Abstract
AbstractTropical coasts face unprecedented sustainability challenges for advancing human welfare and maintaining ecosystem functioning and diversity. These coupled social–ecological processes exist within interdependent relationships across multiple levels and scales. Reflection is needed on the knowledge tropical marine science generates to advance a research agenda for sustainability. In this article we systematically review 753 social and natural science articles conducted within the tropical coastal marine sector. Our results are organized in five themes. (1) The spatial distribution and disciplinary composition of research is not homogeneous across regions. (2) A third of all research lacks a stated problem orientation and coral reefs dominate the ecosystem focus. (3) Research is primarily conducted on selected subgroups of levels and scales. (4) The social and natural sciences focus on a varying diversity of system processes that indicate different degrees of inter‐ and intradisciplinary research. (5) Statistically clustered terminology usage across all articles indicates that distinct research communities exist across a social to natural science gradient. The social and natural sciences generate different types of knowledge associated with terminology at different scales. This analysis attempts to provide a guidepost for discussing the challenges and pathways forward to progress a sustainability agenda in tropical marine science.
Highlights
Tropical coasts contain the highest concentrations of biodiversity and people worldwide (Glaser et al 2012; Bowen et al 2013; McKinnon et al 2014)
Reflection is needed on the knowledge tropical marine science generates to advance a research agenda for sustainability
In this article we systematically review 753 social and natural science articles conducted within the tropical coastal marine sector
Summary
Tropical coasts contain the highest concentrations of biodiversity and people worldwide (Glaser et al 2012; Bowen et al 2013; McKinnon et al 2014). Ecosystems face reciprocal pressures from increasing resource exploitation, pollution, ocean acidification, and increasing sea surface temperatures (Graham et al 2015; Halpern et al 2015). This quagmire of interdependent relationships has shifted the paradigm through which we conceptualize sustainability in an interconnected world, to one where people and nature are coupled in social–ecological systems (SES; Ostrom 2009; Kittinger et al 2012; Fischer et al 2015), necessitating a cohesive response from both science and society.
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