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Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets

Ana M M Sequeira, Jorge P Rodríguez, Sarah A Marley, Hannah J Calich, Mirjam van der Mheen, Michelle VanCompernolle, Lucy M Arrowsmith, Lauren R Peel, Nuno Queiroz, Marisa Vedor, …
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Vol.388(6751), pp.1086-1097
2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl0239
PMID: 40472106

Abstract

Animal Migration Animals Aquatic Organisms Biodiversity Conservation of Natural Resources - methods Endangered Species Extinction, Biological
The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of threatened species will be achieved. We assembled a multi-taxa tracking dataset (11 million geopositions from 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species) to provide a global assessment of space use of highly mobile marine megafauna, showing that 63% of the area that they cover is used 80% of the time as important migratory corridors or residence areas. The GBF 30% threshold (Target 3) will be insufficient for marine megafauna's effective conservation, leaving important areas exposed to major anthropogenic threats. Coupling area protection with mitigation strategies (e.g., fishing regulation, wildlife-traffic separation) will be essential to reach international goals and conserve biodiversity.

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