Global marine biodiversity in the context of achieving the Aichi Targets: ways forward and addressing data gaps.

In 2010, the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. As this plan approaches its end, we discussed whether marine biodiversity and prediction studies were nearing the Aichi Targets during the 4th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity held in Montreal, Canada in June 2018. This article summarises the outcome of a five-day group discussion on how global marine biodiversity studies should be focused further to better understand the patterns of biodiversity.