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Assessing the impacts caused by fisheries requires long-term data series and continuous landing monitoring, which are still scarce in several low and middleincome countries. Alternative approaches, such as fishers' local ecological knowledge (LEK) have been employed to assess the history of marine resources and overcome the challenges of missing data. We documented temporal changes over the last 60 years in small-scale fisheries in Arraial do Cabo, Brazil. Interviews with 155 fishers revealed the capture of six shark species (one genus), all under extinction risk according to the global and the national Red Lists. Among these, Carcharhinus brevipinna, Carcharhinus plumbeus, and Isurus oxyrinchus are commercially important. While LEK suggests an increase in fishing efforts, with new fishing grounds emerging after 2006, the number of individuals caught has decreased over time. Historical shark exploitation has led to substantial declines in the catches of C. plumbeus and C. brevipinna, which have rare occurrences in the region. Although landing data are critical information for building local fisheries management plans and setting conservation strategies, monitoring in the region is discontinuous and should be prioritized by public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of functional ecology has changed the focus of ecological research from investigating patterns of species diversity to understanding how species traits relate to specific ecological processes generating these patterns. Traits, ecological patterns and processes can be shared and driven by species from distantly related taxonomic groups.Crossing the boundaries among distantly related taxonomic groups is still a challenge and a critical knowledge frontier in functional ecology. A cross‐taxa approach, merging trait data across distantly related taxonomic groups, could fill this gap. In this context, functionally analogous traits, that is traits that may have distinct ontogenetic origins yet represent similar processes, comprise an important recent advance in functional ecology. However, which taxa and traits (be them analogous or not) have been used in research with multiple taxa, and whether (and how) these data have been combined, still needs to be elucidated.We reviewed articles published in the last 75 years to investigate the use of traits in functional research involving multiple taxa. Our search returned 1006 articles, and a subset of 96 was filtered for data extraction. Studies covered a total of 134 taxa and 491 different traits; they were predominantly observational, and focussed on community ecology and ecosystem monitoring.Our review showed that current knowledge in this field relies on a limited number of response variables, particularly taxonomic diversity (e.g. species richness and abundance within functional groups). Also, the field relies on a limited number of taxa (e.g. plants, birds and mammals) and trait types (diet, size, habitat and dispersal). Two‐thirds of the articles (n = 72) used functionally analogous traits, and one‐third of them (n = 32) employed a cross‐taxa approach.We mapped the limitations of current research in functional ecology involving multiple taxa, presented ecological questions to a functional cross‐taxa research and showed directions to pushing the limits of this research field. Our review aimed to encourage researchers in the field of functional ecology to move beyond single taxa and traits, and to integrate more branches and dimensions of the Tree of Life in their research. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snorkeling is a popular recreational activity in shallow water of coastal ecosystems. Because snorkeling is commonly assumed to cause comparatively fewer potential impacts to the marine biota than scuba diving, management is generally focused on the latter. We investigated the behavior of snorkelers aiming to quantify their interactions with benthic reef sessile organisms and sea turtles. We also compared the behavior of snorkelers with scuba divers to assess which group of divers is more damaging to the reef biota. Finally, we compared the use of conventional and nonconventional sampling approaches through analysis of social media images to evaluate the reliability of different approaches to investigate the behavior of underwater recreationists. Snorkelers were observed during 5 min; their interactions with benthic organisms were recorded and compared with scuba diver's behavior. Snorkelers'observations were carried out with and without the presence of sea turtles and compared with videos from social media. Videos were extracted from YouTube through a search using keywords and analyzed to quantify the number of interactions of divers with the benthic organisms. Snorkelers caused 33% more contacts and 70% more damage to benthic reef organisms than scuba divers. Most interactions were over the zoanthid Palythoa caribaeorum , which received ~80% of contacts and ~30% of damage. The contact rate of snorkelers with benthic organisms increased 5.5fold when they interacted with sea turtles. Snorkelers sampled through direct observation accounted for more contacts with benthic reef organisms than those observed in social media videos, whereas higher rates of behavioral disturbance to sea turtles were observed in snorkelers sampled in social media videos. As the videos from social media focused on sea turtle watching, they overestimated the amount of snorkelers–sea turtles' interactions but underestimated the amount of contacts with benthic organisms. Our results revealed that snorkeling in shallow waters <2 m deep may represent a considerable amount of impacts to reef benthic sessile organisms and such impacts significantly increase during sea turtle watching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fishery of Red grouper, Epinephelus morio, is one of the most commercially important in Yucatan, Mexico. However, catch trends declined from more than 14,000 t in 1970 to less than 6500 t in 2019. Consequently, the fishery authority (CONAPESCA) declared this fishery overexploited. Stakeholders may play a fundamental role regulating catch trends of Red grouper adopting responsible fishing and consumption. This work aimed to evaluate perceptions of stakeholders (fishers and fish consumers) on consumption, fishing status, and conservation of Red grouper in Yucatan using interviews and web-based questionnaires. Results revealed stakeholders regularly consume Red grouper, with fishing and consumption influenced by economic, social, and cultural factors. Stakeholders were aware of the fishery management in place, such as a seasonal, fishing ban and the minimum catch size, established by the federal government for Red grouper. Differences emerged regarding perception on fishery management between fishers and fish consumers. All stakeholders showed a willingness to follow regulations and responsible consumption during the ban, and proposed alternatives for protection through enhancing fishery regulatory measures, updating the ban and establishing spatial restrictions, such as zones for fishery protection (no-take zones). Understanding stakeholder perceptions is utmost because identifying this knowledge could provide a clearer scenario and more focused fishery management approaches for managers to promote the recovery of the Red grouper fishery. We recommend implementing a precautionary management scheme based on a combination of a management strategic evaluation and a renovated fishery strategy, along with other community-based approaches, for the Red grouper fishery in Yucatan [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]