Restoration of damaged coastal ecosystems is a component of broader conservation strategies. Hurricane Dorian (September 2019) was the worst natural disaster in the history of The Bahamas. This caused widespread societal and ecological damage, including destroying mangrove ecosystems—systems that provide numerous ecosystem services for the country. We first used satellite mapping to document mangrove destruction caused by Dori...

The tropical Andes face unprecedented warming and shifting precipitation patterns due to climate change and land‐use alteration, challenging the future of Andean forests. During the Quaternary, many Andean trees responded to climate change through upslope migrations but, while there is evidence of such ongoing migrations in many species, they are at rates far below what is needed to remain in equilibrium with the current clima...

Improving coral reef conservation requires heightened understanding of the mechanisms by which coral cope with changing environmental conditions to maintain optimal health. We used a long‐term (10 month) in situ experiment with two phylogenetically diverse scleractinians ( Acropora palmata and Porites porites ) to test how coral–symbiotic algal interactions changed under real‐world conditions that were a priori expected to be...

Humans are altering nutrient dynamics through myriad pathways globally. Concurrent with the addition of nutrients via municipal, industrial, and agricultural sources, widespread consumer exploitation is changing consumer‐mediated nutrient dynamics drastically. Thus, altered nutrient dynamics can occur through changes in the supply of multiple nutrients, as well as through changes in the sources of these nutrients. Seagrass eco...

The surf zones of ocean beaches provide habitat for a diversity of fishes and are prime sites for recreational angling and commercial net fisheries. Here, we review the global literature (152 studies) on surf fish ecology to better inform fisheries management and coastal conservation planning. These studies suggest that surf zones support diverse fish assemblages, which are characterized by high numerical dominance (10 species...

Coral reefs typically occur in oligotrophic waters, where tight recycling of energy and nutrients is essential in order to support their high productivity. Sponges are efficient filter feeders that host diverse and abundant microbial communities that often contain members capable of carrying out complex nutrient transformations. Consequently, sponges often act as significant sources of bioavailable forms of nitrogen and phosph...

Humans have drastically altered the abundance of animals in marine ecosystems via exploitation. Reduced abundance can destabilize food webs, leading to cascading indirect effects that dramatically reorganize community structure and shift ecosystem function. However, the additional implications of these top‐down changes for biogeochemical cycles via consumer‐mediated nutrient dynamics ( CND ) are often overlooked in marine syst...

Corals thrive in low nutrient environments and the conservation of these globally imperiled ecosystems is largely dependent on mitigating the effects of anthropogenic nutrient enrichment. However, to better understand the implications of anthropogenic nutrients requires a heightened understanding of baseline nutrient dynamics within these ecosystems. Here, we provide a novel perspective on coral reef nutrient dynamics by exami...

Biogeochemical hotspots can be driven by aggregations of animals, via excretion, that provide a concentrated source of limiting nutrients for primary producers. In a subtropical seagrass ecosystem, we characterized thresholds of ecological change associated with such hotspots surrounding artificial reef habitats. We deployed reefs of three sizes to aggregate fishes at different densities (and thus different levels of nutrient...

Consumer‐mediated nutrient supply is increasingly recognized as an important functional process in many ecosystems. Yet, experimentation at relevant spatial and temporal scales is needed to fully integrate this bottom‐up pathway into ecosystem models. Artificial reefs provide a unique approach to explore the importance of consumer nutrient supply for ecosystem function in coastal marine environments. We used bioenergetics mode...