Multiuse marine protected areas (MMPAs) with varying levels of protection in different zones are increasingly being adopted to balance conservation and socioeconomic goals. However, the effect of these zone‐based strategies on fish diversity is not well understood. We used environmental DNA surveys across zones with different protection levels (fully protected, highly protected, and lightly protected) in three typical Chinese...

The South China Sea (SCS) is vital habitat and potential nursery and feeding grounds for large cetaceans, such as the sperm whale ( Physeter macrocephalus ), making understanding of the temporal and spatial patterns of cetaceans in this region essential. We examined the accuracy of environmental DNA (eDNA) in detecting cetacean species diversity and determine the spatial and temporal distribution of cetaceans in the northern S...

Climate change is one of the major threats to coastal fish biodiversity, and optimization of no‐take marine protected areas (MPAs) is imminent. We predicted fish redistribution under climate change in coastal China Seas with joint species distribution modeling and prioritized areas for conservation with Zonation, for which we used core area zonation (CAZ) and additive benefit function (ABF). Based on our results, we devised an...