There is an urgent need for improved monitoring approaches to rapidly and accurately assess sea cucumber populations at ecologically relevant scales. Timely surveys are critical for informing effective fisheries management and decision-making. Traditional surveys, undertaken via snorkelling, manta tows, or SCUBA, are limited to shallow and accessible areas; however, sea cucumbers inhabit a broad range of depths, including area...

Quantitatively assessing mortality post coral bleaching at scale is inherently difficult, yet can be achieved with georeferenced imagery from aerial drones. Here, we assess the coral bleaching mortality rate from the 2024 global bleaching event at the iconic Lizard Island, Australia. Using drone-derived orthomosaics of the northern and southern sides of the island collected during and after the bleaching event, we measured the...