Thematic Area

The ecology of many coral reefs has changed markedly over recent decades in response to various combinations of local and global stressors. These ecological changes have important implications for the abundance of taxa that regulate the production and erosion of skeletal carbonates, and thus for many of the geo‐ecological functions that coral reefs provide, including reef framework production and sediment generation, the maintenance of reef habitat complexity and reef growth potential.

Coral reefs underpin a range of ecosystem goods and services that contribute to the well‐being of millions of people. However, tropical coral reefs in the Anthropocene are likely to be functionally different from reefs in the past. In this perspective piece, we ask, what does the Anthropocene mean for the provision of ecosystem services from coral reefs? This synthesis of the coral reef ecosystem services literature suggests the field is poorly prepared to understand the changing service provision anticipated in the Anthropocene.

For tropical forest carbon to be commoditized, a consistent, globally verifiable system for reporting and monitoring carbon stocks and emissions must be achieved. We call for a global airborne LiDAR campaign that will measure the 3-D structure of each hectare of forested (and formerly forested) land in the tropics. We believe such a database could be assembled for only 5% of funding already pledged to offset tropical forest carbon emissions. 

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The inherent complexity of high‐diversity systems can make them particularly difficult to understand. The relatively recent introduction of functional approaches, which seek to infer ecosystem functioning based on species’ ecological traits, has revolutionized our understanding of these high-diversity systems. Today, the functional structure of an assemblage is widely regarded as a key indicator of the status or resilience of an ecosystem. Indeed, functional evaluations have become a mainstay of monitoring and management approaches.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are being implemented worldwide, yet there are few cases where managers make specific predictions of the response of previously harvested populations to MPA implementation. Such predictions are needed to evaluate whether MPAs are working as expected, and if not, why. This evaluation is necessary to perform adaptive management, identifying whether and when adjustments to management might be necessary to achieve MPA goals.

Our global analysis of nearly 1,800 tropical reefs reveals how the intensity of human impacts in the surrounding seascape, measured as a function of human population size and accessibility to reefs (“gravity”), diminishes the effectiveness of marine reserves at sustaining reef fish biomass and the presence of top predators, even where compliance with reserve rules is high. Critically, fish biomass in high-compliance marine reserves located where human impacts were intensive tended to be less than a quarter that of reserves where human impacts were low.

Connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is crucial for meeting their conservation goals. We provide the first global evaluation of countries' progress towards Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity that is to have at least 17% of the land covered by well-connected PA systems by 2020. We quantify how well the terrestrial PA systems of countries are designed to promote connectivity, using the Protected Connected (ProtConn) indicator. We refine ProtConn to focus on the part of PA connectivity that is in the power of a country to influence, i.e.

Marine fisheries throughout the world are in serious decline due to overharvesting (National Research Council, 2001), and management for sustainable fisheries requires effective tactics for limiting exploitation rates. Limitations based on annual stock assessments and total allowable catches calculated from these assessments can be dangerous, and marine protected areas (MPAs) are one tool to limit exploitation rates directly even when total stock size is highly uncertain (Walters, 2000).

Protected areas (PAs) are the main instrument for biodiversity conservation, which has triggered the development of numerous indicators and assessments on their coverage, performance and efficiency. The connectivity of the PA networks at a global scale has however been much less explored; previous studies have either focused on particular regions of the world or have only considered some types of PAs.

The great majority of marine protected areas (MPAs) fail to meet their management objectives. So MPAs can be effective conservation tools, we recommend two paradigm shifts, the first related to how they are located and the second related to how they are managed. MPAs are unlikely to be effective if they are located in areas that are subject to numerous, and often uncontrollable, external stressors from atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic sources, all of which can degrade the environment and compromise protection.