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Marine protected areas (MPAs) are globally important environmental management tools that provide protection from the effects of human exploitation and activities, supporting the conservation of marine biological diversity, habitats, ecosystems and the processes they host, as well as resources in a broad sense. Consequently, they are also expected to manage and enhance marine ecosystem services and material, non-material, consumptive and non-consumptive goods, and benefits for humans. There is however certain confusion on what constitutes an ecosystem service, and it is not always easy to distinguish between them and societal benefits. The main nuance is that an ecosystem service is the aptitude an ecosystem has or develops naturally or as consequence of a management action, and that manifests through its own properties (productivity, diversity, stability, quality of its key parameters, etc.), while a societal benefit is the economic or other profitability (emotional, educational, scientific, etc.) that humans obtain from said service or quality. In this work, 268 publications, together with our own experiences in the different investigations carried out in the MPAs that are part of the BiodivERsA3-2015-21 RESERVEBENEFIT European project, have been selected, reviewed and discussed to analyze the knowledge status of the expected ecosystem services of MPAs and the societal benefits derived from them, sometimes providing information on their evidence, when they exist. We define and classify the effects of protection, ecosystem services and societal benefits and elaborate a conceptual model of the cause-effect relationships between them.

This book examines the concept of naturalness in ecosystems, discusses its values and considers choices about the level of naturalness in conservation efforts. The author argues that all ecosystems have been modified and the idea of places 'untouched by humans' is a myth. But there are large differences in the degree of modification and levels of naturalness which can be identified. Changes are not always irreversible; some apparent wilderness areas are sites of former civilizations. There is no longer any simple distinction possible between 'natural' and 'cultural' systems. In the future, society will, to some extent, choose the degree of naturalness in land and seascapes. The growth of protected areas is an early sign of this, as are changes in forest management, dam removal and control of invasive species. To make informed choices about these areas, the author shows that we must understand the characteristics and values of naturally regulating ecosystems - their practical benefits, social values and management needs. Authenticity in Nature uses a rigorous definition of authenticity to help in the understanding and measurement of naturalness. It discusses the choices facing us and some of the information we need to make decisions relating to land and water management. Practical issues of management and numerous terrestrial and aquatic examples from around the world are discussed. It is an optimistic and highly original book, aiming to make genuine advances in our understanding and management of natural systems.

Preserving biodiversity and ecosystem function in the Anthropocene is one of humanity's greatest challenges. Ecosystem‐based management and area closures are considered an effective way to maintain ecological processes, especially in marine systems. Although there is strong evidence that such measures positively affect community structure, their impact on the rate of key ecological processes remains unclear. Here, we provide evidence that marine protected areas enhance herbivory rates on coral reefs via direct and indirect pathways. Using meta‐analysis and a path‐analytical framework, we demonstrate that, on average, protected areas increase the species richness of herbivorous fishes, which, in turn, enhances browsing rates on macroalgae. However, in all three regions studied (the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean), a small subset of the herbivore assemblage accounted for the majority of browsing. Our results therefore indicate that ecosystem functioning on coral reefs may respond positively to both area closures and the protection of key species.

Risk assessments quantify the probability of undesirable events along with their consequences. They are used to prioritize management interventions and assess tradeoffs, serving as an essential component of ecosystem-based management (). A central objective of most risk assessments for conservation and management is to characterize uncertainty and impacts associated with one or more pressures of interest. Risk assessments have been used in marine resource management to help evaluate the risk of environmental, ecological, and anthropogenic pressures on species or habitats including for data-poor fisheries management (e.g., toxicity, probability of extinction, habitat alteration impacts). Traditionally, marine risk assessments focused on singular pressure-response relationships, but recent advancements have included use of risk assessments in an context, providing a method for evaluating the cumulative impacts of multiple pressures on multiple ecosystem components. Here, we describe a conceptual framework for ecosystem risk assessment (), highlighting its role in operationalizing , with specific attention to ocean management considerations. This framework builds on the ecotoxicological and conservation literature on risk assessment and includes recent advances that focus on risks posed by fishing to marine ecosystems. We review how examples of s from the United States fit into this framework, explore the variety of analytical approaches that have been used to conduct s, and assess the challenges and data gaps that remain. This review discusses future prospects for s as decision-support tools, their expanded role in integrated ecosystem assessments, and the development of next-generation risk assessments for coupled natural-human systems.

1. Confronted by significant impacts to ecosystems world-wide, decision makers face the challenge of maintaining both biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services (ES). However, the objectives of managing biodiversity and supplying ES may not always be in concert, resulting in the need for trade-offs. Understanding these potential trade-offs is crucial for identifying circumstances under which conservation strategies designed to maximise either biodiversity or ES will result in win-win or win-lose outcomes. One important factor that may influence these outcomes are species interactions and the structure of the networks in which they are embedded. 2. We combine optimisation and network theory to investigate the difference in species prioritisation and management outcomes when targeting biodiversity or ES, by considering trophic interactions between species. We analyse 360 simulated ecosystem networks with different ecosystem structures, including the trophic level of the species providing the ES, the number of ES considered, and the food web connectivity. We then illustrate the framework on a saltmarsh case study. 3. We find that trade-offs between biodiversity and ES depend on the network structure of the ecosystem being managed. The trophic level of the species providing the ES is an important determinant of optimal species protection priorities and the biodiversity-ES trade-offs. A strategy targeting ES leads to similar levels of biodiversity conservation (a win-win situation) only when basal species provide the services. In contrast, food web connectivity and the number of services considered have little impact on biodiversity-ES trade-offs. 4. Synthesis and applications. Our research provides the first optimisation model to examine trade-offs between a biodiversity- or ecosystem service-based approach for managing a network of interacting species that provide services. Importantly, results from considering species-services interactions in ecosystem network dynamics can provide managers with quantitative insights to identify opportunities for win-wins and or to avoid win-loss outcomes, by focusing on the trophic level of the species providing services. Future research could build on our model to add multiple interaction types among species, ecosystem functions, and ecosystem services to analyse optimal ecosystem management for multiple conservation objectives.

Coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people as well as harbour some of the highest regions of biodiversity in the ocean. However, overexploitation, land‐use change and other local anthropogenic threats to coral reefs have left many degraded. Additionally, coral reefs are faced with the dual emerging threats of ocean warming and acidification due to rising CO2 emissions, with dire predictions that they will not survive the century. This review evaluates the impacts of climate change on coral reef organisms, communities and ecosystems, focusing on the interactions between climate change factors and local anthropogenic stressors. It then explores the shortcomings of existing management and the move towards ecosystem‐based management and resilience thinking, before highlighting the need for climate change‐ready marine protected areas (MPAs), reduction in local anthropogenic stressors, novel approaches such as human‐assisted evolution and the importance of sustainable socialecological systems. It concludes that designation of climate change‐ready MPAs, integrated with other management strategies involving stakeholders and participation at multiple scales such as marine spatial planning, will be required to maximise coral reef resilience under climate change. However, efforts to reduce carbon emissions are critical if the long‐term efficacy of local management actions is to be maintained and coral reefs are to survive. Coral reefs are degraded by human activities, and are now faced with ocean warming and acidification. This review summarizes current knowledge on the impacts of climate change on coral reefs, synergies with other stressors, and the move toward ecosystem‐based management of coral reefs. Climate change‐ready MPAs, integrated management at various spatial scales, novel approaches, and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are critical if coral reefs are to survive.

Resource managers and policy makers have long recognized the importance of considering fisheries in the context of ecosystems; yet, movement towards widespread Ecosystem‐based Fisheries Management (EBFM) has been slow. A conceptual reframing of fisheries management is occurring globally, which envisions fisheries as systems with interacting biophysical and human subsystems. This broader view, along with a process for decision making, can facilitate implementation of EBFM. A pathway to achieve these broadened objectives of EBFM in the United States is a Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP). The first generation of FEPs was conceived in the late 1990s as voluntary guidance documents that Regional Fishery Management Councils could adopt to develop and guide their ecosystem‐based fisheries management decisions, but few of these FEPs took concrete steps to implement EBFM. Here, we emphasize the need for a new generation of FEPs that provide practical mechanisms for putting EBFM into practice in the United States. We argue that next‐generation FEPs can balance environmental, economic, and social objectives—the triple bottom line—to improve long‐term planning for fishery systems.

The European Union (EU) established the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) to achieve good environmental status (GES) in European seas through an ecosystem‐based approach to management. EU Member States implementing the MSFD must assess the environmental status of their marine waters, as well as the human pressures and impacts affecting them. The MSFD follows a 6‐year cycle, with assessments made based on 11 descriptors linked to specific pressure, state and impact‐related criteria. Member States assessments should determine the extent to which GES is achieved. However, for coherent management of EU seas, comparable assessments across Member States and EU‐wide overview of the status and MSFD progress are essential. This study developed pressure, state, and impact indices, by integrating available MSFD data reported by EU Member States. For the first time, MSFD data across all descriptors have been integrated to produce a European regional assessment. Findings indicate that most European regions are far from demonstrating GES, suffering from intense pressures and impacts. Significant knowledge gaps were identified, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean. The findings highlight the urgent need for enhanced ecological monitoring and setting environmental targets to improve the dire state of European seas, advocating for stronger regional cooperation and standardized methodologies.

As global climate change and anthropogenic activities amplify widespread environmental variability, there is a strong need for management strategies that incorporate relationships between ecosystem components. This need is especially apparent when changes in environmental drivers cause threshold responses (abrupt, nonlinear changes) in ecosystems. Such ecological thresholds can provide useful reference points for management decisions. However, methods for detecting thresholds in empirical datasets may fail to find an existing threshold, find one that does not exist, or be biased in their estimates of threshold locations. These types of threshold misspecifications can result in high conservation and socioeconomic costs. Simulation studies can mitigate these risks by providing information about method performance across different scenarios. Here, we constructed a series of simulations to evaluate the robustness of threshold detection with generalized additive models (GAMs) when exposed to a variety of common, real‐world data characteristics. GAMs generally performed best when time series were long, observation error was low, thresholds were crossed fairly frequently, and covariates were accounted for. Over realistic ranges of values, observation error and frequency of threshold crossing had stronger effects on threshold detectability than time series length. Importantly, detectability was found to depend on both the shape of the threshold relationship and the statistical definition of the threshold location. As a case study, we applied this threshold detection method to an empirical dataset relating ocean temperature and the spatial distribution of Pacific hake (Merluccius productus), the largest volume fishery on the US West Coast. While the data suggest no statistical evidence for a threshold relationship, our simulations indicated approximately equal chances of true and false threshold detection given currently available data. Our results provide general guidelines for where threshold detection with GAMs is likely to be robust and are useful in the context of indicator development for ecosystem‐based management in a variable world.

Ocean warming will cause widespread changes in species richness and assemblage composition over coming decades, with important implications for both conservation management and international ocean governance. Anticipating the effect of climate change on biodiversity, in particular on changes in community composition, is crucial for adaptive ecosystem management 1 but remains a critical knowledge gap 2 . Here, we use climate velocity trajectories 3 , together with information on thermal tolerances and habitat preferences, to project changes in global patterns of marine species richness and community composition under IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways 4 (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. Our simple, intuitive approach emphasizes climate connectivity, and enables us to model over 12 times as many species as previous studies 5 , 6 . We find that range expansions prevail over contractions for both RCPs up to 2100, producing a net local increase in richness globally, and temporal changes in composition, driven by the redistribution rather than the loss of diversity. Conversely, widespread invasions homogenize present-day communities across multiple regions. High extirpation rates are expected regionally (for example, Indo-Pacific), particularly under RCP8.5, leading to strong decreases in richness and the anticipated formation of no-analogue communities where invasions are common. The spatial congruence of these patterns with contemporary human impacts 7 , 8 highlights potential areas of future conservation concern. These results strongly suggest that the millennial stability of current global marine diversity patterns, against which conservation plans are assessed, will change rapidly over the course of the century in response to ocean warming.