Foundation species such as redwoods, seagrasses and corals are often long‐lived and clonal. Genets may consist of hundreds of members (ramets) and originated hundreds to thousands of years ago. As climate change and other stressors exert selection pressure on species, the demography of populations changes. Yet, because size does not indicate age in clonal organisms, demographic models are missing data necessary to predict the...

Many marine scientists have concluded that coral reefs are moving toward or are locked into a seaweed‐dominated state. However, because there have been no regional‐ or global‐scale analyses of such coral reef “phase shifts,” the magnitude of this phenomenon was unknown. We analyzed 3581 quantitative surveys of 1851 reefs performed between 1996 and 2006 to determine the frequency, geographical extent, and degree of macroalgal d...