Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies.

Micronutrient deficiencies account for an estimated one million premature deaths annually, and for some nations can reduce gross domestic product1,2 by up to 11%, highlighting the need for food policies that focus on improving nutrition rather than simply increasing the volume of food produced3. People gain nutrients from a varied diet, although fish-which are a rich source of bioavailable micronutrients that are essential to human health4-are often overlooked. A lack of understanding of the nutrient composition of most fish5 and how nutrient yields vary among fisheries has hindered the policy shifts that are needed to effectively harness the potential of fisheries for food and nutrition security6. Here, using the concentration of 7 nutrients in more than 350 species of marine fish, we estimate how environmental and ecological traits predict nutrient content of marine finfish species. We use this predictive model to quantify the global spatial patterns of the concentrations of nutrients in marine fisheries and compare nutrient yields to the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in human populations. We find that species from tropical thermal regimes contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and zinc; smaller species contain higher concentrations of calcium, iron and omega-3 fatty acids; and species from cold thermal regimes or those with a pelagic feeding pathway contain higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids. There is no relationship between nutrient concentrations and total fishery yield, highlighting that the nutrient quality of a fishery is determined by the species composition. For a number of countries in which nutrient intakes are inadequate, nutrients available in marine finfish catches exceed the dietary requirements for populations that live within 100 km of the coast, and a fraction of current landings could be particularly impactful for children under 5 years of age. Our analyses suggest that fish-based food strategies have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security.

Trade and foreign fishing mediate global marine nutrient supply.

Fish are an important source of bioavailable micronutrients and essential fatty acids, and capture fisheries have potential to substantially reduce dietary deficiencies. Vigorous debate has focused on trade and fishing in foreign waters as drivers of inequitable distribution of volume and value of fish, but their impact on nutrient supplies from fish is unknown. We analyze global catch, trade, and nutrient composition data for marine fisheries to quantify distribution patterns among countries with differing prevalence of inadequate nutrient intake. We find foreign fishing relocates 1.5 times more nutrients than international trade in fish. Analysis of nutrient flows among countries of different levels of nutrient intake shows fishing in foreign waters predominantly (but not exclusively) benefits nutrient-secure nations, an outcome amplified by trade. Next, we developed a nutritional vulnerability framework that shows those small island developing states and/or African nations currently benefiting from trade and foreign fishing, and countries with low adaptive capacity, are most vulnerable to future changes in nutrient supplies. Climate change exacerbates vulnerabilities for many nations. Harnessing the potential of global fisheries to address dietary deficiencies will require greater attention to nutrition objectives in fisheries' licensing deals and trade negotiations.

The contribution of cognitive behavioural factors to social anxiety in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND: Social anxiety is prevalent in idiopathic Parkinson's disease but why this is, is not yet well understood. Social cognitions, safety-seeking behaviours and internally focused attention are all known to predict social anxiety in the general population. These associated factors have not yet been explored in idiopathic Parkinson's disease, where disease severity and motor symptoms might also influence the experience of social anxiety. AIMS: This study aimed to explore the relationship between cognitive behavioural factors and social anxiety in Parkinson's disease. METHOD: Using a cross-sectional design, 124 people with Parkinson's disease completed self-report questionnaires including measures of Parkinson's disease severity, social anxiety, negative social cognitions, safety-seeking behaviours, internally focused attention, anxiety and depression. RESULTS: The final regression model accounted for 71.6% of variance in social anxiety. Cognitive behavioural variables accounted for the largest magnitude of unique variance (43.5%). Sex, anxiety and depression accounted for 23.4%, and Parkinson non-motor symptom severity for 4.7%. Negative social cognitions and safety-seeking behaviours were statistically significant predictors, while an internal focus of attention was not. CONCLUSIONS: Social anxiety in Parkinson's disease is associated with negative social cognitions and safety-seeking behaviours. Findings indicate the need for further research into cognitive behavioural approaches to social anxiety in Parkinson's disease.

Panarchy: opportunities and challenges for ecosystem management.

Addressing unexpected events and uncertainty represents one of the grand challenges of the Anthropocene, yet ecosystem management is constrained by existing policy and laws that were not formulated to deal with today's accelerating rates of environmental change. In many cases, managing for simple regulatory standards has resulted in adverse outcomes, necessitating innovative approaches for dealing with complex social-ecological problems. We highlight a project in the US Great Plains where panarchy - a conceptual framework that emerged from resilience - was implemented at project onset to address the continued inability to halt large-scale transition from grass-to-tree dominance in central North America. We review how panarchy was applied, the initial outcomes and evidence for policy reform, and the opportunities and challenges for which it could serve as a useful model to contrast with traditional ecosystem management approaches.

The distribution and role of functional abundance in cross-scale resilience.

The cross-scale resilience model suggests that system-level ecological resilience emerges from the distribution of species' functions within and across the spatial and temporal scales of a system. It has provided a quantitative method for calculating the resilience of a given system and so has been a valuable contribution to a largely qualitative field. As it is currently laid out, the model accounts for the spatial and temporal scales at which environmental resources and species are present and the functional roles species play but does not inform us about how much resource is present or how much function is provided. In short, it does not account for abundance in the distribution of species and their functional roles within and across the scales of a system. We detail the ways in which we would expect species' abundance to be relevant to the cross-scale resilience model based on the extensive abundance literature in ecology. We also put forward a series of testable hypotheses that would improve our ability to anticipate and quantify how resilience is generated, and how ecosystems will (or will not) buffer recent rapid global changes. This stream of research may provide an improved foundation for the quantitative evaluation of ecological resilience.

Considering land-sea interactions and trade-offs for food and biodiversity.

With the human population expected to near 10 billion by 2050, and diets shifting towards greater per-capita consumption of animal protein, meeting future food demands will place ever-growing burdens on natural resources and those dependent on them. Solutions proposed to increase the sustainability of agriculture, aquaculture, and capture fisheries have typically approached development from single sector perspectives. Recent work highlights the importance of recognising links among food sectors, and the challenge cross-sector dependencies create for sustainable food production. Yet without understanding the full suite of interactions between food systems on land and sea, development in one sector may result in unanticipated trade-offs in another. We review the interactions between terrestrial and aquatic food systems. We show that most of the studied land-sea interactions fall into at least one of four categories: ecosystem connectivity, feed interdependencies, livelihood interactions, and climate feedback. Critically, these interactions modify nutrient flows, and the partitioning of natural resource use between land and sea, amid a backdrop of climate variability and change that reaches across all sectors. Addressing counter-productive trade-offs resulting from land-sea links will require simultaneous improvements in food production and consumption efficiency, while creating more sustainable feed products for fish and livestock. Food security research and policy also needs to better integrate aquatic and terrestrial production to anticipate how cross-sector interactions could transmit change across ecosystem and governance boundaries into the future.

Detecting spatial regimes in ecosystems.

Research on early warning indicators has generally focused on assessing temporal transitions with limited application of these methods to detecting spatial regimes. Traditional spatial boundary detection procedures that result in ecoregion maps are typically based on ecological potential (i.e. potential vegetation), and often fail to account for ongoing changes due to stressors such as land use change and climate change and their effects on plant and animal communities. We use Fisher information, an information theory-based method, on both terrestrial and aquatic animal data (U.S. Breeding Bird Survey and marine zooplankton) to identify ecological boundaries, and compare our results to traditional early warning indicators, conventional ecoregion maps and multivariate analyses such as nMDS and cluster analysis. We successfully detected spatial regimes and transitions in both terrestrial and aquatic systems using Fisher information. Furthermore, Fisher information provided explicit spatial information about community change that is absent from other multivariate approaches. Our results suggest that defining spatial regimes based on animal communities may better reflect ecological reality than do traditional ecoregion maps, especially in our current era of rapid and unpredictable ecological change.

Body size distributions signal a regime shift in a lake ecosystem.

Communities of organisms, from mammals to microorganisms, have discontinuous distributions of body size. This pattern of size structuring is a conservative trait of community organization and is a product of processes that occur at multiple spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we assessed whether body size patterns serve as an indicator of a threshold between alternative regimes. Over the past 7000 years, the biological communities of Foy Lake (Montana, USA) have undergone a major regime shift owing to climate change. We used a palaeoecological record of diatom communities to estimate diatom sizes, and then analysed the discontinuous distribution of organism sizes over time. We used Bayesian classification and regression tree models to determine that all time intervals exhibited aggregations of sizes separated by gaps in the distribution and found a significant change in diatom body size distributions approximately 150 years before the identified ecosystem regime shift. We suggest that discontinuity analysis is a useful addition to the suite of tools for the detection of early warning signals of regime shifts.

Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for the detection of dementia in clinically unevaluated people aged 65 and over in community and primary care populations.

BACKGROUND: The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) is a cognitive test that is commonly used as part of the evaluation for possible dementia. OBJECTIVES: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) at various cut points for dementia in people aged 65 years and over in community and primary care settings who had not undergone prior testing for dementia. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the specialised register of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, MEDLINE (OvidSP), EMBASE (OvidSP), PsycINFO (OvidSP), LILACS (BIREME), ALOIS, BIOSIS previews (Thomson Reuters Web of Science), and Web of Science Core Collection, including the Science Citation Index and the Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Thomson Reuters Web of Science). We also searched specialised sources of diagnostic test accuracy studies and reviews: MEDION (Universities of Maastricht and Leuven, www.mediondatabase.nl), DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, via the Cochrane Library), HTA Database (Health Technology Assessment Database, via the Cochrane Library), and ARIF (University of Birmingham, UK, www.arif.bham.ac.uk). We attempted to locate possibly relevant but unpublished data by contacting researchers in this field. We first performed the searches in November 2012 and then fully updated them in May 2014. We did not apply any language or date restrictions to the electronic searches, and we did not use any methodological filters as a method to restrict the search overall. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included studies that compared the 11-item (maximum score 30) MMSE test (at any cut point) in people who had not undergone prior testing versus a commonly accepted clinical reference standard for all-cause dementia and subtypes (Alzheimer disease dementia, Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia). Clinical diagnosis included all-cause (unspecified) dementia, as defined by any version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the Clinical Dementia Rating. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: At least three authors screened all citations.Two authors handled data extraction and quality assessment. We performed meta-analysis using the hierarchical summary receiver-operator curves (HSROC) method and the bivariate method. MAIN RESULTS: We retrieved 24,310 citations after removal of duplicates. We reviewed the full text of 317 full-text articles and finally included 70 records, referring to 48 studies, in our synthesis. We were able to perform meta-analysis on 28 studies in the community setting (44 articles) and on 6 studies in primary care (8 articles), but we could not extract usable 2 x 2 data for the remaining 14 community studies, which we did not include in the meta-analysis. All of the studies in the community were in asymptomatic people, whereas two of the six studies in primary care were conducted in people who had symptoms of possible dementia. We judged two studies to be at high risk of bias in the patient selection domain, three studies to be at high risk of bias in the index test domain and nine studies to be at high risk of bias regarding flow and timing. We assessed most studies as being applicable to the review question though we had concerns about selection of participants in six studies and target condition in one study.The accuracy of the MMSE for diagnosing dementia was reported at 18 cut points in the community (MMSE score 10, 14-30 inclusive) and 10 cut points in primary care (MMSE score 17-26 inclusive). The total number of participants in studies included in the meta-analyses ranged from 37 to 2727, median 314 (interquartile range (IQR) 160 to 647). In the community, the pooled accuracy at a cut point of 24 (15 studies) was sensitivity 0.85 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.74 to 0.92), specificity 0.90 (95% CI 0.82 to 0.95); at a cut point of 25 (10 studies), sensitivity 0.87 (95% CI 0.78 to 0.93), specificity 0.82 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.92); and in seven studies that adjusted accuracy estimates for level of education, sensitivity 0.97 (95% CI 0.83 to 1.00), specificity 0.70 (95% CI 0.50 to 0.85). There was insufficient data to evaluate the accuracy of the MMSE for diagnosing dementia subtypes.We could not estimate summary diagnostic accuracy in primary care due to insufficient data. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: The MMSE contributes to a diagnosis of dementia in low prevalence settings, but should not be used in isolation to confirm or exclude disease. We recommend that future work evaluates the diagnostic accuracy of tests in the context of the diagnostic pathway experienced by the patient and that investigators report how undergoing the MMSE changes patient-relevant outcomes.

Home-range allometry in coral reef fishes: comparison to other vertebrates, methodological issues and management implications.

Body size has been identified as a key driver of home-range area. Despite considerable research into home-range allometry, the relatively high variability in this relationship among taxa means that the mechanisms driving this relationship are still under debate. To date, studies have predominantly focused on terrestrial taxa, and coral reef fishes in particular have received little attention. We quantitatively reviewed studies examining home range in reef fishes, and assessed the interspecific relationship between body mass and home-range area. Body mass and home range are positively related in reef fishes (slopes of 1.15-1.72), with predators having larger home ranges than herbivorous species. This may be attributed to the mobility and lower abundance of predators' food items. Coral reef fishes, and fishes in general, appear to occupy a smaller area per unit mass than terrestrial vertebrates (intercepts of -0.92 to 0.07 versus ≥1.14). This is likely linked to the relative metabolic costs of moving through water compared to air. The small home ranges of reef fishes and their apparent reluctance to cross open areas suggest that reserves aimed at protecting fish species may be more effective if located across whole reefs, even if those reefs are comparatively small, rather than if they cover subsections of contiguous reef, as home ranges in the former are less likely to cross reserve boundaries.

Discontinuities, cross-scale patterns, and the organization of ecosystems.

Ecological structures and processes occur at specific spatiotemporal scales, and interactions that occur across multiple scales mediate scale-specific (e.g., individual, community, local, or regional) responses to disturbance. Despite the importance of scale, explicitly incorporating a multi-scale perspective into research and management actions remains a challenge. The discontinuity hypothesis provides a fertile avenue for addressing this problem by linking measureable proxies to inherent scales of structure within ecosystems. Here we outline the conceptual framework underlying discontinuities and review the evidence supporting the discontinuity hypothesis in ecological systems. Next we explore the utility of this approach for understanding cross-scale patterns and the organization of ecosystems by describing recent advances for examining nonlinear responses to disturbance and phenomena such as extinctions, invasions, and resilience. To stimulate new research, we present methods for performing discontinuity analysis, detail outstanding knowledge gaps, and discuss potential approaches for addressing these gaps.

Fish foraging patterns, vulnerability to fishing, and implications for the management of ecosystem function across scales.

The function of species has been recognized as critical for the maintenance of ecosystems within desired states. However, there are still considerable gaps in our knowledge of interspecific differences in the functional roles of organisms, particularly with regard to the spatial scales over which functional impact is exerted. This has implications for the delivery of function and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. In this study we assessed the allometric relationship between foraging movements and fish body length at three sites, for 20 species of herbivorous reef fishes within four different functional groups: browsers, farmers, grazer/ detritivores, and scraper/excavators. The relationship between vulnerability of species to fishing and their scale of foraging was also examined. We present empirical evidence of the strong, positive, log-linear relationship between the scale of foraging movement and fish body length. This relationship was consistent among sites and between the two different movement metrics used. Phylogeny did not affect these results. Functional groups foraged over contrasting ranges of spatial scales; for example, scraper/excavators performed their role over a wide range of scales, whereas browsers were represented by few species and operated over a narrow range of scales. Overfishing is likely not only to remove species operating at large scales, but also to remove the browser group as a whole. Large fishes typically have a significant role in removing algae on reefs, and browsers are key to controlling macroalgae and reversing shifts to macroalgal-dominated states. This vulnerability to exploitation has serious consequences for the ability of fish assemblages to deliver their functional role in the face of anthropogenic impacts. However, identification of the scales at which herbivorous fish assemblages are susceptible to fishing provides managers with critical knowledge to design management strategies to support coral-dominated reefs by maintaining function at the spatial scales at which vulnerable species operate.

Environmental footprints of farmed chicken and salmon bridge the land and sea.

Food production, particularly of fed animals, is a leading cause of environmental degradation globally.1,2 Understanding where and how much environmental pressure different fed animal products exert is critical to designing effective food policies that promote sustainability.3 Here, we assess and compare the environmental footprint of farming industrial broiler chickens and farmed salmonids (salmon, marine trout, and Arctic char) to identify opportunities to reduce environmental pressures. We map cumulative environmental pressures (greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient pollution, freshwater use, and spatial disturbance), with particular focus on dynamics across the land and sea. We found that farming broiler chickens disturbs 9 times more area than farming salmon (∼924,000 vs. ∼103,500 km2) but yields 55 times greater production. The footprints of both sectors are extensive, but 95% of cumulative pressures are concentrated into <5% of total area. Surprisingly, the location of these pressures is similar (85.5% spatial overlap between chicken and salmon pressures), primarily due to shared feed ingredients. Environmental pressures from feed ingredients account for >78% and >69% of cumulative pressures of broiler chicken and farmed salmon production, respectively, and could represent a key leverage point to reduce environmental footprints. The environmental efficiency (cumulative pressures per tonne of production) also differs geographically, with areas of high efficiency revealing further potential to promote sustainability. The propagation of environmental pressures across the land and sea underscores the importance of integrating food policies across realms and sectors to advance food system sustainability.

Effect of macroalgal expansion and marine protected areas on coral recovery following a climatic disturbance.

Disturbance plays an important role in structuring marine ecosystems, and there is a need to understand how conservation practices, such as the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), facilitate postdisturbance recovery. We evaluated the association of MPAs, herbivorous fish biomass, substrate type, postdisturbance coral cover, and change in macroalgal cover with coral recovery on the fringing reefs of the inner Seychelle islands, where coral mortality after a 1998 bleaching event was extensive. We visually estimated benthic cover and fish biomass at 9 sites in MPAs where fishing is banned and at 12 sites where fishing is permitted in 1994, 2005, 2008, and 2011. We used analysis of variance to examine spatial and temporal variations in coral cover and generalized additive models to identify relations between coral recovery and the aforementioned factors that may promote recovery. Coral recovery occurred on all substrate types, but it was highly variable among sites and times. Between 2005 and 2011 the increase in coral cover averaged 1%/year across 21 sites, and the maximum increase was 4%/year. However, mean coral cover across the study area (14%) remained at half of 1994 levels (28%). Sites within MPAs had faster rates of coral recovery than sites in fished areas only where cover of macroalgae was low and had not increased over time. In MPAs where macroalgae cover expanded since 1998 there was no recovery. Where coral was recovering on granite reefs there was a shift in relative prevalence of colony life-form from branching to encrusting species. This simplification of reef structure may affect associated reef fauna even if predisturbance levels of coral cover are attained.

Developing achievable alternate futures for key challenges during the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

The oceans face a range of complex challenges for which the impacts on society are highly uncertain but mostly negative. Tackling these challenges is testing society's capacity to mobilise transformative action, engendering a sense of powerlessness. Envisaging positive but realistic visions of the future, and considering how current knowledge, resources, and technology could be used to achieve these futures, may lead to greater action to achieve sustainable transformations. Future Seas (www.FutureSeas2030.org) brought together researchers across career stages, Indigenous Peoples and environmental managers to develop scenarios for 12 challenges facing the oceans, leveraging interdisciplinary knowledge to improve society's capacity to purposefully shape the direction of marine social-ecological systems over the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). We describe and reflect on Future Seas, providing guidance for co-developing scenarios in interdisciplinary teams tasked with exploring ocean futures. We detail the narrative development for two futures: our current trajectory based on published evidence, and a more sustainable future, consistent with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which is technically achievable using existing and emerging knowledge. Presentation of Business-as-usual and More Sustainable futures-together-allows communication of both trajectories, whilst also highlighting achievable, sustainable versions of the future. The advantages of the interdisciplinary approach taken include: (1) integrating different perspectives on solutions, (2) capacity to explore interactions between Life Under Water (Goal 14) and other SDGs, and (3) cross-disciplinary learning. This approach allowed participants to conceptualise shared visions of the future and co-design transformative pathways to achieving those futures. Supplementary Information SI: The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1007/s11160-020-09629-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Managing fisheries for maximum nutrient yield.

Wild-caught fish are a bioavailable source of nutritious food that, if managed strategically, could enhance diet quality for billions of people. However, optimising nutrient production from the sea has not been a priority, hindering development of nutrition-sensitive policies. With fisheries management increasingly effective at rebuilding stocks and regulating sustainable fishing, we can now begin to integrate nutritional outcomes within existing management frameworks. Here, we develop a conceptual foundation for managing fisheries for multispecies Maximum Nutrient Yield (mMNY). We empirically test our approach using size-based models of North Sea and Baltic Sea fisheries and show that mMNY is predicted by the relative contribution of nutritious species to total catch and their vulnerability to fishing, leading to trade-offs between catch and specific nutrients. Simulated nutrient yield curves suggest that vitamin D, which is deficient in Northern European diets, was underfished at fishing levels that returned maximum catch weights. Analysis of global catch data shows there is scope for nutrient yields from most of the world's marine fisheries to be enhanced through nutrient-sensitive fisheries management. With nutrient composition data now widely available, we expect our mMNY framework to motivate development of nutrient-based reference points in specific contexts, such as data-limited fisheries. Managing for mMNY alongside policies that promote access to fish could help close nutrient gaps for coastal populations, maximising the contribution of wild-caught fish to global food and nutrition security.

Safeguarding nutrients from coral reefs under climate change.

The sustainability of coral reef fisheries is jeopardized by complex and interacting socio-ecological stressors that undermine their contribution to food and nutrition security. Climate change has emerged as one of the key stressors threatening coral reefs and their fish-associated services. How fish nutrient concentrations respond to warming oceans remains unclear but these responses are probably affected by both direct (metabolism and trophodynamics) and indirect (habitat and species range shifts) effects. Climate-driven coral habitat loss can cause changes in fish abundance and biomass, revealing potential winners and losers among major fisheries targets that can be predicted using ecological indicators and biological traits. A critical next step is to extend research focused on the quantity of available food (fish biomass) to also consider its nutritional quality, which is relevant to progress in the fields of food security and malnutrition. Biological traits are robust predictors of fish nutrient content and thus potentially indicate how climate-driven changes are expected to impact nutrient availability within future food webs on coral reefs. Here, we outline future research priorities and an anticipatory framework towards sustainable reef fisheries contributing to nutrition-sensitive food systems in a warming ocean.

Oceans and society: feedbacks between ocean and human health.

The concentration of human population along coastlines has far-reaching effects on ocean and societal health. The oceans provide benefits to humans such as food, coastal protection and improved mental well-being, but can also impact negatively via natural disasters. At the same time, humans influence ocean health, for example, via coastal development or through environmental stewardship. Given the strong feedbacks between ocean and human health there is a need to promote desirable interactions, while minimising undesirable interactions. To this end, we articulate two scenarios for 2030. First, Business-as-Usual, named 'Command and (out of) Control', focuses on the anticipated future based on our current trajectory. Second, a more sustainable scenario called 'Living and Connecting', emphasises the development of interactions between oceans and society consistent with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We describe a potential pathway to achieving the 'Living and Connecting' scenario, centred on improving marine citizenship, achieving a more equitable distribution of power among stakeholders, and more equitable access to resources and opportunities. The constituent actions of this pathway can be categorised into four groups: (i) improved approaches to science and health communication that account for society's diverse values, beliefs and worldviews, (ii) a shift towards more trusted relationships among stakeholders to enable two-way knowledge exchange, (iii) economic incentives that encourage behavioural changes necessary for achieving desired sustainability outcomes, and (iv) stronger regulations that simultaneously focus on ocean and human health. We contend that these changes will provide improved outcomes for both oceans and society over the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11160-021-09669-5.

Connecting to the oceans: supporting ocean literacy and public engagement.

Improved public understanding of the ocean and the importance of sustainable ocean use, or ocean literacy, is essential for achieving global commitments to sustainable development by 2030 and beyond. However, growing human populations (particularly in mega-cities), urbanisation and socio-economic disparity threaten opportunities for people to engage and connect directly with ocean environments. Thus, a major challenge in engaging the whole of society in achieving ocean sustainability by 2030 is to develop strategies to improve societal connections to the ocean. The concept of ocean literacy reflects public understanding of the ocean, but is also an indication of connections to, and attitudes and behaviours towards, the ocean. Improving and progressing global ocean literacy has potential to catalyse the behaviour changes necessary for achieving a sustainable future. As part of the Future Seas project (https://futureseas2030.org/), this paper aims to synthesise knowledge and perspectives on ocean literacy from a range of disciplines, including but not exclusive to marine biology, socio-ecology, philosophy, technology, psychology, oceanography and human health. Using examples from the literature, we outline the potential for positive change towards a sustainable future based on knowledge that already exists. We focus on four drivers that can influence and improve ocean literacy and societal connections to the ocean: (1) education, (2) cultural connections, (3) technological developments, and (4) knowledge exchange and science-policy interconnections. We explore how each driver plays a role in improving perceptions of the ocean to engender more widespread societal support for effective ocean management and conservation. In doing so, we develop an ocean literacy toolkit, a practical resource for enhancing ocean connections across a broad range of contexts worldwide.