Small-scale fisheries are important for the livelihoods and food security of millions of people in low-income countries. Sustainably managing these dynamic social-ecological systems requires understanding links between ecosystems and human well-being: the focus of ecosystem service approaches. However, in-depth exploration of how co-production and temporal dynamics shape ecosystem benefits in small-scale fisheries remain nascent. There is thus an opportunity to better investigate pathways through which small-scale fisheries support food security. To address this gap, we ask how households allocate seafood landings across different uses, depending on supply and season. Using a daily survey, we collected panel data on landings from 15 households on Atauro Island, Timor-Leste, over six 1-week periods across three seasons, representing 630 survey days and 179 fishing trips. We found households mediate the pathways through which seafood contributes to food security. Specifically, the proportion of landings eaten, sold or shared changed with the amount landed and across seasons. As landings increased, households ate a smaller proportion and sold a greater proportion. The greatest proportion of landings were sold in the preparation season, when households save money to buy staple foods. Landings were shared with family and kin, reflecting the importance of seafood for social capital and community food security. Put broadly, households shaped a dynamic and non-linear (not directly proportional) relationship between service supply and benefits. Our findings demonstrate that seasonal context and livelihood priorities shape seafood provisioning benefits in small-scale fisheries. Careful consideration of temporal scale in ecosystem service assessments is critical for sustainable management of small-scale fisheries.

Abstract Many coastal communities depend on ecosystems for goods and services that contribute to human well‐being. As long‐standing interactions between people and nature are modified by global environmental change, dynamic and diversified livelihood strategies that enable seasonal adaptation will be critical for vulnerable coastal communities. However, the success of such strategies depends on a range of poorly understood influences. Gleaning, the hand‐based collection of marine organisms from littoral habitats, provides an interesting case study of dynamic change in social‐ecological interactions. It is an important coastal livelihood strategy, yet seasonal gleaning dynamics have not been empirically explored in contemporary communities. We examined seasonal gleaning in eight coastal communities on Atauro Island, Timor‐Leste, using household surveys and satellite‐derived maps of shallow‐water benthic habitats. Our analysis explored the factors affecting household decisions to glean in each season, the relationship between gleaning and seafood consumption, and seasonal gleaning pressure on near‐shore coastal resources. Dynamic marine harvesting strategies differed among households and gleaning activity was seasonally heterogeneous. Not all gleaning households gleaned during the season characterised by rough sea conditions despite rough season gleaning being associated with greater seafood consumption stability among seasons. Households also gleaned less regularly, and catches were smaller, in the rough season. Differences in seasonal participation in gleaning were explained mostly by type and extent of shallow habitat proximate to a community. In the calm season, household gleaning was positively related to the total area of shallow habitat, and in the rough season the percentage of hard‐bottom shallow habitat was also an important predictor of gleaning activity. Our findings illustrate how changes in the biophysical environment mediate human–nature interactions at fine scales through time and space. Consequently, this research highlights the importance of context‐specific perspectives for understanding drivers and dynamics in fishing pressure on littoral ecosystems, access to ecosystem benefits and limits to adaptation. Factors influencing when livelihood activities are feasible and desirable are important for evaluating the social impacts of climate change, particularly in the context of rural communities in the Global South. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Coastal resources are important for the wellbeing and livelihoods of people in coastal communities across the world but are used and valued differently by different people at different times. As such, managing coastal resources equitably requires understanding how and when different people value ecosystems. Gleaning is an important activity in many coastal communities. However, the values of gleaners, and women in general, are often left invisible in coastal ecosystem service assessments and rarely examined in different seasons. Here, we use an exploratory case study to elicit the seasonal values of gleaning to women in a coastal community through an in-depth mixed method case study in Timor-Leste. We found that women gave a variety of instrumental and relational reasons for gleaning and that gleaning values shifted across seasons. Notably, subsistence was not a priority for all gleaners. Instead, there were a diverse range of reasons perceived as important for gleaning including to socialise or to spend time in nature. Our findings highlight the need to move beyond oversimplified understandings of gleaning as simply a matter of meeting basic material needs. The diverse and seasonal value priorities of gleaners in our case study indicate the importance of socially and temporally disaggregated assessments of coastal ecosystem services that account for relational values to support more accurate depictions of coastal livelihoods and equitable management in coastal areas.

The world's coral reefs are rapidly transforming, with decreasing coral cover and new species configurations. These new Anthropocene reefs pose a challenge for conservation; we can no longer rely on established management plans and actions designed to maintain the status quo when coral reef habitats, and the challenges they faced, were very different. The key questions now are: what do we want to conserve on Anthropocene reefs, why, and how? Trends in reef management over recent decades reveal rapid shifts in perceived threats, goals and solutions. Future reefs will be unlike anything previously seen by humans, and while their ability to support tourism or fisheries may be relatively resilient, our capacity to manage them may be constrained by their new species configurations. Furthermore, there is a growing spatial mismatch between the escalating scale of threats and current or planned responses. We present a blueprint for future reef conservation that recognizes the need to better understand the processes that maintain Anthropocene reefs, and the growing imperative to reform conservation efforts to address both specific local issues and larger-scale threats. The future of coral reef conservation is no longer one solely of localized action and stewardship; it requires practices and institutions operating at far larger scales than today.

The hydrological conditions of the Lower Mekong Basin support a multitude of ecosystem services. Processes that influence water flow in the Mekong River will thus have implications for the tens of millions of people whose livelihoods depend on these services. This study presents an assessment of livelihood susceptibility to hydrological change in the Lower Mekong Basin. Using an index‐based approach, susceptibility scores were calculated for 2,703 households. Using those scores, we compared average household susceptibility across the basin, among countries and among eco‐zones. Due to their greater livelihood dependency on water‐related activities, mean household susceptibility was higher in Vietnam than in Cambodia, Laos, or Thailand. Households in Northern Laos also had high susceptibility, which was attributed to their low adaptive capacity. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing vulnerability to hydrological change in the Lower Mekong Basin should account for geographic context. Further, they highlight how policies may be able to strategically target the most susceptible households, but that poorly designed policies have the potential to exacerbate vulnerability. In the face of high uncertainty surrounding hydrological change in the Lower Mekong Basin, our assessment of susceptibility should help inform precautionary water management policies and provide baseline information needed for more comprehensive vulnerability assessments.

Inland capture fisheries (ICFs) provide ecosystem services - fish for food, livelihoods and recreation - to people and therefore have an economic value. Economic valuation can inform the sustainable management of ICFs and ensure they are recognised in trade-off analysis and decision-making. This study assesses existing ICFs economic research to identify knowledge gaps. Bibliographic databases were searched for suitable peer-reviewed articles. The selected studies (n=75) were analysed for coverage, valuation methodologies and value metrics. A majority of existing studies value recreational ICFs in developed countries. Studies have employed a wide range of valuation methodologies and therefore provide a variety of economic values measured at different units and scales. This study highlights the need for a greater quantity of ICFs economic research that covers a representative sample of ecosystems and fishery types globally. Best practice recommendations are made for a standardised framework to ensure ICFs research generates economically credible and comparable values.