Advances in Bioerosion in the 21st Century: New Challenges

Bioerosion, i.e. the breakdown of hard substrates by organisms, is a major structuring force that modifies past and present ecological communities and ecosystem functions. It can significantly impact them from an ecological and socio-economic perspective. Research, that crosses many disciplines among the sciences, has explored the mechanisms and effects of bioerosion. Since the term ‘bioerosion’ was established by Neumann already 55 years ago, a wide variety of bioerosion research has been conducted and various papers have been published focusing on topics from micro to macro bioerosion organisms, from many different marine and non-marine environments to different climatic zones or, more recently, from progress on sophisticated analyses techniques like micro-CT to the study of bioerosion impact on cultural heritage. With all these improvements, we now know that bioerosion is a fundamental and global ecological process that can affect habitat structure, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling. There are shared aspects in the mechanisms of bioerosion that suggest similarities in the forces that drive bioerosion and its ecological outcomes.

In a changing world, bioerosion is rapidly responding to anthropogenic changes in multiple and complex forms, with significant and far-reaching effects on all systems. Emerging data further underscores the significance of bioerosion and the need to mitigate its impacts. In this context, the magnitude and interdisciplinary nature of challenges presented by bioerosion to society are evident. A holistic and cross-disciplinary approach is needed to understand better how future changes will affect the dynamics of bioerosion throughout ecosystems and taxa. However, the biological and geological systems of the past should not be forgotten, as they may hold the key to many of our future research questions.

This Research Topic of Frontiers in Earth Sciences is dedicated to evaluating bioerosion effects across ecosystems during the past and present in a context of global change. This is devoted to a multi-disciplinary perspective of how bioerosional processes affect the huge variety of biological and geological systems, both past and present, and focuses on new questions that will come during the 21st century with climate change issues.

A (non-exhaustive) set of topics of interest would be:
• Evolution and classification;
• Ranges of bioerosive biota;
• Ranges of substrates;
• Symbiotic interactions;
• Identifying and predicting the impacts of anthropogenic factors such as climate change and eutrophication on bioerosion.

Research articles as well as review articles are welcomed. For detailed manuscript formatting guidelines please check https://www.frontiersin.org/about/author-guidelines.