Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets
- Ana M. M. Sequeira
- Jorge P. Rodríguez
- Sarah A. Marley
- Hannah J. Calich
- Mirjam van der Mheen
- Michelle VanCompernolle
- Lucy M. Arrowsmith
- Lauren R. Peel
- Nuno Queiroz
- Marisa Vedor
- Ivo da Costa
- Gonzalo Mucientes
- Ana Couto
- Nicolas E. Humphries
- Sara Abalo-Morla
- Francisco J. Abascal
- Debra L. Abercrombie
- Katya Abrantes
- F. Alberto Abreu-Grobois
- André S. Afonso
- Pedro Afonso
- Heidi Ahonen
- Susanne Åkesson
- Joanna Alfaro-Shigueto
- Russel D. Andrews
- Frédéric Angelier
- Marina Antonopoulou
- Javier A. Arata
- Gonzalo Araujo
- Randall Arauz
- José Manuel Arcos
- Igor Arregui
- Haritz Arrizabalaga
- Marie Auger-Méthé
- Steffen Bach
- Fred Bailleul
- Robin W. Baird
- George H. Balazs
- Susan G. Barco
- Adam Barnett
- Warren Baverstock
- Alastair M. M. Baylis
- Annalea Beard
- Juan Bécares
- Eduardo J. Belda
- Ian Bell
- Ashley Bennison
- Scott R. Benson
- Diego Bernal
- Michael L. Berumen
2025-06-05
The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of threatened species will be achieved. We assembled a multi-taxa tracking dataset (11 million geopositions from 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species) to provide a global assessment of space use of highly mobile marine megafauna, showing that 63% of the area that they cover is used 80% of the time as important migratory corridors or residence areas. The GBF 30% threshold (Target 3) will be insufficient for marine megafauna’s effective conservation, leaving important areas exposed to major anthropogenic threats. Coupling area protection with mitigation strategies (e.g., fishing regulation, wildlife-traffic separation) will be essential to reach international goals and conserve biodiversity.