Coral reefs around US-and US-affiliated Pacific islands and atolls span wide oceanographic
gradients and levels of human impact. Here we examine the relative influence of these …

Sharks are increasingly being recognized as important members of coral‐reef communities,
but their overall conservation status remains uncertain. Nine of the 29 reef‐shark species …

Observers of the Polynesian Shark Observatory (ORP), a citizen science network organized
mainly through the Polynesian dive centers, collected an unprecedented amount of data …

Dramatic changes in populations of fishes living on coral reefs have been documented
globally and, in response, the research community has initiated efforts to assess and monitor …

Fishing pressure on coral reef ecosystems has been frequently linked to reductions of large
fishes and reef fish biomass. Associated impacts on overall community structure are …

Sharks and other large predators are scarce on most coral reefs, but studies of their
historical ecology provide qualitative evidence that predators were once numerous in these …

Humans are an increasingly dominant driver of Earth's biological communities, but
differentiating human impacts from natural drivers of ecosystem state is crucial. Herbivorous …

Earlier declines in marine resources, combined with current fishing pressures and
devastating coral mortality in 2015, have resulted in a degraded coral reef ecosystem state …

Citizen science is promoted as a simple and cost-effective alternative to traditional
approaches for the monitoring of populations of marine megafauna. However, the reliability …

Aim The functional composition of local assemblages is hypothesized to be controlled by
hierarchical environmental filters, whereby the importance of different abiotic and biotic …