Frontiers in Marine Science最新文献

{"title":"Hybrid modeling of grounding and collision risk for vessels not under command","authors":"Mehmet Kaptan","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1955791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1955791","url":null,"abstract":"Although loss of control (not under command, NUC) is one of the leading triggers of maritime accidents, the quantitative role of human and organizational factors in the process by which it evolves into a risk of grounding and collision has been largely neglected. Traditional approaches primarily treat this situation as a technical reliability issue; however, whether a loss of control leads to a disaster is often determined not by the failure itself, but by human and organizational performance in the first few minutes following the failure. To address this gap, this study proposes an original hybrid methodological framework that combines LLM-supported HFACS-PV coding, Monte Carlo simulation, and decision tree analysis within a sequential and integrated data flow. Within this framework the predictive and quantitative burden rests on the Monte Carlo simulation, while the decision tree contributes an interpretable, descriptive account of factor combinations; it is not presented as a validated predictive classifier. NUC cases compiled from publicly available accident investigation reports were coded into five HFACS-PV layers using a large language model-supported protocol; the resulting layer load was converted into a human factor multiplier that scales the vessel’s time to regain power and fed into the probabilistic simulation as input. The simulation predicts the likelihood of catastrophic outcomes following a loss of control and highlights how the critical time window for intervention narrows significantly—particularly in extreme scenarios—emphasizing the decisive role of initial response capacity. A controlled sensitivity analysis shows that, when physical variables are held constant, the human factor significantly alters the probability of a catastrophic event; however, this effect acts as a conditional modulator dependent on the available time window. Decision tree analysis reveals that the simultaneous occurrence of technology–interface failures and skill-based errors is the pattern most strongly associated with catastrophic outcomes. This decision-tree finding is descriptive and exploratory in nature; under leave-one-out cross-validation the model does not outperform the majority-class baseline and is therefore not used as a predictive classifier. Furthermore, deficiencies in organizational processes and safety management systems emerged as the dominant latent condition in the vast majority of cases, and independent cases outside the dataset also confirmed this trend. The proposed framework offers a practical and comparative decision-support tool that integrates text-based human factor analysis with probabilistic risk modeling.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A comprehensive examination of the current AI landscape in ocean sciences: applications, challenges, and emerging trends","authors":"Tiara Mulder, Spencer Bialek, Shen Molloy, Alexi Baccardax Westcott, Shayla Fitzsimmons","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1890995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1890995","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly used in ocean sciences to analyze large, complex, and unevenly sampled datasets from satellites, autonomous platforms, sensors, vessels, and genomic tools. This review examines how AI and ML are being applied across major areas of ocean research, including physical oceanography, coastal hazards, marine biogeochemistry, ecology, remote sensing, acoustics, marine geology, and applied ocean engineering. Using a literature-synthesis workflow supported by Schlitsummarizer and full-text extraction methods, this paper identifies key applications, emerging trends, research gaps, and limitations in ocean-based ML. The review shows that ML is particularly useful for predicting surface currents, reconstructing subsurface ocean conditions, forecasting waves, estimating biogeochemical variables, classifying marine organisms and habitats, improving remote-sensing products, and supporting autonomous observing systems. Emerging trends include the growth of deep learning, physics-informed machine learning, explainable AI, data integration across observing platforms, and management-focused applications related to climate adaptation, coastal planning, fisheries, and environmental monitoring. However, major challenges remain, including sparse and biased ocean observations, limited data from deep-ocean and polar regions, validation bias, poor model transferability, class imbalance in ecological datasets, black-box model behavior, and uncertainty under changing climate conditions. Overall, this review argues that AI and ML are valuable tools for expanding ocean observation and prediction, but they must be used alongside oceanographic knowledge, careful validation, and transparent interpretation to ensure reliable scientific and management outcomes.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The coral settlement-sphere: microenvironments that shape reef restoration in the Anthropocene","authors":"Sarah Ling Romero, Peter Lynton Harrison, Alexandra Ordoñez Alvarez, Tom Shlesinger, Adi Khen, Yossi Loya, Jennifer E. Smith, Daniel Wangpraseurt","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1940282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1940282","url":null,"abstract":"Accelerating losses of reef-building corals are driving steep declines in coral recruitment, imperiling the biodiversity and long-term resilience of reef ecosystems worldwide. Here, we review the mechanisms underlying coral recruitment success through a critical – yet largely overlooked – microenvironmental lens relevant to the scale of microscopic coral larvae. We introduce the concept of the “settlement-sphere”, which encompasses the physical, biochemical, and microbial microhabitat properties that govern successful coral larval recruitment. We then examine how anthropogenic stressors erode this settlement-sphere by diminishing essential chemical cues, reducing microhabitat complexity, and altering key physico-chemical conditions (e.g., hypoxia), ultimately leading to recruitment failure. Finally, we argue that advancing a collective understanding of the settlement-sphere is essential for developing actionable strategies to restore degraded coral reef systems. Such strategies include augmenting reef microhabitats with chemical cues and advanced materials that promote coral recruitment, thereby supporting genetic diversity, enhancing resilience, and enabling the restocking of coral populations.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improved RT-DETR-based detection and counting of shrimp in EK80 acoustic echogram images","authors":"Yanrui Qu, Sheng Chen, Ruichao Xue, Siyuan Zheng","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1917117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1917117","url":null,"abstract":"Accurately detecting shrimp targets in EK80 acoustic echogram images is challenging due to their small size, high-density aggregation, and strong background clutter, which collectively hinder conventional object-detection models. To address these issues, we propose an enhanced detection framework based on RT-DETR. Our method introduces three key improvements: the integration of an Efficient Multi-Scale Attention (EMA) mechanism to strengthen feature representation, the addition of a dedicated P2 detection layer to better capture fine-grained information for small objects, and the adoption of a combined Focal Loss and Wise-IoU (WIoU) loss function to mitigate class imbalance and refine bounding-box regression. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the improved model achieves a mean mAP@50 of 0.844 and a mean mAP@50–95 of 0.437, outperforming the baseline RT-DETR. Furthermore, by incorporating DeepSORT for multi-object tracking and identity association, the proposed system enables automated shrimp counting with an average accuracy of 83.32% across 10 video clips. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in enhancing detection, tracking, and enumeration performance in complex acoustic imagery, offering a promising technical solution for real-world applications such as intake safety monitoring and early warning systems at nuclear power plants.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Into the light: the adverse effects of artificial light at night on nest density of olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea)","authors":"Jennifer A. Carbonell Ellgutter, Frank Rosell, Hans Renssen, Lucy A. Hawkes, Stefanie Reinhardt","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1746438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1746438","url":null,"abstract":"Light pollution caused by artificial light at night (ALAN) is an increasing threat to biodiversity, particularly in coastal ecosystems where human population density is high. In this study, we evaluated the impact of ALAN on the nest density of olive ridley sea turtles ( <jats:italic>Lepidochelys olivacea</jats:italic> ) along a 7.5 km beach transect on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. Using a lux meter to measure light intensity at 237 sites over two nesting seasons (2021–2022), we analyzed whether ALAN has adverse effects on nest density. Our findings revealed that nest density was lower with higher levels of ALAN. Each one-unit increase in lux corresponds to a 29–34% reduction in expected nest counts. Additionally, we observed a “weekend effect” on nest density, with lower nest densities on weekends, coinciding with higher light levels and likely greater human presence. Although light levels were slightly lower in 2022, nest density declined, suggesting that additional environmental or ecological factors influenced nesting activity between years. These results reinforce the ecological importance of environments with little human activity and low levels of ALAN for nesting sea turtles, underscoring the need for targeted mitigation strategies. We also highlight methodological limitations and recommend incorporating species-specific light sensitivity into future monitoring programs and coastal lighting mitigation efforts.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A harmonization-based framework for cross-sensor super-resolution of Sentinel-2 imagery for coastal applications","authors":"Aran Dezhban, Paul Mario Koola","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1950325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1950325","url":null,"abstract":"High-resolution (HR) satellite imagery is essential for coastal mapping, ocean analysis, and long-term environmental monitoring; however, acquiring it is constrained by hardware limitations and high costs. Freely available low-resolution (LR) archives, such as those from Sentinel-2 (S2), offer global coverage and frequent revisits, but their 10 m native resolution is insufficient for fine-scale analysis. This study presents HARBOR (Harmonization-based Adaptive Resolution Boosting for Optical Remote sensing), an integrated harmonization-based workflow that combines established radiometric harmonization and sub-pixel convolutional super-resolution (SR) components and adapts them to four-band coastal S2–PlanetScope (PS) data. Rather than proposing a new network architecture, HARBOR addresses a gap in the way satellite SR is commonly assembled, where network optimization receives most of the attention and cross-sensor radiometric inconsistency is treated as a preprocessing detail. The workflow consists of four interconnected stages: (1) a same-day, close-time data preparation approach for temporally consistent cross-sensor learning, (2) statistical radiometric harmonization to reduce cross-sensor reflectance differences, (3) the synthetic generation of &lt;jats:inline-formula&gt; &lt;mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\" display=\"inline\"&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mi&gt;S&lt;/mml:mi&gt; &lt;mml:msub&gt; &lt;mml:mn&gt;2&lt;/mml:mn&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mtext&gt;like&lt;/mml:mtext&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:msub&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:math&gt; &lt;/jats:inline-formula&gt; imagery to expand limited supervised datasets, and (4) a customized Efficient Sub-Pixel Convolutional Neural Network (ESPCN) adapted for multispectral satellite imagery using a fused loss formulation. In a coastal case study of Galveston Island, Texas, USA, PS imagery resampled from 3 m to 5 m served as the HR reference for reconstructing S2 inputs from 10 m to 5 m. Because only 18 same-day, close-time S2 and PS pairs were available for direct cross-sensor training, a harmonization model calibrated on those pairs was used to generate synthetic &lt;jats:inline-formula&gt; &lt;mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\" display=\"inline\"&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mi&gt;S&lt;/mml:mi&gt; &lt;mml:msub&gt; &lt;mml:mn&gt;2&lt;/mml:mn&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mtext&gt;like&lt;/mml:mtext&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:msub&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:math&gt; &lt;/jats:inline-formula&gt; imagery from PS, expanding the supervised training set to 191 temporally consistent pairs. A component ablation separates the three elements of the workflow, namely statistical radiometric harmonization, synthetic &lt;jats:inline-formula&gt; &lt;mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\" display=\"inline\"&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mi&gt;S&lt;/mml:mi&gt; &lt;mml:msub&gt; &lt;mml:mn&gt;2&lt;/mml:mn&gt; &lt;mml:mrow&gt; &lt;mml:mtext&gt;like&lt;/mml:mtext&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:msub&gt; &lt;/mml:mrow&gt; &lt;/mml:math&gt; &lt;/jats:inline-formula&gt; expansion of the training set, and the fused loss. Compared at a fixed training-set size, radiometric harmonization is the largest single contributor to reconstructio","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Applications of HFACS in maritime accident research: a systematic review and bibliometric analysis","authors":"Fehmi Yasin İnan, Arzu Bal, Özgür Dal, İshak Altınpınar","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1978638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1978638","url":null,"abstract":"The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is increasingly used and modified in maritime accident research. This study is a systematic review of the use of HFACS in maritime research. Bibliometric patterns in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus are investigated. The study used a combination of systematic review, content analysis and bibliometric mapping according to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. The final datasets of WoS and Scopus included 60 studies each, of which 55 were common to both databases, resulting in a total of 65 unique eligible studies. The results show a recent growth in maritime HFACS research, mainly concentrated in China and Türkiye. HFACS is still in widespread use, but a number of maritime-specific adaptations have been proposed and HFACS has been combined with probabilistic, system-oriented and data-driven methods. Analyzing the ten most-cited and ten database-specific studies identified causal factors at different HFACS levels and mitigation measures addressing operational and organizational issues. The citation-network structures of WoS and Scopus were different, but the frequently occurring keywords and highly cited publications and authors were similar. In general, the results show that maritime HFACS research has progressed beyond accident classification by the use of adapted frameworks and complementary analytical methods.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149187934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Institutional fragmentation and rule-of-law coordination in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: a maritime soft power perspective","authors":"Juanjuan Wan","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1977131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1977131","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction International assessments of maritime cities have shifted from hard infrastructure indicators toward institutional quality metrics such as maritime finance and law and attractiveness and competitiveness. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), with its distinctive “one country, two systems, and three jurisdictions” configuration, faces gaps in cross-jurisdictional rule connectivity that may limit its maritime soft power—a challenge that existing single-jurisdiction assessment frameworks do not fully capture, highlighting the need for rule-of-law coordination. Methods Using <jats:italic>The Leading Maritime Cities of the World</jats:italic> assessment framework as a benchmark, this policy and practice review combines a structured review of assessment data with comparative legal analysis to identify the mechanisms through which gaps in cross-jurisdictional rule connectivity may affect the maritime soft power of GBA cities, as reflected in their international assessment results. Results GBA cities display a split profile of maritime strengths—strong port performance in the Mainland port cities and comparatively stronger maritime finance and law capacity in Hong Kong—that is consistent with incomplete cross-jurisdictional complementarity. Three mechanisms are identified: uncertainty in the application of law, regulatory arbitrage and competition in standards, and the costs of judicial coordination. In response, three institutional arrangements are proposed: a rule-of-law coordination pilot zone, a marine environmental dispute resolution center, and a cross-border data interoperability mechanism. Discussion Drawing on cross-jurisdictional governance practices in the Rhine–Scheldt basin and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the article argues that “rule-of-law coordination” merits consideration as a regional indicator in international maritime-city assessment systems. The proposed framework addresses a gap in current evaluations of multi-jurisdictional regions. The analysis identifies plausible mechanisms consistent with the observed ranking patterns rather than estimating causal effects.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149172783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mangrove litter mixing alters elemental composition more frequently than mass loss, with species-specific patterns across nitrogen-enrichment plots","authors":"Zhouxiang Zheng, Qijuan Cao, Yuxi Chen, Mingxuan Zheng, Zhiyan Liu, Yisheng Peng","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1976668","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1976668","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Mangrove litter decomposition contributes to coastal carbon and nutrient cycling, yet changes in litter mass may not fully reflect changes in elemental composition. This study investigated litter decomposition and C: N stoichiometry in relation to species identity, nitrogen enrichment, and litter mixing in a subtropical mangrove wetland. Methods Two field experiments were conducted on Hailing Island, southern China. A previously reported nitrogen-enrichment experiment included an untreated control and three nitrogen-input levels (22.85, 114.24, and 228.48 g N m <jats:sup>-2</jats:sup> yr <jats:sup>-1</jats:sup> ). As each treatment was represented by a single plot, the results were examined descriptively. A separate litter-mixing experiment examined three mangrove species ( <jats:italic>Sonneratia apetala</jats:italic> , <jats:italic>Kandelia obovata</jats:italic> , and <jats:italic>Avicennia marina</jats:italic> ) and their two- and three-species mixtures. Litter mass remaining, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and C:N ratios were measured during decomposition. Results <jats:italic>S. apetala</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>A. marina</jats:italic> decomposed faster than <jats:italic>K. obovata</jats:italic> , with differences corresponding to their initial litter chemistry. Mass loss varied among nitrogen-enrichment plots without a consistent response to increasing nitrogen input. Compared with the control, mean aboveground-litter TP was 14.02% higher and N was 11.53% lower in the high-nitrogen plot. In the litter-mixing experiment, significant deviations from weighted single-species expectations occurred in only 20% of mass-remaining comparisons, compared with 65%, 70%, and 55% for TOC, TN, and TP, respectively. Most elemental deviations occurred during the early and intermediate stages of decomposition. The three-species mixture did not consistently show greater mass loss than the two-species mixtures. Discussion Litter mixing produced more frequent changes in elemental composition than in mass remaining, with responses varying among species combinations. These findings suggest that litter mass loss alone may not adequately reflect changes in nutrient composition during mangrove litter decomposition. The nitrogen-enrichment results also showed variation in litter stoichiometry, although these observations require confirmation through replicated field experiments.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149172823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The potential for habitat support structures to address habitat deficits in a declining marine ecosystem","authors":"Hanna R. Koch, William C. Sharp, John H. Hunt","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1980513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1980513","url":null,"abstract":"Concurrent local and global stressors are rapidly degrading marine ecosystems. Consequences of this degradation include widespread reductions in the availability, quality, and structural complexity of habitats. For example, coral reef habitats across the Western Atlantic/Caribbean are flattening and becoming more structurally homogeneous as warming waters, severe bleaching events, unprecedented disease outbreaks, deteriorating water quality, and hurricanes continue to drive stony coral mass mortality. This is problematic because the physical structure of a habitat profoundly influences its associated biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Structurally complex habitats support greater species richness and abundance as they have more microhabitats and ecological niches available for life history functions that support survival and reproduction. Conversely, habitat loss and degradation can drive reductions in the abundance and diversity of organisms, which negatively impacts the health of our ecosystems, as well as the goods and services they provide. While active restoration of species that create biogenic structure is underway, efforts may be slow to be effectively upscaled, and sources of environmental decline and mortality continue unabated. Complementary or synergistic management interventions involving the deployment of habitat support structures designed to maximize ecological function, promote biodiversity, and instantaneously increase relief and complexity may ameliorate certain habitat deficits related to fish and invertebrate life histories. Improving habitat availability and quality may in turn improve conditions and resources in an area, thereby strengthening ecosystem resilience and functioning. Considering the configuration of habitat support structures to support species’ ontogenetic movements may provide further ecosystem benefits by promoting persistence across multiple life stages and therefore production. Herein, we provide a perspective on the potential utility of such structures to mitigate habitat deficits in the Florida Keys (U.S.A), using nearshore hardbottom and offshore coral reef habitats as examples.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149172784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}