Marine ecosystem ecology at a crossroads

Abstract

Research in marine ecosystem ecology increasingly integrates biodiversity status and trends, ecosystem functioning, and human pressures. Understanding how marine biodiversity supports ecosystem functioning remains central to the field, while growing concern over ecosystem condition has shifted attention towards relationships between human pressures and ecological responses. These established questions are increasingly complemented by the need to anticipate climate-driven ecosystem transformations and translate ecological knowledge into effective conservation and management. Resilience – the capacity of ecosystems to persist and maintain their state and functions through resistance to and recovery from disturbance – has therefore become a central scientific priority under intensifying cumulative pressures. Major challenges for the coming decade include ecological non-stationarity, rapidly expanding data volumes, erosion of traditional expertise, uneven uptake of technological advances, and restoration under changing environmental conditions. Meeting these challenges requires marine ecosystem ecology to keep pace with global change while improving the transfer of knowledge into policy and management. Here, we identify these priorities and outline pathways towards more predictive, integrated, and decision-relevant marine ecosystem science.