Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas
2007/07/01 by Mark D. Spalding, Mark Spalding, Helen Fox +18 · 121 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies #Marine and fisheries research #Marine and coastal plant biology
paper · doi:10.1641/b570707
Abstract
ABSTRACT The conservation and sustainable use of marine resources is a highlighted goal on a growing number of national and international policy agendas. Unfortunately, efforts to assess progress, as well as to strategically plan and prioritize new marine conservation measures, have been hampered by the lack of a detailed, comprehensive biogeographic system to classify the oceans. Here we report on a new global system for coastal and shelf areas: the Marine Ecoregions of the World, or MEOW, a nested system of 12 realms, 62 provinces, and 232 ecoregions. This system provides considerably better spatial resolution than earlier global systems, yet it preserves many common elements and can be cross-referenced to many regional biogeographic classifications. The designation of terrestrial ecoregions has revolutionized priority setting and planning for terrestrial conservation; we anticipate similar benefits from the use of a coherent and credible marine system.
Citations
Cited by
- Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Biogeographic Units for Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation
- <scp>ANIS</scp> ‐E: An Atlas of Marine Non‐Indigenous Species in Europe
- Quantifying the unrecorded loss of avian phylogenetic diversity
- Twenty years of marine systematic conservation planning: a global scoping review for good practices
- Marine non-indigenous species of Cyprus: pathways, introduction dynamics, spatial patterns, and policy implications
- Ecological erosion and expanding extinction risk of sharks and rays
- Reassessment of the global distribution and diversity of modern planktonic foraminifera from the FORCIS database
- Intercolony and Intra‐Annual Variations in Isotopic Niche of Red‐Footed Boobies <i>Sula sula</i> in the Tropical Indian Ocean
- A Global Account of Established Non‐Native Fish Species
- Landscape Genomics to Enable Conservation Actions: The California Conservation Genomics Project
- Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century
- Molecular phylogeny and revised classification of the Buccinoidea (Neogastropoda)
- Patterns and processes in the evolutionary history of parrotfishes (Family Labridae)
- Changes in shallow-reef community composition along environmental gradients on the East African coast
- Conserving the beauty of the world’s reef fish assemblages
- Surveys of the Angolan coast uncover the largest olive ridley sea turtle nesting population in the Atlantic and the largest non-arribada population globally
- Anthropogenic climate change will likely outpace coral range expansion
- A Review of Asteroid Biology in the Context of Sea Star Wasting: Possible Causes and Consequences
- Top predator status and trends: ecological implications, monitoring and mitigation strategies to promote ecosystem-based management
- Molecular data, ecological niche, and dispersal models reveal a trans-Atlantic shallow-water octopus species
- Mass flowering of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica after 2022 record-breaking marine heatwaves, a Pan-Mediterranean study
- Global meta-analysis shows action is needed to halt genetic diversity loss
- Assessing conservation priorities for seahorses in Brazil reveals gaps in current protected areas
- Diversity and turnover in a rocky shore intertidal community of an upwelling region (Arraial do Cabo, Brazil)
- Barcoding-inferred biodiversity of shallow-water Indo-Pacific demosponges
- Ocean extremes as a stress test for marine ecosystems and society
- Suture zones, speciation, and evolution
- Genetic diversity in the American elephantfish (Chimaeriformes: <i>Callorhinchus callorynchus</i>) and among its congeners
- Global intraspecific diversity of marine forests of brown macroalgae predicted by past climate conditions
- First release of the European marine omics biodiversity observation network (EMO BON) shotgun metagenomics data from water and sediment samples
- Migratory Connectivity and Non‐Breeding Habitat Segregation Across Biogeographical Scales in Closely Related Seabird Taxa
- Modelling the Distribution of Key Mediterranean Gorgonians: An Ensemble Approach to Unravel Broad‐Scale Patterns and Guide Conservation Efforts
- Population genetic structure of commonly caught commercial shark species along the Indian coast
- Trophic convergence of marine vertebrate communities worldwide
- Future climate-driven habitat loss and range shift of the Critically Endangered whitefin swellshark (<i>Cephaloscyllium albipinnum</i>)
- What Do We Know About the Environmental Status of European Seas?
- Mapping human pressures on biodiversity across the planet uncovers anthropogenic threat complexes
- Phylogeny of the Electric Rays of the Family Narcinidae (Gill, 1862): Systematic Review and Evidence of the Dispersal Routes to America
- Of Biogeography, Fishes and Kelp: Environmental <scp>DNA</scp> Metabarcoding the Great African Seaforest
- Shell use by sympatric hermit crab species in a seasonally open coastal lagoon in Northeastern Brazil
- Leveraging citizen science to classify and track benthic habitat states: An unsupervised UMAP-HDBSCAN pipeline applied to the global reef life survey dataset
- Climate change impacts on China’s marine ecosystems
- Coastal and Marine Ecosystems of the Arafura and Timor Seas – Characterization, Key Features and Ecological Significance
- Ecosystems and ordering: A dataset
- Evaluating the protection status and exposure to warming of Caribbean reefs with high functional potential
- Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) of the Salish Sea, Northeast Pacific: annotated checklist and new species reports
- Hopping Hotspots Shaped the Global Biogeography and Diversification of Orectolobiform Sharks
- Five key opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of area-based marine conservation
- Trophic niche partitioning in giant clams
- Pacific‐Arctic Ocean Acidification: Decadal Trends and Drivers
- Evolutionary legacies structure the geography of seagrass traits across the world's oceans
- From Presence‐Only to Abundance Species Distribution Models Using Transfer Learning
- Important Shark and Ray Areas can inform conservation planning in the Mediterranean and Black Seas
- Phylogenomics establishes an Early Miocene reconstruction of reef vertebrate diversity
- Where have all the petrels gone? Forty years (1978–2020) of Wilson’s Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) population dynamics at King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo, Antarctica) in a changing climate
- A Resilient Marine Protected Area Network Design: A First for the Arafura Timor Seas
- Birds of a feather moult together: Differences in moulting distribution of four species of storm-petrels
- Extinction risk of the endemic soft coral Phyllogorgia dilatata (Esper, 1806) in a remote island of the Brazilian coast
- ReefNet: A Large scale, Taxonomically Enriched Dataset and Benchmark for Hard Coral Classification
- Stony secrets unveiled: evolution of hypercalcified calcareous sponges (Porifera)
- Patterns in marine hydrozoan richness and biogeography around southern Africa: implications of life cycle strategy
- CorMedNet – a baseline database of the distribution and demographics of Mediterranean coralligenous species
- Genetic Structure of the Rocky Intertidal Stalked Barnacle <i>Capitulum mitella</i> Across the Northwest Pacific and Southeast Asia: Influences of Pleistocene Climate Changes and Contemporary Oceanographic Regimes
- An archaeomalacological synthesis of people-mollusc engagement across the Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere, Southwestern Pacific Ocean
- Deep-sea ecosystems of the North Atlantic Ocean: discovery, status, function and future challenges
- Unveiling hidden molluscan diversity: New species records in Bougainville Bay, Strait of Magellan
- <scp>AVOTREX</scp>: A Global Dataset of Extinct Birds and Their Traits
- Fish Assemblage Patterns in Rhodolith Beds of a Southwestern Atlantic Marine Protected Area: The Role of Habitat Complexity
- First Insights into Population Structure and Genetic Diversity Versus Host Specificity in Trypanorhynch Tapeworms Using Multiplexed Shotgun Genotyping
- Marine invasive alien species in Europe: 9 years after the IAS Regulation
- Worldwide Appraisal of Knowledge Gaps in the Space Usage of Small Pelagic Fish: Highlights Across Stock Uncertainties and Research Priorities
- Projected loss of brown macroalgae and seagrasses with global environmental change
- Diversity, distribution and intrinsic extinction vulnerability of exploited marine bivalves
- Climate‐related range shifts – a global multidimensional synthesis and new research directions
- Feeding behavior of blue whales ( <i>Balaenoptera musculus</i> ) during austral summer in northern Chilean Patagonia
- Underprotected Marine Protected Areas in a Global Biodiversity Hotspot
- Ecosystems and Ordering: Exploring the Extent and Diversity of Ecosystem Governance
- Cataloguing the alien spermatophyte flora of a remote tropical island: Methods and insights from Isla del Coco, Costa Rica
- Protection efforts have resulted in ~10% of existing fish biomass on coral reefs
- Distribution modelling for Neotropical freshwater stingrays <i>Potamotrygon brachyura</i> and <i>Potamotrygon motoro</i> ( <scp>Myliobatiformes, Potamotrygonidae</scp> ) in the <scp>Uruguay River</scp> basin
- Next release of the European Marine Omics Biodiversity Observation Network (EMO BON) shotgun metagenomic data from water and sediment samples (Release 2)
- Anthropogenic structures and the infiltration of natural benthos by invasive ascidians
- Thriving Areas in Temperate Coastal Systems: Novel Insights for Marine Conservation
- Global phylogeography of the intertidal limestone bio-eroding barnacle <i>Lithotrya</i> (Pollicipedomorpha: Lithotryidae): centre of origin in the Central Indo-Pacific and dispersal to Western Indo-Pacific and Western Atlantic
- Sea-air CO 2 fluxes along the Brazilian continental margin
- Projected impacts of future climate change on the aboveground biomass of seagrasses at global scale
- Seascape genomics of the pink abalone (<i>Haliotis corrugata</i>): An insight into a cross-border species in the northeast Pacific coast
- Coral reef state influences resilience to acute climate‐mediated disturbances
- Contrasting invasion potential of Ciona robusta and C. intestinalis in Subantarctic and Antarctic ecosystems under warming scenarios: insights of ecological niche models and physiological data
- Exploring, harnessing and conserving marine genetic resources towards a sustainable seaweed aquaculture
- Global biogeochemical provinces of the mesopelagic zone
- Network‐based bioregionalization of demersal fish in continental shelf seas
- Site Fidelity and Residency Patterns of Rough‐Toothed Dolphins ( <scp> <i>Steno bredanensis</i> </scp> ) in Madeira Island Using Photo‐Identification
- Large‐scale deviations between realized and fundamental thermal niches in global seaweed distributions
- Ecoregions of New Guinea [wikipedia]
- List of ecoregions in India [wikipedia]
- A macroevolutionary perspective on species range limits. [europepmc]
- Population genetic structure and connectivity of the harmful dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum in the Mediterranean Sea. [europepmc]
- Historical ecology with real numbers: past and present extent and biomass of an imperilled estuarine habitat. [europepmc]
- Faunal breaks and species composition of Indo-Pacific corals: the role of plate tectonics, environment and habitat distribution. [europepmc]
- The cost of being valuable: predictors of extinction risk in marine invertebrates exploited as luxury seafood. [europepmc]
- Improved heat tolerance in air drives the recurrent evolution of air-breathing. [europepmc]
- Spatially explicit trends in the global conservation status of vertebrates. [europepmc]
- Historical factors that have shaped the evolution of tropical reef fishes: a review of phylogenies, biogeography, and remaining questions. [europepmc]
- A Standardised Vocabulary for Identifying Benthic Biota and Substrata from Underwater Imagery: The CATAMI Classification Scheme. [europepmc]
- Marine biogeographic realms and species endemicity. [europepmc]
- Toward an ecoregion scale evaluation of eDNA metabarcoding primers: A case study for the freshwater fish biodiversity of the Murray-Darling Basin (Australia). [europepmc]
- Developing a list of invasive alien species likely to threaten biodiversity and ecosystems in the European Union. [europepmc]
- Community ecology across bacteria, archaea and microbial eukaryotes in the sediment and seawater of coastal Puerto Nuevo, Baja California. [europepmc]
- Modularity and predicted functions of the global sponge-microbiome network. [europepmc]
- Role of carbonate burial in Blue Carbon budgets. [europepmc]
- A Framework for Understanding Marine Cosmopolitanism in the Anthropocene. [europepmc]
- Three decades of heat stress exposure in Caribbean coral reefs: a new regional delineation to enhance conservation. [europepmc]
- Remote reefs and seamounts are the last refuges for marine predators across the Indo-Pacific. [europepmc]
- Restructuring of the 'Macaronesia' biogeographic unit: A marine multi-taxon biogeographical approach. [europepmc]
- A fine-tuned global distribution dataset of marine forests. [europepmc]
- Global trends in mangrove forest fragmentation. [europepmc]
- Long-term changes in kelp forests in an inner basin of the Salish Sea. [europepmc]
- Marine heatwaves drive recurrent mass mortalities in the Mediterranean Sea. [europepmc]
- Microplastic burden in marine benthic invertebrates depends on species traits and feeding ecology within biogeographical provinces. [europepmc]
- Global meta-analysis shows action is needed to halt genetic diversity loss. [europepmc]
Related