An ecosystem is defined as a collection of organisms that move energy within and outside of a system, while sustaining both the system itself and the multiple services that benefit humanity. Ecosystem restoration, then, is ultimately concerned with reviving and maintaining ecosystem processes by repopulating organisms and enhancing the habitat after periods of disturbance or loss. Whether interventions are considered "successful" depends on three criteria: 1) were the goals/outcomes clearly defined before implementing the intervention; 2) did the outcome arise directly from the intervention, and 3) does the outcome reflect a functioning ecosystem in the long term (e.g., > 10 years)? The answers to these questions have been challenging for coral restoration practitioners, as they are often hindered by the lack of predefined hypotheses and rigorous experimental design and by confusion between metrics quantifying coral production and outplanting efforts rather than recovery of community structure and ecosystem functioning. As a result, the impacts of restoration efforts are inconsistently and often incorrectly interpreted, and funding is often tied to intervention activities instead of outcomes. Here, we present a framework to implementing robust experimental designs and measure more relevant ecosystem indicators in order to assess the impacts of interventions and promote more informed and effective restoration outcomes. We then illustrate these concepts by reviewing coral restoration-specific case studies to demonstrate the degree to which successful outcomes under such a framework have been achieved. Through these practical recommendations, we hope to support coral restoration practitioners in designing and executing future interventions, and to encourage the broader community, including funders, to adopt a more systematic framework to evaluate and report restoration success.

Marine ecosystems are increasingly threatened by overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change, underscoring the need for long-term, representative information on key fish populations and habitats to inform management and policy. Underwater fish observation (UFObs) techniques, such as Underwater Visual Census (UVC), stereo-Baited Remote Underwater Video (stereo-BRUV) and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), play a key role in sustaining long-term data collection. Despite technological advancements, gaps persist in understanding research focus, geographic distribution and methodological biases inherent in these methods. We conducted a scientometric analysis of 1443 peer-reviewed publications (1953-2023), employing natural language processing and network analysis to map the research landscape. We identified 15 knowledge clusters, including marine protected areas, apex predator conservation and reef ecosystems. Our findings reveal increasing use of BRUVS and ROVs in studies of marine protected areas and subsea infrastructure, while UVC remains prevalent in shallow coral reef research. Geographic representation is skewed, with the field dominated by researchers based in Australia and the United States, and underrepresented in Africa and Southeast Asia. This imbalance highlights the need for more inclusive, globally coordinated monitoring and reporting. Our results underscore the urgency of standardising protocols within each observation method and developing interoperable reporting frameworks across techniques to maximise data comparability and foster international collaboration. Addressing these challenges will strengthen the field's capacity to inform global conservation strategies and support sustainable fisheries management.

Kelp forests are declining in many regions due to ocean warming, predator loss, and other anthropogenic stressors. In areas of rapid ocean warming, including the southern Gulf of Maine, these ecosystems have transitioned to a novel state dominated by low-lying mats of turf algae. However, the pace, drivers, and ecological consequences of this transition remain unclear. Here, we used field surveys from 32 sites over 5 years (2018-2023) to reveal a continuation of kelp forest collapse and northward expansion of turf algae across Maine's coast. Next, we united data on benthic cover with key environmental variables in a structural equation model to show that turf algae were directly enhanced by higher ocean temperatures and decreased wave disturbance and indirectly enhanced by a warming-induced loss of kelp cover. Lastly, we revealed the shift from kelp to turf yielded a seaweed assemblage dominated by traits associated with rapid growth, high surface area-to-volume ratios, and markedly reduced canopy height, indicating declines in habitat provisioning and carbon storage with kelp forest loss. Our findings highlight the accelerating impacts of climate change on temperate reef ecosystems and the vital services they provide. Further, we provide insights into a new state shift that is now occurring globally and underscore the need for urgent actions to mitigate further loss of foundational kelp forests.

To effectively manage and protect ocean life and the people who depend on it, we need coordinated, comparable observations of ocean biodiversity. Seagrass cover and composition is an essential ocean variable (EOV) of the Global Ocean Observing System because seagrasses are the foundation of coastal ecosystems worldwide, and support diverse marine life and ecosystem services. We present guidelines for collecting and reporting seagrass data that fulfill specifications for the EOV, including three priority measurements to maximize compatibility among data sets: seagrass cover, species composition, and areal extent, with priority environmental variables for interpreting changes in status and condition. To promote interoperability, we present a standard format for seagrass EOV data and metadata. These guidelines will enable better monitoring and assessment of seagrass ecosystems, facilitate syntheses, inform the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework headline indicator "Extent of natural ecosystems," and support evidence-based conservation and sustainable development.

The capacity of natural systems to deliver multiple functions and services simultaneously is critical for human well-being, yet this concept of multifunctionality has rarely been applied to the nutritional role of nature. Coral reef fisheries are known to supply multiple essential nutrients, but the contribution of adjacent habitats to alleviating human malnutrition remains poorly understood. Here, we apply a multifunctionality index to quantify the micronutrient potential of seagrass- and reef-associated fish assemblages across a 3,000-km coastline in East Africa. Considering suites of micronutrients as an integrated system, we show that seagrass-associated fish assemblages are, on average, 1.6 times more nutritionally multifunctional than reef-associated assemblages, despite supporting lower total biomass. This nutritional advantage is even more pronounced when focusing on key regional fishery species. Our findings identify seagrass meadows as underrecognized reservoirs of micronutrients with important implications for human health in low- and middle-income countries dependent on small-scale fisheries.

Parachute science is the problematic and extractive practice of non-local researchers taking data, knowledge and information from communities of which they are not members, failing to engage the local community and local scientists, marginalizing them in most aspects of the research, and using the results to their own benefit. Perpetuated by colonialism and unequal access to resources such as funding, education and data, it is harmful to local scientists and undervalues the contributions of the community as a whole. Ultimately, it erodes trust within the scientific community and, more broadly, builds dependence on foreign researchers and makes science less global and collaborative. Increasing international and cross-cultural collaborations while being careful to avoid parachute science can help minimize these impacts. Here, we offer our perspectives on parachute science and suggestions on how to avoid it, based on our experiences conducting research internationally with diverse scientists and communities, including both academics and non-academics. Instead of a parachute, we suggest opening the scientific "umbrella" to incorporate diverse perspectives and local contributions in generating relevant and impactful scientific insight.

Submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) provides essential habitat and food to numerous coastal invertebrate species. In the eutrophic Baltic Sea, fast-growing drifting algae form extensive mats that can negatively impact SAV. However, these mats also offer additional habitat and food to epifauna. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of SAV and filamentous mats on epifaunal communities in shallow soft-bottom habitats around Gotland, Sweden, in the central Baltic Sea. We used generalised linear models (GLMs) to evaluate the influence of SAV vertical structure, biomass and macrophyte species richness (including macroalgae) and filamentous mat biomass on epifaunal community properties as well as on those of key grazer species. Diversity, vertical structure and biomass of SAV were positively associated with higher total epifaunal abundance and greater abundance gastropod grazers. In contrast, filamentous mats only increased gastropod abundance and biomass. In addition to introducing a rapid tool for quantifying vegetation structural complexity, this study highlights the selective effects of different habitat types on invertebrate communities in a relatively understudied region of the Baltic Sea. As warming temperatures and eutrophication promote filamentous mat growth, reducing nutrient pollution and protecting SAV will be crucial for sustaining abundant and diverse epifaunal communities.

Marine megaherbivores, particularly green turtles Chelonia mydas, graze on tropical seagrasses worldwide and play a substantial role in determining the structure and function of these ecosystems. To advance our understanding of the effects of green turtles on seagrass meadows, we (1) conducted an experimental exclusion experiment on turtlegrass Thalassia testudinum at 2 green turtle foraging sites in Bimini, Bahamas, and (2) performed a global meta-analysis of 587 comparisons of seagrass response variables from 32 peer-reviewed studies examining the effects of grazing by green turtles via experimental exclosure and/or simulated grazing. In our field experiment, only one turtlegrass parameter responded significantly to the exclusion of turtle grazing: across the entire 3 mo exclosure period, only seagrass density was significantly increased in the grazed plots. Across the existing literature, however, excluding green turtles has generally been found to increase seagrass aboveground biomass, shoot morphology, productivity, and metabolic rate, and not significantly affect measures of nutrient content, belowground biomass, or epiphytes. These effects were influenced by seagrass identity and grazing type but not by geographic location (i.e. latitude) or experimental duration. Our synthesis supports the general importance of green turtles in structuring seagrass ecosystems, while our experiment highlights that those effects can be site- and context-dependent, indicating the need for additional factors to be considered when assessing grazer effects on seagrass meadows.

Aim: How communities of organisms come together has long fascinated scientists, with renewed interest in using functional and evolutionary patterns to infer mechanisms of community assembly. Ecological theory predicts that biotic interactions could lead to either divergence in the event of niche partitioning or convergence through the exclusion of competitively inferior species, but most macroecological studies attribute the latter to environmental influences. Here, we investigated the relative importance of these two opposing mechanisms across broad spatial gradients. We hypothesised stronger signals of: (i) convergence at high latitude owing to ecological generalism and (ii) divergence at low latitudes owing to specialisation. Major Taxa Studied: Reef-associated bony fishes. Location: Global.Time Period2006-2019. Methods: We used a global dataset on marine reef fish assemblages comprising 2476 species at 3325 sites to disentangle the biotic drivers of community assembly across > 100 degrees of latitude. We then applied a framework to remove environmental influences before examining whether any signs of biotic interactions remained in the trait and phylogenetic diversity of local communities relative to the (environmentally constrained) regional species pool, drawing on six functional traits and a phylogeny of bony fishes. Results: Local fish assemblages were more functionally and phylogenetically similar to each other than expected based on the regional species pool at higher latitude reefs (i.e., show greater convergence). This pattern was evident after accounting for major sources of local environmental variation, suggesting exclusion of weak competitors. Functional convergence was mainly driven by traits related to resource acquisition, with high-latitude assemblages converging towards more energetic carnivorous and planktivorous diets. Main Conclusions: Our results suggest that biotic interactions drive greater trait and phylogenetic convergence from tropical to temperate zones. Likely mechanisms include increasing generalism and overlap in ecological strategies towards the poles, leading to the exclusion of weak competitors.

Diet is a fundamental trait of fish that defines their roles in food webs and in regulating the functions of aquatic ecosystems. The role of evolutionary history, including conservatism and divergence, in diet shaping is poorly understood, especially for fish living in marine ecosystems such as seagrass beds. Using a series of phylogenetic comparative analyses, we investigate conservatism and divergence in the diet of fishes associated with seagrass beds globally over deep evolutionary time. We find that the trophic levels of seagrass bed fishes exhibit a strong phylogenetic pattern, with closely related fishes being more trophically similar. This phylogenetic pattern is also supported by macroevolutionary model inferences, with major diet divergences occurring deep in history. Consistently, phylogenetic relationships explain 60

Coastal wetlands, including tidal marshes, mangrove forests and tidal flats, support the livelihoods of millions of people. Understanding the resilience of coastal wetlands to the increasing number and intensity of anthropogenic threats (such as habitat conversion, pollution, fishing and climate change) can inform what conservation actions will be effective. In this Review, we synthesize anthropogenic threats to coastal wetlands and their resilience through the lens of scale. Over decades and centuries, anthropogenic threats have unfolded across local, regional and global scales, reducing both the extent and quality of coastal wetlands. The resilience of existing coastal wetlands is driven by their quality, which is modulated by both physical conditions (such as sediment supply) and ecological conditions (such as species interactions operating from local through to global scales). Protection and restoration efforts, however, are often localized and focus on the extent of coastal wetlands. The future of coastal wetlands will depend on an improved understanding of their resilience, and on society’s actions to enhance both their extent and quality across different scales. Coastal wetlands are important ecosystems around the world and are under increasing anthropogenic threat. This Review explores the threats to coastal wetlands across multiple scales, the drivers of their resilience to change and future conservation priorities.

Biodiversity can confer temporal stability to ecosystem processes through asynchrony in species' abundances and may promote asynchrony and stability of commercial fishing harvests derived from exploited species. However, the linkages between asynchrony in the population dynamics of commercially harvested species and asynchrony of associated harvests have been difficult to resolve due to ecological, social, and economic dynamics that mediate resource extraction. Here, we explored coupled human-ecological relationships and emergent asynchrony using commercial fishing harvest data and fisheries-independent trawl surveys in two regions (Maryland and Virginia) of Chesapeake Bay, USA, from 2002 to 2018. For each region, we sought to identify how seasonal (within-year) asynchrony among harvested fish species contributed to (1) seasonal asynchrony in the harvests of these species and (2) within-year stability and economic value of harvests. We found that, in Maryland, seasonal closure of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) fishing resulted in asynchrony by forcing switching to alternative stocks. In Virginia, seasonal migration of harvested species to and from the Chesapeake Bay promoted harvest compensation and therefore harvest asynchrony. However, this effect was negated by the concurrent effects of an increase in the evenness of species dynamics on harvest compensation, reflecting changes in fishing patterns, primarily following declines in the biomass of Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus). Our findings show that both social (direct management actions and behavioral responses) and emergent properties of ecological systems can influence asynchrony in dynamics of exploited populations and commercial harvests, with implications for their continued management and sustainability.

Important developments in remote sensing capabilities allow for improved accuracy in the mapping of ecosystems. Higher spatial resolution imagery enables more precise classification of land use and land cover categories, which therefore changes our characterization of mapped land- and seascapes. These changes impact how we visualize these ecosystems, and how we quantify their ecosystem services and benefits to people. Here we examine how recent mapping advances influence the quantification of blue carbon for climate change regulation in mangrove ecosystems, using site, national, and global scale calculations. Overall, we found that higher resolution imagery was associated with a reduction in mangrove cover, and hence lower carbon stock estimates. It is important that these nuances are adopted and calibrated within the accounting of blue carbon, and ecosystem services more broadly, so that they do not undermine important initiatives designed to conserve and protect these critical ecosystems, such as Nationally Determined Contributions.

MotivationHere, we make available a second version of the BioTIME database, which compiles records of abundance estimates for species in sample events of ecological assemblages through time. The updated version expands version 1.0 of the database by doubling the number of studies and includes substantial additional curation to the taxonomic accuracy of the records, as well as the metadata. Moreover, we now provide an R package (BioTIMEr) to facilitate use of the database.Main Types of Variables IncludedThe database is composed of one main data table containing the abundance records and 11 metadata tables. The data are organised in a hierarchy of scales where 11,989,233 records are nested in 1,603,067 sample events, from 553,253 sampling locations, which are nested in 708 studies. A study is defined as a sampling methodology applied to an assemblage for a minimum of 2 years.Spatial Location and GrainSampling locations in BioTIME are distributed across the planet, including marine, terrestrial and freshwater realms. Spatial grain size and extent vary across studies depending on sampling methodology. We recommend gridding of sampling locations into areas of consistent size.Time Period and GrainThe earliest time series in BioTIME start in 1874, and the most recent records are from 2023. Temporal grain and duration vary across studies. We recommend doing sample-level rarefaction to ensure consistent sampling effort through time before calculating any diversity metric.Major Taxa and Level of MeasurementThe database includes any eukaryotic taxa, with a combined total of 56,400 taxa.Software Formatcsv and. SQL.

AimBiogenic structural complexity increases mobile animal richness and abundance at local, regional and global scales, yet animal taxa vary in their response to complexity. When these taxa also vary functionally, habitat structures favouring certain taxa may have consequences for ecosystem function. We characterised global patterns of epifaunal invertebrates in eelgrass (Zostera marina) beds that varied in structural and genetic composition.LocationNorth America, Europe and Asia.Time Period2014.Major Taxa StudiedPeracarid crustaceans and gastropod molluscs.MethodsWe sampled epifaunal invertebrate communities in 49 eelgrass beds across 37 degrees latitude in two ocean basins concurrently with measurements of eelgrass genetic diversity, structural complexity and other abiotic and biotic environmental variables. We examined how species richness, abundance and community composition varied with latitude and environmental predictors using a random forest approach. We also examined how functional trait composition varied along with community structure.ResultsTotal species richness decreased with latitude, but this was accompanied by a taxonomic shift in dominance from peracarid crustaceans to gastropods, which exhibited different sets of functional traits. Greater eelgrass genetic diversity was strongly correlated with both richness and abundance of peracarids, but less so for gastropods.Main ConclusionsOur results add to a growing body of literature that suggests genetic variation in plant traits influences their associated faunal assemblages via habitat structure. Because peracarids and gastropods exhibited distinct functional traits, our results suggest a tentative indirect link between broad-scale variation in plant genetic diversity and ecosystem function.

Countries are expanding marine protected area (MPA) networks to mitigate fisheries declines and support marine biodiversity. However, MPA impact evaluations typically assess total fish biomass. Here, we examine how fish biomass disaggregated by adult and juvenile life stages responds to environmental drivers, including sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and human footprint, and multiple management types at 139 reef sites in the Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) region. We found that total fish biomass generally appears stable across the region from 2006 to 2018, with limited rebuilding of fish stocks in MPAs. However, the metric of total fish biomass masked changes in fish community structure, with lower adult than juvenile fish biomass at northern sites, and adult:juvenile ratios closer to 1:1 at southern sites. These shifts were associated with different responses of juvenile and adult fish to environmental drivers and management. Juvenile fish biomass increased at sites with high larval connectivity and coral cover, whereas adult fish biomass decreased at sites with greater human footprint and SST anomalies. Adult fish biomass decreased primarily in Honduran general use zones, which suggests insufficient protection for adult fish in the southern MAR. There was a north–south gradient in management and environmental drivers, with lower coverage of fully protected areas and higher SST anomalies and coastal development in the south that together may undermine the maintenance of adult fish biomass in the southern MAR. Accounting for the interplay between environmental drivers and management in the design of MPAs is critical for increasing fish biomass across life history stages.

Scientific working groups bring together experts from different disciplines and perspectives to tackle the "wicked problems" facing natural systems and society. Yet participants can feel overwhelmed or inadequate in groups within academic environments, which tends to be most acute at early career stages and in people from systematically marginalized backgrounds. Such feelings can block innovation that would otherwise arise from gaining the full spectrum of unique perspectives, knowledge and skills from a group. Drawing on personal experiences and relevant literature, we identify ten contribution strategies, ranging from generating ideas, analyzing data, and producing visuals to supporting facilitation. Next, we share approaches for an inclusive and supportive process, considering the roles of both participants and leads. Generating the most productive and relevant outcomes from working groups requires engaging the full team in a constructive and supportive environment. We advocate that adopting inclusive approaches that respect the diversity of personality types and perspectives will lead to more innovative solutions to achieve conservation and sustainability goals.

As climate change continues to shift the distributions of species worldwide, understanding where, why, and how organisms move beyond their historical ranges is of critical importance. Here, we report on the expansion of pinfish Lagodon rhomboides poleward along the mid-western Atlantic in response to rising temperatures. Pinfish are a key interactor in nearshore subtidal habitats like seagrasses in the southwestern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, but they have been historically sparse north of the ecotone at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA. Using multi-decadal trawl surveys, we show that while pinfish have been present both below (North Carolina) and above (Virginia and Maryland) this ecotone for many years, they have increasingly intruded into restored eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows in the coastal bays of Virginia over the past decade. In 2022, for instance, pinfish abundances in Virginia equaled those observed historically in North Carolina. To understand the factors promoting these changes in abundance, we used a passive drifter model to show that these increases are not necessarily tied to changes in offshore currents. Instead, linear models revealed that the local abundance of pinfish in Virginia correlates most with inshore summertime water temperatures. Thus, favorable environmental conditions of the recipient bays appear to encourage greater recruitment and therefore greater abundance of pinfish. Given their outsized ecological role in subtropical ecosystems, and that the climate will continue to warm, our findings suggest that pinfish may soon come to dominate the structure and functioning of temperate seagrass meadows in Virginia and beyond.

Structured coastal habitats provide foraging opportunities and refuge from predation for fish species of varying size and function. However, comprehensive assessments of fish communities among ecosystems are challenging because of biases arising across traditional sampling methods that target subsets of the community in different habitats (e.g. traps, seines, trawls, or visual census). Here, we used dual-frequency identification sonar (DIDSON) to examine shallow, nearshore habitat use by fishes in multiple structured habitats (seagrass, coral reefs, oyster reefs, rocky reefs, mangroves, woody debris, and docks) relative to soft-sediment habitat across 4 study locations ranging from tropical to temperate: Bocas del Toro, Panama, and Florida, Maryland, and California, USA. We then examined the distribution of individual fish sizes using size-spectra analysis. For temperate docks (Maryland) and eelgrass beds (California), size-spectra slopes were less steep than for soft-sediment habitats, indicating that larger fish associated with these structured habitats. No differences in slopes were identified for (sub)tropical Florida or Panama, although spectra intercepts from docks were higher in each location relative to soft sediment, denoting higher total abundance. Our results suggest geographically stratified habitat use with a tendency towards comparatively greater importance of structure in determining fish size distribution at higher latitudes, and greater importance of structured habitat in governing total abundance at lower latitudes. This study also demonstrates the potential of imaging sonar as a new tool for revealing variation in fish communities among habitats at local to continental scales.

Coastal blue carbon ecosystems can be an important nature-based solution for mitigating climate change, when emphasis is given to their protection, management, and restoration. Globally, there has been a rapid increase in blue carbon research in the last few decades, with substantial investments on national scales by the European Union, the USA, Australia, Seychelles, and Belize. Blue carbon ecosystems in South and Southeast Asia are globally diverse, highly productive and could represent a global hotspot for carbon sequestration and storage. To guide future efforts, we conducted a systematic review of the available literature on two primary blue carbon ecosystems-seagrasses and mangroves-across 13 countries in South and Southeast Asia to assess existing national inventories, review current research trends and methodologies, and identify existing knowledge gaps. Information related to various aspects of seagrass and mangrove ecosystems was extracted from 432 research articles from 1967 to 2022. We find that: (1) blue carbon estimates in several countries have limited data, especially for seagrass meadows compared to mangrove ecosystems, although the highest reported carbon stocks were in Indonesia and the Philippines with 4,515 and 707 Tg within mangrove forest and 60.9 and 63.3 Tg within seagrass meadows, respectively; (2) there is a high difference in the quantity and quality of data between mangrove and seagrass ecosystems, and the methodologies used for blue carbon estimates are highly variable across countries; and (3) most studies on blue carbon stocks are spatially biased towards more familiar study areas of individual countries, than several lesser-known suspected blue carbon hotspots. In sum, our review demonstrates the paucity and variability in current research in the region, and highlights research frontiers that should be addressed by future research before the robust implementation of these ecosystems into national climate strategies.