Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a key tool for achieving goals for biodiversity conservation and human well-being, including improving climate resilience and equitable access to nature. At a national level, they are central components in the U.S. commitment to conserve at least 30% of U.S. waters by 2030. By definition, the primary goal of an MPA is the long-term conservation of nature; however, not all MPAs provide the same...

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...