Seventy-one important questions for the conservation of marine biodiversity.
The ocean provides food, economic activity, and cultural value for a large proportion of humanity. Our knowledge of marine ecosystems lags behind that of terrestrial ecosystems, limiting effective protection of marine resources. We describe the outcome of 2 workshops in 2011 and 2012 to establish a list of important questions, which, if answered, would substantially improve our ability to conserve and manage the world's marine resources. Participants included individuals from academia, government, and nongovernment organizations with broad experience across disciplines, marine ecosystems, and countries that vary in levels of development. Contributors from the fields of science, conservation, industry, and government submitted questions to our workshops, which we distilled into a list of priority research questions. Through this process, we identified 71 key questions. We grouped these into 8 subject categories, each pertaining to a broad component of marine conservation: fisheries, climate change, other anthropogenic threats, ecosystems, marine citizenship, policy, societal and cultural considerations, and scientific enterprise. Our questions address many issues that are specific to marine conservation, and will serve as a road map to funders and researchers to develop programs that can greatly benefit marine conservation.
Department of Environmental Science & Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, U.S.A.. ecm-parsons@earthlink.net.
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Parsons
Brett
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Favaro
A Alonso
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Aguirre
Amy L
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Bauer
Louise K
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Blight
John A
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Cigliano
Melinda A
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Coleman
Isabelle M
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Côté
Megan
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Draheim
Stephen
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Fletcher
Melissa M
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Foley
Rebecca
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Jefferson
Miranda C
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Jones
Brendan P
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Kelaher
Carolyn J
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Lundquist
Julie-Beth
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McCarthy
Anne
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Nelson
Katheryn
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Patterson
Leslie
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Walsh
Andrew J
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Wright
William J
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Sutherland
D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D009792:Oceans and Seas
agenda de investigación; biodiversidad marina; escaneo de horizonte; establecimiento de prioridades; horizon scanning; marine biodiversity; policy; política; preguntas de investigación; priority setting; research agenda; research questions