Dr. Daniel Pauly is the world’s most-cited fisheries scientist, but life for the UBC professor has been far from easy. The biracial son of a French woman and an American GI, he was born in Paris and kidnapped as a child to be a live-in servant for a Swiss family. Dr. Pauly went on to blow the whistle on the devastation caused to marine ecosystems by the global fishing industry, and to become a marine scientist whose work received worldwide recognition. Now, readers can learn more in his biography, The Ocean’s Whistleblower, available this week.

University of East Anglia researchers have developed a new way of determining the age of a lobster based on its DNA. Lobsters are notoriously difficult to age. Nobody knows exactly how old they can get, and some experts have estimated they could live on the ocean floor for as long as a century or more. Until now, a lobster's age has usually been estimated using its size - but this is inaccurate as individual lobsters grow at different rates. The new DNA-based technique could help manage lobster fisheries more sustainably.

While agrifood production is essential for feeding our growing global population, it can also contribute to environmental and social problems, including deforestation, biodiversity loss, poor or precarious labor conditions, and persistent poverty. Certification and standards can encourage use of sustainable production practices, but how effective are such programs in addressing food system challenges? A new study from a team of international researchers reviews the literature on sustainability standards and identifies a series of important questions.

The global decline of pollinators threatens the reproductive success of 90 per cent of all wild plants globally and the yield of 85 per cent of the world’s most important crops. Pollinators – mainly bees and other insects – contribute to 35 per cent of the world's food production. The service provided by pollinators is particularly important for securing food produced by the more than two billion small farmers worldwide. An agroecologist at the University of Göttingen points out that yields could be increased if pollinators were encouraged. The article was published in One Earth.

When warmwater fish species like bass, walleye and crappie that are not native to the Pacific Northwest, but prized by some anglers, overlap with baby spring chinook salmon in reservoirs in Oregon’s Willamette River they consume more baby salmon than native fish per individual, new research found.