Many marine populations and ecosystems have experienced strong historical depletions, yet reports of recoveries are increasing. This study reviews how common recovery is among depleted populations and degraded ecosystems and what its magnitude, timescale and major drivers are. Learning from such recovery successes as well as failures is essential for implementing realistic conservation goals and promising management strategies.

Marine vegetated habitats provide essential functions and services to ocean ecosystems and human well-being. It is unclear, however, how different habitat types compare. Using large-scale field surveys and binary network models we compared the habitat and food-web structure between eelgrass and rockweed beds in Atlantic Canada, assessed their nitrogen and carbon storage services, and determined their robustness to species loss.

The Adriatic Sea is among the most human-impacted coastal ecosystems worldwide – but when did humans start to affect its marine resources? Reconstructing past changes in marine resources and food-web structure, this study illustrates the long-term and far-reaching consequences human activities can have on marine ecosystems. Resource abundance has changed since at least Roman times and accelerated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, most traditional marine resources are depleted, and many species are rare or extirpated leaving food webs simplified and less resilient to further perturbations.

Check out this New Book edited by J.B.C. Jackson, Karen E. Alexander & Enric Sala at www.shiftingbaselinesbook.org. In Chapter 8 "Uncovering the Ocean's Past" of this volume, Heike and co-authors synthesize how we can use records from palaeontology, archaeology, history, genetics, early scientific surveys and modern ecology to understand the ocean’s ecological and environmental history.

In only a few decades, most sea cucumber fisheries around the world have experienced a boom-and-bust pattern; over time, this has happened faster and further away from the main markets in Hong Kong and China. Currently, 81% of sea cucumber fisheries globally have experienced population declines due to overfishing. The findings suggest these fisheries are often unsustainable and may develop too rapidly for effective management responses.

A study synthesizing the nature and scale of the ecological consequences of shark declines in the global ocean uncovered overall patterns and presents new evidence for the importance of shark populations to the rest of the marine world.

Estuaries have been vital components of marine ecosystems throughout history, and for millennia, human activities have shaped estuaries more then any other part of the ocean ecosystem. A review of the timeline, magnitude and range of human-induced changes within and across six estuaries in the United States before and since European colonization aids in determining the current status and potential future trajectories of estuaries and the development of realistic management and conservation goals.