Despite the bad reputation of sharks, they are crucial to the health of the marine ecosystem and can even help fight climate change.

In the shallows of Shark Bay, Western Australia, seagrass is food for the sea cows, which can weigh as much as 500kg and eat roughly 40kg of seagrass a day. Sea cows are a rich source of food for tiger sharks. By keeping the sea cow population in check, tiger sharks here help the seagrass meadows (草地) grow. A flourishing seagrass meadow stores twice as much CO2 per square mile as forests typically do on land.

But tiger shark numbers are declining. Off Australia’s northeast coast of Queensland, tiger sharks are estimated to have fallen by at least 71 percent, largely due to overfishing. A reduction in tiger sharks means more seagrass consumed by herbivores (食草动物) and less carbon stored in sea vegetation. This begged the question: What if they were absent from the Shark Bay—would the seagrass dominated ecosystem survive?

To find out, researchers led by Rob Nowicki of Florida International University, spent time in Eastern Australia, where shark numbers were lower and sea cows ate seagrass largely undisturbed. “When unchecked, sea cows can rapidly destroy wide areas of seagrass,” said Nowicki. “When the seagrass recovers, the seagrass community looks different, with more tropical species dominating than before.”

Those findings underlined the role that tiger sharks were playing in Shark Bay. If their populations continue to decline, the resilience of carbon-rich ocean ecosystems will likely decrease.

When it comes to boosting shark numbers, there have been movements toward more sustainable fishing, but a large percentage of the industry have not changed their methods, which is a reason why the population of many marine top predators continues to decline.

Aside from supporting sustainable fishing, Nowicki said the only way to truly protect marine life is to reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions. “Ultimately, if we are going to conserve our ecosystems in the centuries to come, we are going to need to solve climate change while undertaking species conservation at the same time.”

While vertical (垂直的) farming of plants in limited space has been around for some time, new research looking into the “vertical farming of seafood” is being developed by Broderick House.

As part of his PhD project at the University of Cambridge, Broderick is looking at farming bivalves (双壳贝) within city boundaries. “In terms of sustainable (可持续的) food options, and from a food security standpoint, being able to expand bivalve farming from the coast into cities means you have a safe environment to produce a highly nutritious and micronutrient rich source of food,” says Broderick.

The biggest challenge, of course, is water consumption. The artificial aquaculture (水产业) environment cannot fully compare to farming in the ocean, but by using advanced flowing aquaculture systems, water use can be reduced, as only 10% of the water in the tank must be changed every day. “If you’re comparing it to traditional agricultural livestock — cows, pigs, chickens, which are farmed in fields, it uses much less water, and provides competing levels of protein,” Broderick explains.

While sustainability can, upon first look, be accomplished by building facilities to farm bivalves inland, there is also a possibility to repurpose existing buildings which would help to decrease carbon emissions from transportation as well. Broderick points out the biggest carbon footprint in aquaculture is the feed for the livestock, and he is working together with the Algal Innovation Centre at University of Cambridge, to develop more sustainable feed options.

To help translate his research into the business world, Broderick has been supported by the EnterpriseTECH and EnterpriseTECH STAR programmes at the CJBS Entrepreneurship Centre. “CJBS has been a fantastic resource and community. The business ecosystem here has provided important tools in a constructive and informed way to help ensure my PhD research has a positive role in shaping the future of global food security,” Broderick says.

With red claws and face plus a large, curved black beak and crest — the crested ibis (朱鹮) is known as the beauty bird or fairy bird in China. They have existed for nearly 60 million years and were widespread in China, Korea, Japan and Russia until the 1960s when the widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers, plus a loss of Habitat, drove the birds lo near extinction. At one point, the entire species around the world was thought to be down to only six birds.

However, Liu Yinzeng, then a researcher at the Zoology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, refused to accept what seemed to be the birds’ destiny. At 42, he headed a team setting out on a mission in 1975 to search for crested ibises in the wild in China. His team searched through mountainous areas in nine provinces over three years, yet all to no avail. Finally, in May 1981, a breakthrough came. The team found two adult crested ibises in Yang county in Shaanxi province. A week later, two other adult crested ibises with three chicks were found nesting in a tree at a farm in the same area.

Steps were taken to ensure the birds were not disturbed, with people stationed 24/7 near the tree to prevent attacks by other animals. Farmers were also banned from using fertilizers and pesticide at the nearby farm for fear of poisoning the birds. A ban was also placed on shooting guns in case it scared the birds away.

The area where the birds were initially found became the site of the first crested ibis conservation station in China and 19 chicks were born from 1981 until 1990. A breeding program for the birds was later started in the 1990s and crested ibises began to nest in Zhejiang, Sichuan and Henan provinces. Today, some five decades later, the number of crested ibises in China has reached more than 2,600 at the last count, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported this month.