Oyster reef restoration fails to recoup global historic ecosystem losses despite substantial biodiversity gain.

Human activities have led to degradation of ecosystems globally. The lost ecosystem functions and services accumulate from the time of disturbance to the full recovery of the ecosystem and can be quantified as a "recovery debt," providing a valuable tool to develop better restoration practices that accelerate recovery and limit losses. Here, we quantified the recovery of faunal biodiversity and abundance toward a predisturbed state following structural restoration of oyster habitats globally.

Live-fast-die-young: Carryover effects of heatwave-exposed adult urchins on the development of the next generation.

With rising ocean temperatures, extreme weather events such as marine heatwaves (MHWs) are increasing in frequency and duration, pushing marine life beyond their physiological limits. The potential to respond to extreme conditions through physiological acclimatization, and pass on resistance to the next generation, fundamentally depends on the capacity of an organism to cope within their thermal tolerance limits. To elucidate whether heat conditioning of parents could benefit offspring development, we exposed adult sea urchins (Heliocidaris erythrogramma) to ambient summer (23°C), moderate (25°C) or strong (26°C) MHW conditions for 10 days.

Capacity of an ecologically key urchin to recover from extreme events: Physiological impacts of heatwaves and the road to recovery.

Heatwaves are increasing in frequency and intensity, with substantial impacts on ecosystems and species which maintain their function. Whether or not species are harmed by heatwave conditions by being pushed beyond their physiological bounds can depend on whether energy replacement is sufficient to enable recovery from acute stress. We exposed an ecologically important sea urchin, Heliocidaris erythrogramma, to experimental marine heatwave scenarios in context with recent summer heat anomalies in moderate (25 °C), and strong heatwave (26 °C) conditions for 10 days, followed by a 10-day recovery period at normal summer temperature (23 °C).

Survived but not safe: Marine heatwave hinders metabolism in two gastropod survivors.

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are an emerging threat to marine organisms that have increased in frequency and magnitude in the past decade. These extreme heating events can have differential impacts on organisms with some experiencing mortality while others survive. Here, we experimentally exposed two species of subtidal gastropod (Trochus sacellum and Astralium haematragum) to two realistic intensities of MHW to test the ability of different species to physiologically cope with extreme heating events.