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Reef fishes are closely connected to many human populations, yet their contributions to society are mostly considered through their economic and ecological values. Cultural and intrinsic values of reef fishes to the public can be critical drivers of conservation investment and success, but remain challenging to quantify. Aesthetic value represents one of the most immediate and direct means by which human societies engage with biodiversity, and can be evaluated from species to ecosystems. Here, we provide the aesthetic value of 2,417 ray-finned reef fish species by combining intensive evaluation of photographs of fishes by humans with predicted values from machine learning. We identified important biases in species’ aesthetic value relating to evolutionary history, ecological traits, and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat status. The most beautiful fishes are tightly packed into small parts of both the phylogenetic tree and the ecological trait space. In contrast, the less attractive fishes are the most ecologically and evolutionary distinct species and those recognized as threatened. Our study highlights likely important mismatches between potential public support for conservation and the species most in need of this support. It also provides a pathway for scaling-up our understanding of what are both an important nonmaterial facet of biodiversity and a key component of nature’s contribution to people, which could help better anticipate consequences of species loss and assist in developing appropriate communication strategies.

Assessing non-material nature contributions to people has become one major challenge in biodiversity sciences. Among them, the aesthetic value of biodiversity is of strong importance as it contributes to human well-being and increases the collective willingness to engage in conservation efforts. Using the endangered coralligenous reefs along the French Mediterranean coastline as a case study, we propose a quantitative approach to estimate the aesthetic and ecological values of a marine ecosystem. We combined human image evaluation and deep learning algorithms to provide a quantitative estimation of the aesthetic value of 7692 photographic quadrats among 160 stations located between 20 and 90 m depth and gathered on 95 sites. To understand how aesthetic value is related to biodiversity metrics, environmental variables and anthropogenic pressures we used a structural equation modelling approach. We found that taxonomic diversity and species composition explained a significant part of the aesthetic value of the coralligenous reefs. Taxonomic diversity showed a net positive effect and species composition analysis highlighted both positive and negative effects of some species on the aesthetic value. Net negative effects of functional and phylogenetic diversities were found, which illustrates an aesthetic bias in human perception of ecological value. The aesthetic and ecological values were mapped along the French Mediterranean coastline in three dimensions (longitude, latitude, depth); this synthetic visualization could be of strong interest for conservation and communication purposes about this endangered benthic key-ecosystem of the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, our approach provides a geographically scalable estimate of the aesthetic value of biodiversity which is still an underestimated facet of nature contributions to people. It could be transposed to other marine ecosystems such as coral reefs but also to terrestrial landscapes for which an increasing number of image

Coral reefs are vulnerable ecosystems where a great number of fish species live. Some fish are beautiful, and some are not. This study compared the human perception of fish beauty with the ecological roles and characteristics of these fishes. It appears that ugly fish have a wider variety of roles in the coral reef ecosystem than beautiful fish do. This means that the ugly fish seem to be more important for ecosystems. The results of this study warn us about the need to preserve not just cute fishes, but the entire ecosystem, which means protecting the ugly fish as well as the beautiful ones.

Cultural and recreational values of biodiversity are considered as important dimensions of nature's contribution to people. Among these values, the aesthetics can be of major importance as the appreciation of beauty is one of the simplest forms of human emotional response. Using an online survey, we disentangled the effects of different facets of biodiversity on aesthetic preferences of coral reef fish assemblages that are among the most emblematic assemblages on Earth. While we found a positive saturating effect of species' richness on human preference, we found a net negative effect of species abundance, no effect of species functional diversity and contrasting effects of species composition depending on species' attractiveness. Our results suggest that the biodiversity–human interest relationship is more complex than has been previously stated. By integrating several scales of organization, our study is a step forward in better evaluating the aesthetic value of biodiversity.

The aesthetic value of landscapes contributes to human well-being. However, studies which have investigated the link between biodiversity and ecosystem services have not taken aesthetic value into account. In this study we evaluated how the aesthetics of coralligenous reefs, a key marine ecosystem in the Mediterranean, is perceived by the general public and how aesthetic preferences are related to biodiversity facets (taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversities). We performed both biodiversity measures and online-surveys of aesthetic perception on photographic quadrats sampled along the French Mediterranean coast. Our results show that species richness and functional richness have a significant positive effect on aesthetic value. Most of the ecological literature, exploring the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and service has focused so far on 'economical' aspects of biodiversity (provision or regulation). Our results illustrate that cultural facets, such as 'beauty', should also be central in our motivations to preserve ecological diversity.

Ecosystem services provided by oceans and seas support most human needs but are threatened by human activities. Despite existing maps illustrating human impacts on marine ecosystems, information remains either large-scale but rough and insufficient for stakeholders (1 km² grid, lack of data along the coast) or fine-scale but fragmentary and heterogeneous in methodology. The objectives of this study are to map and quantify the main pressures exerted on near-coast marine ecosystems, at a large spatial scale though in fine and relevant resolution for managers (one pixel = 20 x 20 m). It focuses on the French Mediterranean coast (1,700 km of coastline including Corsica) at a depth of 0 to 80 m. After completing and homogenizing data presently available under GIS on the bathymetry and anthropogenic pressures but also on the seabed nature and ecosystem vulnerability, we provide a fine modeling of the extent and impacts of 10 anthropogenic pressures on marine habitats. The considered pressures are man-made coastline, boat anchoring, aquaculture, urban effluents, industrial effluents, urbanization, agriculture, coastline erosion, coastal population and fishing. A 1:10 000 continuous habitat map is provided considering 11 habitat classes. The marine bottom is mostly covered by three habitats: infralittoral soft bottom, Posidonia oceanica meadows and circalittoral soft bottom. Around two thirds of the bottoms are found within medium and medium high cumulative impact categories. Seagrass meadows are the most impacted habitats. The most important pressures (in area and intensity) are urbanization, coastal population, coastal erosion and man-made coastline. We also identified areas in need of a special management interest. This work should contribute to prioritize environmental needs, as well as enhance the development of indicators for the assessment of the ecological status of coastal systems. It could also help better apply and coordinate management measures at a relevant sca