An Environmental Niche Exploration Tool for Kelp Forest Management.

Sustainably managing kelp forest ecosystems is critical to maintaining marine biodiversity, supporting coastal communities, and meeting global conservation targets such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework's 30 × 30 and Kelp Forest Challenge. Effective kelp forest management frequently depends on selecting environmentally suitable sites that align with species-specific environmental requirements. This paper introduces a novel kelp forest environmental niche mapping tool that synthesizes the realized environmental niche of 65 kelp species across 25 biophysical factors.

Strong genetic differentiation and low genetic diversity in a habitat-forming fucoid seaweed (Cystophora racemosa) across 850 km of its range.

Temperate seaweed forests are among the most productive and widespread habitats in coastal waters. However, they are under threat from climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. To effectively conserve and manage these ecosystems under these rising pressures, an understanding of the genetic diversity and structure of habitat-forming seaweeds will be necessary.

Reef Adapt: A tool to inform climate-smart marine restoration and management decisions.

A critical component of ecosystem restoration projects involves using genetic data to select source material that will enhance success under current and future climates. However, the complexity and expense of applying genetic data is a barrier to its use outside of specialised scientific contexts. To help overcome this barrier, we developed Reef Adapt ( www.

Molecular analysis of a fungal disease in the habitat-forming brown macroalga Phyllospora comosa (Fucales) along a latitudinal gradient.

Infectious diseases affecting habitat-forming species can have significant impacts on population dynamics and alter the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems. Recently, a fungal infection was described as the causative agent of necrotic lesions on the stipe of the forest-forming macroalga Phyllospora comosa, a disease named "stipe rot" (SR). Here, we developed a quantitative PCR (qPCR) method for rapid detection and quantification of this pathogen, which was applied to evaluate the level of SR infection in eight P.