About this Research Topic

Background

Interdisciplinary research spanning natural and social sciences and society is needed to inform decision-making for sustainable use and conservation of marine resources and services. The Integrated Marine Biosphere Research (IMBeR) project is an interdisciplinary global environmental change research network with the mission to: Promote integrated marine research and enable capabilities for developing and implementing ocean sustainability options within and across the natural and social sciences, and communicate relevant information and knowledge needed by society to secure sustainable, productive and healthy oceans. To achieve this mission, the IMBeR science plan identifies three objectives which inform all IMBeR activities, including the 2019 IMBeR Future Oceans2 open science conference: 1) Understanding and quantifying the state and variability of marine ecosystems, 2) Improving scenarios, predictions and projections of future ocean-human systems at multiple scales and 3) Improving and achieving sustainable ocean governance.

This Research Topic welcomes submissions (including perspective and opinion papers, policy briefs, original research articles and reviews) related to any of the three interconnected IMBeR objectives. These submissions could cover (1) the mechanisms of natural climate variability and anthropogenic global change and impacts on marine biogeochemical cycles, species and ecosystems, and human well-being and livelihoods; (2) modelling studies providing quantitative projections and predictions of future coupled human-marine ecosystems including human well-being and livelihoods, governance processes and infrastructure at global, regional and local scales, (3) syntheses of integrated research highlighting key knowledge gaps, recommendations for future action and quantification of the impact of interdisciplinary networks and capacity building activities and (4) papers related to improving the science-policy-society interface of marine research and aiding transition towards sustainable ocean and coastal governance, including provision and implementation of trade-off options for adaptation and mitigation, improving research co-design and co-production mechanisms and ocean literacy, understanding of the role of economic, social, cultural and political norms and values in marine governance, and integration of human behaviour and decision making into global, regional and local models.

The Topic Editors Carol Robinson, Annette Breckwoldt, Alistair Hobday, Eugene Murphy, Prateep Nayak and Alice Newton declare that they are members of the IMBeR scientific steering committee or IMBeR Human Dimensions Working Group and are collaborating with the IMBeR research community.

Keywords: biogeochemistry, ecology, global change, sustainability, governance, ocean literacy, human-nature relations

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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