A contemporary baseline record of the world's coral reefs.

Addressing the global decline of coral reefs requires effective actions from managers, policymakers and society as a whole. Coral reef scientists are therefore challenged with the task of providing prompt and relevant inputs for science-based decision-making. Here, we provide a baseline dataset, covering 1300 km of tropical coral reef habitats globally, and comprised of over one million geo-referenced, high-resolution photo-quadrats analysed using artificial intelligence to automatically estimate the proportional cover of benthic components. The dataset contains information on five major reef regions, and spans 2012-2018, including surveys before and after the 2016 global bleaching event. The taxonomic resolution attained by image analysis, as well as the spatially explicit nature of the images, allow for multi-scale spatial analyses, temporal assessments (decline and recovery), and serve for supporting image recognition developments. This standardised dataset across broad geographies offers a significant contribution towards a sound baseline for advancing our understanding of coral reef ecology and thereby taking collective and informed actions to mitigate catastrophic losses in coral reefs worldwide.

Biosecurity messages are lost in translation to citizens: Implications for devolving management to citizens.

The increasing focus of marine biosecurity agencies on transferring management responsibilities to citizens and industry begs the question whether devolved responsibility is a viable option for creating biosecurity outcomes. We examined recreational marine users' self-declared awareness of non-indigenous marine species (NIMS) at six locations in Tasmania, Australia and evaluated the accuracy of their awareness through recognition of four well-known NIMS with active awareness campaigns. We also investigated whether the activities of recreational marine users influence the accuracy of their NIMS recognition skills. We generally found that respondents declare NIMS awareness (70.45%), yet we found their recognition accuracy was variable ranging from low to fair (<10% to 54.95%) and recreational activity did not influence accuracy. Based on our results, we conclude that marine users' awareness does not predict accuracy and therefore devolved management of biosecurity without additional resources may pose a risky biosecurity management strategy.