Tracking Marine Megafauna for Conservation and Marine Spatial Planning

The global oceans are in crisis. The rapidity of environmental change requires conservation and management at an unprecedented scale. Tracking (also known as biologging) has emerged as a powerful tool to monitor biodiversity and reveal key information about the potential winners and losers of global change. For example, by identifying important habitats for marine animals, tracking can highlight areas for protection and contribute to a more sustainable exploitation of marine resources. In this context, the use of marine megafauna as indicators of marine spatial planning is gathering momentum to put this group of animals as central users of the global oceans and indicators of ocean health. It is now time to look forward to the key research directions that these new efforts are taking.



Tracking has emerged as a powerful tool to understand how, where and when marine megafauna may be exposed to anthropogenic threats. For example, in order to elucidate the ecological consequences of climate change, a detailed understanding of where marine animals go and the drivers of movements is required to predict future consequences. Monitoring the distribution and activity patterns of marine animals chimes with calls for marine spatial planning to become more fluid to reflect the dynamic nature of marine environments. Tracking also provides crucial information on marine megafauna directly interact with fisheries and offshore energy developments (e.g. renewables, oil, gas and deep-sea mining platforms), but also how they may be exposed to more pervasive threats such as marine pollution (e.g. light pollution, oil, heavy metals, chemical pollutants and plastic). Ultimately, tracking is proving instrumental for identifying and evaluating the effectiveness of management tools such as marine protected areas.



This Research Topic intends to highlight the multiple applications of tracking towards the prioritisation of conservation goals. We invite researchers working on different components of marine megafauna to submit manuscripts that address the use of tracking to guide conservation strategies and assist the development of marine spatial plans. We seek a broad taxonomic representation including studies on large fish (e.g. shark, tuna, and billfishes), sea turtles, marine mammals and seabirds. We welcome all types of articles that provide insights into, but not limited to, the following aspects:



(1) environmental and climate change

(2) interaction with fisheries and shipping

(3) offshore energy developments and deep-sea mining

(4) marine pollution

(5) marine protected areas, as well the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors

Keywords: Biologging, Climate Change, Fisheries, Offshore Energy Production, Marine Predators, Marine Protected Areas, Movement, Pollution

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.