Will the protests against the Koodankulam project force the government to pause and rethink its nuclear power plans? (Editorial)

Where conservation resources are limited and conservation targets are diverse, robust yet flexible priority-setting frameworks are vital. Priority-setting is especially important for geographically widespread species with distinct populations subject to multiple threats that operate on different spatial and temporal scales. Marine turtles are widely distributed and exhibit intra-specific variations in population sizes and trends, as well as reproduction and morphology.

Overfishing of large-bodied benthic fishes and their subsequent population collapses on the Scotian Shelf of Canada’s east coast and elsewhere resulted in restructuring of entire food webs now dominated by planktivorous, forage fish species and macroinvertebrates. Despite the imposition of strict management measures in force since the early 1990s, the Scotian Shelf ecosystem has not reverted back to its former structure. Here we provide evidence of the transient nature of this ecosystem and its current return path towards benthic fish species domination.

Upcoming change fails to tackle the pernicious relationship between government advisers and the fishing lobby, says Rainer Froese.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110706/pdf/475007a.pdf

The ecosystem-level impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster have been largely unpredictable due to the unique setting and magnitude of this spill. We used a five-year (2006–2010) data set within the oil-affected region to explore acute consequences for early-stage survival of fish species  inhabiting seagrass nursery habitat. Although many of these species