Seascape ecology: identifying research priorities for an emerging ocean sustainability science

A new paper is JUST published in Marine Ecology Progress Series. The publication is entitled: "Seascape ecology: identifying research priorities for an emerging ocean sustainability science".

Pittman et al. (2021)

Seascape ecology, the marine-centric counterpart to landscape ecology, is rapidly emerging as an interdisciplinary and spatially explicit ecological science with relevance to marine management, biodiversity conservation, and restoration. While important progress in this field has been made in the past decade, there has been no coherent prioritisation of key research questions to help set the future research agenda for seascape ecology. They used a 2-stage modified Delphi method to solicit applied research questions from academic experts in seascape ecology and then asked respondents to identify priority questions across 9 interrelated research themes using 2 rounds of selection. They also invited senior management/conservation practitioners to prioritise the same research questions.

Analyses highlighted congruence and discrepancies in perceived priorities for applied research. Themes related to both ecological concepts and management practice, and those identified as priorities include seascape change, seascape connectivity, spatial and temporal scale, ecosystem-based management, and emerging technologies and metrics. Highest-priority questions (upper tercile) received 50% agreement between respondent groups, and lowest priorities (lower tercile) received 58% agreement. Across all 3 priority tiers, 36 of the 55 questions were within a ±10% band of agreement. They present the most important applied research questions as determined by the proportion of votes received. For each theme, they provide a synthesis of the research challenges and the potential role of seascape ecology. These priority questions and themes serve as a roadmap for advancing applied seascape ecology during, and beyond, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)

This publication was led by S. J. Pittman (Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK), and the DU Marine Mapping Group Member M. Young also contributed to the publication.

Congrats to the all the authors!

To read the full article, click here.

Last edited on the May 19th, 2021.