From micro to planetary scales, spatial heterogeneity—patchiness—is ubiquitous in ecosystems, defining the environments in which organisms move and interact. However, most large‐scale models still use spatially averaged ‘mean fields’ to represent natural populations, while fine‐scale spatially explicit models are mostly restricted to particular organisms or systems. In a conceptual paper, Grünbaum (2012, Interface Focus 2: 150...

Marine area-based conservation measures including no-take zones (areas with no fishing allowed) are often designed through lengthy processes that aim to optimize for ecological and social objectives. Their (semi) permanence generates high stakes in what seems like a one-shot game. In this paper, we theoretically and empirically explore a model of short-term area-based conservation that prioritizes adaptive co-management: tempo...

Aim The emergence of pattern in the natural world can carry important messages about underlying processes. For example, collections of broadly similar terrestrial ecosystems have historically been categorized as biomes – groupings of systems that sort along energetic and structural process axes. In marine systems however, a similar classification of biomes has not emerged. The aim here is to develop an effective classification...