have their own lists of threatened species under national laws, such as Australia’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the USA’s Endangered Species Act. However, there is no comprehensive database compiling these national lists, which could greatly improve global seafood sustainability efforts. In this project, we will create a detailed database of nationally threatened species and assess the extent to which each species is exported as seafood. Based on results from Australia, which found that 107
kilotons of four threatened species were exported, we expect that other nations are also exporting threatened species. The results will help policymakers align conservation efforts with trade practices to ensure sustainable seafood resources.
Evaluating the trade of shark species under global finning regulations
Sara Orofino, Kaiwen (Kevin) Wang, Echelle Burns, and Gavin McDonald (advisor)
Sharks are important apex predators, yet over one third of Chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimeras) are threatened by overfishing. The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in national and international measures aimed at reducing the wasteful practices associated with shark finning, where valuable fins are retained and carcasses are discarded, by requiring fins to be naturally attached or in a prescribed fin-to-carcass ratio. However, a recent global study on shark mortality found little evidence that finning regulations were effective in decreasing shark mortality in national waters and perhaps even led to increased mortality. These findings were corroborated by expert interviews suggesting that finning regulations may have incentivized the retention of whole sharks and contributed to the creation or expansion of markets for shark meat. This project aims to assess the causal relationship between shark finning regulations and the biomass of traded sharks by leveraging ARTIS trade data and a time series of national finning regulations. The creation or expansion of markets for shark meat poses a significant threat to the continued overexploitation of threatened shark populations; identifying the causes underlying this ongoing threat to sharks is of paramount importance for shark conservation.
