The dynamic balance between primary production and herbivory is key to the resilience of plant‐dominated ecosystems across the world. However, many vegetated ecosystems are becoming increasingly susceptible to herbivore‐triggered collapses, as this balance is disrupted due to predator declines, increasing nutrients, and other interacting impacts of global change. Yet without accessible, cost‐effective tools to evaluate the pro...

Marine kelp forests cover 1/3 of our world's coastlines, are heralded as a nature-based solution to address socio-environmental issues, connect hundreds of millions of people with the ocean, and support a rich web of biodiversity throughout our oceans. But they are increasingly threatened with some areas reporting over 90% declines in kelp forest cover in living memory. Despite their importance and the threats they face, kelp...

Humans are rapidly transforming the structural configuration of the planet's ecosystems, but these changes and their ecological consequences remain poorly quantified in underwater habitats. Here, we show that the loss of forest‐forming seaweeds and the rise of ground‐covering ‘turfs’ across four continents consistently resulted in the miniaturization of underwater habitat structure, with seascapes converging towards flattened...

Predators exert a strong influence on ecological communities by reducing the abundance of prey (consumptive effects) and shaping their foraging behavior (non‐consumptive effects). Although the prevalence of trophic cascades triggered by non‐consumptive effects is increasingly recognized in a wide range of ecosystems, how its relative strength changes as prey individuals grow in size along various life stages remains poorly res...