We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and
population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly …

BACKGROUND Comparing patterns of terrestrial and marine defaunation helps to place
human impacts on marine fauna in context and to navigate toward recovery. Defaunation …

Strong decreases in greenhouse gas emissions are required to meet the reduction trajectory
resolved within the 2015 Paris Agreement. However, even these decreases will not avert …

Extinction risk in vertebrates has been linked to large body size, but this putative relationship
has only been explored for select taxa, with variable results. Using a newly assembled and …

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to
understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date …

Sharks are considered the apex predator of coral reefs, but the consequences of their global
depletion are uncertain. Here we explore the ecological roles of sharks on coral reefs and …

In ecosystems, sharks can be predators, competitors, facilitators, nutrient transporters, and
food. However, overfishing and other threats have greatly reduced shark populations …

Over the past 4 decades there has been a growing concern for the conservation status of
elasmobranchs (sharks and rays). In 2002, the first elasmobranch species were added to …

Biomass distribution and energy flow in ecosystems are traditionally described with trophic
pyramids, and increasingly with size spectra, particularly in aquatic ecosystems. Here, we …

Overexploitation of large apex marine predators is widespread in the world's oceans, yet the
timing and extent of declines are poorly understood. Here we reconstruct a unique fisheries …