About this Research Topic

Background

Intertidal environments of inland seas around the world face numerous threats due to natural sensitivity and cumulative anthropogenic impacts of urbanization and climate change. These changes have impacted fish, shellfish, and other species that use these habitats, but have also motivated people to restore intertidal habitats. How these habitats and species respond to both impacts and recovery efforts remain issues of international importance.

The Salish Sea, an ecoregion of the northeast Pacific that straddles British Columbia and US Washington State, provides key examples of these issues:
1) cumulative impacts to intertidal habitats
2) sensitive and threatened species using these systems for rearing as juveniles
3) concerted efforts to restore these habitats and recover species

This collection will provide cutting-edge analyses of habitat impacts, restoration efforts, and population responses from multiple areas in the Salish Sea, and offer broader lessons for the science and management of intertidal habitats in other regions.

The goals of this Research Topic are to 1. conceptualize and characterize the anthropogenic change in intertidal environments and the organisms dependent on them, 2. evaluate cumulative effects including multiple anthropogenic impacts, the effects of restoration actions, and climate impacts, and 3. highlight creative and cutting-edge approaches for studying these questions.

We are seeking manuscripts featuring new conceptual and analytic approaches, methods addressing cumulative effects in intertidal habitats, evaluation of large-scale restoration benefits on species, retrospective analysis of change, and evaluations of species responses to changing intertidal conditions. Manuscripts should both address change in Salish Sea environments and provide insight into approaches that will be relevant to other regions of the world. We are also seeking cross-pollination of these studies during the review process: contributors should expect to also act as peer reviewers for one manuscript for the Research Topic. Please contact any of the editors if you have any additional questions.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Habitat Restoration, Anthropogenic Impacts, Climate Change, Cumulative Effects, Estuary Wetlands, Shorelines, Status and Trends, Fisheries, Shellfish

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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