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Mini Review

Frontiers in Marine Science ·

Volume 13 - 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1829871

Coastal benthic ecosystems in a changing ocean: a mini review

  • Eva Karin Rohlfer1*corresponding author
  • Anna Fiesinger2*corresponding author
  1. 1Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, Hanko, Finland
  2. 2Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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Abstract

Coastal benthic ecosystems are shaped by the combined effects of climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation interact with eutrophication, pollution, bottom trawling, and coastal development, altering biodiversity, habitat structure, and functioning from shallow coasts to continental margins. Benthic communities, comprising infaunal and epifaunal taxa, regulate key processes including nutrient cycling, sediment dynamics, and carbon burial, thereby underpinning benthic-pelagic coupling and biogeochemical dynamics. Rising temperatures and marine heatwaves drive widespread losses of habitat-forming species, while ocean acidification constrains calcification. Warming, acidification, hypoxia, eutrophication, and pollution increasingly simplify assemblages, and alter trophic pathways and performance. Interactions among stressors can amplify organismal sensitivity and push ecosystems towards ecological thresholds. However, many knowledge gaps remain. Recent methodological advances, including environmental DNA metabarcoding, automated imaging, trait-based analyses, and multi-stressor experiments, are improving the detection of ecosystem changes at large and our mechanistic understanding of ecosystem responses to ongoing change. By summarizing the various stressors that benthic habitats and taxa face, their interactions and potential outlooks, this review provides a concise synthesis of current understanding and identifies key knowledge gaps for future research and management under accelerating climate change.

Keywords

Introduction

The global ocean is undergoing profound change. Anthropogenic climate forcing is driving ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation which in turn are fundamentally reshaping marine ecosystems (IPCC, 2023). In coastal regions, where natural variability overlaps with anthropogenic pressures, these climate‐driven changes are compounded by eutrophication, pollution, and other direct human disturbances such as coastal development (Halpern et al., 2015). Together, these stressors are altering water quality, biogeochemical fluxes, and habitat stability, thereby redefining ecological baselines and benthic ecosystems worldwide.

Central to these ecological transformations are benthic communities. They encompass infaunal species living within sediments and epifaunal taxa attached to or moving across substrates. Functionally, benthic assemblages include suspension feeders, grazers, deposit feeders, and bioturbators that regulate nutrient cycling, sediment dynamics, and organic matter remineralization (Queirós et al., 2015; Aller and Cochran, 2019). Through these processes, benthic organisms sustain primary and secondary productivity, mediate benthic–pelagic coupling and contribute to carbon sequestration and sediment stabilization (Snelgrove et al., 2018).

The structure and functioning of benthic communities are coupled to their habitats. Coastal benthic habitats span non-vegetated soft sediments, seagrass meadows, kelp forests, coral and oyster reefs, and polar soft-sediment systems (de Clippele et al., 2025). Habitat‐forming assemblages such as seagrasses, macroalgae as well as coral and bivalve reefs act as physical substrates and habitats, creating structural heterogeneity that enhances biodiversity, trophic complexity, and resilience (Jones et al., 1994). These systems deliver ecosystem services including coastal protection, nutrient regulation, and blue carbon storage (Macreadie et al., 2021). However, many benthic ecosystems are experiencing habitat loss due to interacting stressors, including eutrophication, light limitation, warming, thermal stress, and physical disturbance (Green et al., 2021; Gadeken and Dorgan, 2024). Soft-sediment systems are additionally impacted by bottom trawling, deoxygenation, and altered organic matter supply, despite their disproportionate importance for long-term carbon storage (Burrows et al., 2024).

Understanding how benthic habitats and their resident communities respond to changing ocean conditions is critical for predicting the trajectory of coastal ecosystems under accelerating climate change. This review synthesizes recent advances in coastal benthic ecology under environmental change by outlining key environmental drivers influencing benthic structure and function and linking them to ecological responses across taxa, habitats, and trophic levels. Finally, we highlight emerging research priorities, cross‐system linkages and management challenges for sustaining benthic ecosystem processes in a rapidly changing ocean.

Anthropogenic stressors affecting benthic ecosystems globally

Marine benthic ecosystems are increasingly exposed to multiple anthropogenic stressors that act across local to global scales (Table 1). Ocean warming driven by a changing climate is considered the dominant driver of change in marine ecosystems (Shukla et al., 2019). Ocean warming affects species physiology, distribution, and survival (Yao and Somero, 2014), while also driving seawater expansion, altered stratification and circulation patterns, oxygen loss, sea-level rise, and increased storm intensity (Wigley and Raper, 1987; Zhang and Wang, 2013; Keeling et al., 2010; Gilford et al., 2024). Warming is not spatially uniform, with coastal regions generally experiencing stronger temperature increases than the deep ocean (Schmittner et al., 2008; Levin and Le Bris, 2015). Particularly rapid warming has been documented in semi-enclosed seas such as the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Baltic Sea (Lachkar et al., 2021; IPCC, 2015; Reusch et al., 2018). Conversely, some oceanographic features, such as upwelling systems, may act as localized thermal refugia by partially buffering organisms against extreme warming, although their protective capacity likely depends on regional circulation, species thermal limits, and co-occurring stressors (Angeles-Gonzalez et al., 2024). In addition, marine heatwaves drive accelerated ocean warming and have been linked to rapid losses of foundation species across more than 80 marine ecoregions globally (Smith et al., 2024). Consequently, habitat loss is one of the major threats coastal benthic ecosystems are facing (Gray, 1997; Lotze et al., 2006).

Table 1. Summary of selected documented effects of major stressors on marine benthic taxa and functional groups, including reported effect magnitude and particularly affected regions where reported.

StressorTaxonomic/Functional groupDocumented effectMagnitude of effect (if known)Regions highlighted in the reviewed literatureReferences
Ocean warmingScleractinian coralsCoral bleaching and mortalityGlobal and regional mass bleaching and widespread mortalityGlobal coral reefsHoegh-Guldberg et al. (2007); Reimer et al. (2024); Doherty et al. (2025)
Corals from extreme environmentsLiving close to upper thermal tolerance limitsIncreasingly vulnerable to future ocean warmingPersian/Arabian GulfAlderdice et al. (2025)
Seaweeds/kelp forestsAltered distribution, abundance and physiology; long-term declines; regime shifts to sediment-rich turf reefsLong-term declines reportedAustralia, Maine, USA, British Columbia, Canada, and global kelp forestsWernberg et al. (2011); Filbee-Dexter and Wernberg (2018); Suskiewicz et al. (2024); Gendall et al. (2025)
Echinoid Centrostephanus rodgersiiDistribution shift resulting in loss of kelp forest ecosystemsWidespread loss of diverse kelp forest ecosystemsTasmania, AustraliaLing et al. (2009); Ling (2013)
EchinodermsIncreased incidence and severity of disease outbreaks; ocean warming accelerates metabolic rates and reduces survivalPopulation declineEastern Atlantic Ocean, Oregon, USA, and global oceanClemente et al. (2014); Menge et al. (2016); Lang et al. (2023)
Echinoderms from thermally extreme environmentsLiving close to thermal limitsIncreased vulnerability to ocean warming and mortalityPersian/Arabian GulfLang et al. (2023)
Ocean acidificationMolluscs, scleractinian corals and rotifersReduced calcification rates due to decreased CaCO3 saturation stateSlower growth, potentially net dissolutionGlobal oceansFeely et al. (2004)
Coral reefsDepressed net reef calcification and progression toward net dissolutionMany reefs expected to move toward net dissolution this century under moderate emissionsGlobal ocean (model)Kwiatkowski et al. (2025)
Deoxygenation/hypoxiaScleractinian coralsMortality associated with hypoxic zones>10% of global coral reefs at elevated risk for hypoxiaCaribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific OceanAltieri et al. (2017)
Small, soft-bodied invertebrates (commonly annelids)Prevail under low-oxygen conditionsBaltic SeaLevin et al. (2009)
Crustaceans and echinodermsGreater sensitivity; often perish or migrate awayBaltic Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Benguela shelfLevin et al. (2009)
Benthic communitiesReduced growth rates, fecundity and biodiversity; ecosystem simplification; altered trophic pathways and ecosystem functioningResulting mortalityOxygen-minimum zones and coastal areas affected by hypoxiaRabalais et al. (2010); Villnäs et al. (2012); Levin et al. (2009); Altieri et al. (2017); Breitburg et al. (2018)
Pollution (eutrophication)Bivalves, echinoderms and crustaceansMortality and loss of benthic diversityGlobal oceans (synthesis)Dorgham (2014)
Bottom-feeding and demersal fishesChanges in diet and species composition following benthic biodiversity lossGlobal oceans (synthesis)Dorgham (2014)
Coral reefsSmothering by crustose coralline algae or filamentous algaeWidespread mortalityTropical coral reefs globallyMcManus and Polsenberg (2004)
Pollution (microplastics)Brown mussel (Perna perna)Abnormal embryonic developmentIngestion is toxic, exposure is harmfulBrazilGandara e Silva et al. (2016)
Lugworm (Arenicola marina)Reduced feedingWadden Sea, NetherlandsBesseling et al. (2013)
RotifersAltered signaling pathways; inhibited growth; toxicity; oxidative stress; behavioural alterations and increased mortalitySouth Korea, and global freshwater and marine environmentsJeong et al. (2016); de Sá et al. (2018)
Benthic faunaNegative effects on survival, development, reproduction, growth and feeding; behavioral alterations, growth suppression and increased mortality reportedGlobal freshwater and marine environmentsde Sá et al. (2018); Mason et al. (2022)
Direct human disturbance (bottom trawling)Benthic communitiesOrganisms crushed, buried or killed; altered sedimentation, population structure and benthic assemblages; ecosystem-level changeImpacts on whole ecosystemsNorth Sea, global oceansde Groot (1984); Jennings and Kaiser (1998); Meenakumari et al. (2008)
Direct human disturbance (coastal development)Branching scleractinian coral speciesDecline and local extinctionLocal extinction of species such as Acropora downingiPersian/Arabian GulfBurt (2024)

Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are further driving ocean acidification through the uptake of anthropogenic carbon by the global oceans (Sabine et al., 2014; Doney et al., 2009). Changes in seawater carbonate chemistry associated with declining pH are expected to increasingly influence marine organisms and ecosystem functioning, particularly in systems that rely on calcification processes (Riebesell et al., 2000; Table 1). Concurrently, the global ocean is experiencing deoxygenation, primarily driven by warming-induced reductions in oxygen solubility and increasing eutrophication (Keeling et al., 2010; Oschlies et al., 2018; Hughes et al., 2020). The expansion of oxygen-minimum zones and the increasing occurrence of coastal hypoxia have made oxygen availability a growing constraint in many marine ecosystems driving ecosystem simplification through loss of biodiversity and mortality (Altieri et al., 2017; Breitburg et al., 2018; Table 1).

Pollution represents an additional and pervasive stressor (Table 1). Nutrient enrichment from wastewater runoff can promote eutrophication and harmful algal blooms (Richardson and Jørgensen, 1996; Anderson et al., 2002), while plastic pollution has emerged as a global environmental challenge, with millions of tons of plastic particles entering the oceans annually (Geyer et al., 2017; Agamuthu et al., 2019). Plastic debris may fragment into micro- and nanoplastics (Yang et al., 2021) or enter the marine environment directly as pre-production pellets known as ‘nurdles’ (Jiang et al., 2021). Larger plastic items affect marine organisms through ingestion and entanglement, whereas smaller particles can accumulate within sediments and food webs, therefore altering trophic pathways (Kühn et al., 2020; de Sá et al., 2015). Finally, direct human disturbances such as bottom trawling and coastal development continue to drive habitat loss worldwide through physical habitat modification, degradation and resulting mass mortality (de Groot, 1984; Jennings and Kaiser, 1998; Meenakumari et al., 2008; Burt, 2024; Table 1).

Multiple stressors interact to amplify ecosystem change

The stressors outlined in this review are not exhaustive, and their combined effects rarely occur in isolation. Instead, benthic ecosystems are increasingly exposed to multiple, co-occuring stressors that may interact to amplify, mitigate, or alter biological responses in ways that are difficult to predict from individual stressors alone (Figure 1). Climate-driven stressors are particularly interconnected. Ocean warming directly impacts species physiology, distribution, and survival (Yao and Somero, 2014) and at the same time, warming contributes to deoxygenation through reduced oxygen solubility and increased water-column stratification (Keeling et al., 2010; Oschlies et al., 2018), while increasing atmospheric CO2 drives ocean acidification (Doney et al., 2009; Sabine et al., 2014). Interactions among these stressors can intensify ecological impacts, for example, coupled stress responses to thermal and oxygen stress (Alderdice et al., 2022). Stressors may also reinforce one another. Deoxygenation can enhance ocean acidification because oxygen-depleted waters are often enriched in CO2, exposing organisms simultaneously to low oxygen and reduced pH conditions that influence species performance and distribution (Melzner et al., 2013). Future projections suggest that a global temperature increase of 1.5 °C may coincide with a decline of approximately 0.2 pH units and a 4% reduction in dissolved oxygen, creating environmental conditions unprecedented over the past 20 million years (Mora et al., 2013). Mechanistically, warming and acidification jointly affect coral physiology through impacts on pH regulation and calcification, while also reducing recovery capacity following disturbance (Venn et al., 2025). In addition to these chemical and physiological interactions, climate change can indirectly intensify physical disturbances. Increased storm frequency and intensity can enhance sediment resuspension and substrate erosion, leading to increased mortality and long-term shifts in community composition and functional diversity (Gilford et al., 2024; Posey et al., 1997). As multiple stressors continue to co-occur and intensify across marine ecosystems, understanding their cumulative and interactive effects will be critical for predicting future changes in coastal benthic community structures and ecosystem functioning.

Cross-scale responses of coastal benthic ecosystems to environmental change. Chronic (warming, deoxygenation, acidification and eutrophication) and episodic (marine heatwaves and storm disturbances) stressors drive demographic and distributional responses at the species level, leading to community reorganisation characterized by declining functional diversity, altered species interactions, and reduced habitat complexity. These changes propagate across trophic compartments via benthic–pelagic coupling and can cross ecological thresholds into alternative stable ecosystem states. For example, a healthy kelp forest **(A)** gets grown over by turf algae **(B)**, pictures adapted from Filbee-Dexter and Wernberg (2018); **(C)** a heterogeneously bleached coral reef (photo: Sebastian Szereday) might become an algae reef [**(D)**; photo: NOAA Fisheries/Peter Vroom]; vegetated benthos [**(E)**; photo: WWF] gets destroyed, e.g., by bottom trawling [**(F)**; photo: National Geographic]. Altered biogeochemical functioning, reduced stability, and declining ecosystem services weaken resilience and increase tipping risk. Feedback across organisational levels reinforces selective pressures and amplify ecosystem responses beyond the benthos.
Figure 1. Cross-scale responses of coastal benthic ecosystems to environmental change. Chronic (warming, deoxygenation, acidification and eutrophication) and episodic (marine heatwaves and storm disturbances) stressors drive demographic and distributional responses at the species level, leading to community reorganisation characterized by declining functional diversity, altered species interactions, and reduced habitat complexity. These changes propagate across trophic compartments via benthic–pelagic coupling and can cross ecological thresholds into alternative stable ecosystem states. For example, a healthy kelp forest (A) gets grown over by turf algae (B), pictures adapted from Filbee-Dexter and Wernberg (2018); (C) a heterogeneously bleached coral reef (photo: Sebastian Szereday) might become an algae reef [(D); photo: NOAA Fisheries/Peter Vroom]; vegetated benthos [(E); photo: WWF] gets destroyed, e.g., by bottom trawling [(F); photo: National Geographic]. Altered biogeochemical functioning, reduced stability, and declining ecosystem services weaken resilience and increase tipping risk. Feedback across organisational levels reinforces selective pressures and amplify ecosystem responses beyond the benthos.

Discussion & outlook

The environmental drivers outlined above demonstrate that coastal benthic ecosystems are increasingly exposed to multiple interacting pressures that reshape communities and ecosystem functioning. Improving our ability to detect ecological change, understand system-level responses, and anticipate future trajectories is therefore critical.

Emerging methods and tools

In line with this, advances in methodologies that enhance our understanding of rapid environmental change are a promising avenue. For example, to be able to better understand biodiversity changes, beyond the ‘traditional’ (usually more time-consuming) benthic surveys using transects and imaging, emerging tools are showing increasing potential in outcome and adaptability. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has emerged as a non-invasive way to survey benthic ecosystems. For example, in coral reefs, eDNA monitoring can detect shifts in assemblage composition, often revealing more taxa than traditional surveys and enabling scalable monitoring of coral reef biodiversity (Alexander et al., 2020; Dugal et al., 2023; Reimer and Gösser, 2023). Coupling this approach with NanoPore sequencing on site as previously explored for other species (Menegon et al., 2017) has the potential of rapidly improving reef surveys. Artificial intelligence has proven useful in classifying remotely sensed images (e.g., from satellites) to identify coral reefs and other benthic habitats (Burns et al., 2022) as well as fish species richness (Knudby et al., 2010). With the increasing threats of climate change to benthic ecosystems, there is a growing need for community-driven approaches to identify key areas, populations and individual genotypes for effective management, conservation and restoration efforts. In the case of coral reefs, initiatives such as CoralFuture.org (Betyaev et al., 2026), a platform to collect a global dataset of coral thermal tolerance metrics, or similar approaches for other benthic organisms that combine local stewardship, science and restoration, are promising avenues if used widely across the scientific community and restoration practitioners.

Beyond the benthos

Coastal benthic ecosystems function as interfaces between land, seafloor and the water column, where biological activity regulates biogeochemical fluxes and influences pelagic productivity and water quality (Aller and Cochran, 2019; Queirós et al., 2015). Through filtration, grazing, bioturbation, and bioirrigation, benthic organisms mediate organic matter remineralization, oxygen supply, and nutrient regeneration at the sediment–water interface, linking benthic traits to ecosystem metabolism and interacting with microbial communities that contribute substantially to remineralization and nutrient cycling (Zhang et al., 2023). The ecological importance of sediment biodiversity extends beyond local community structure, as benthic habitats function as critical transition zones that regulate material and energy fluxes between sediments, the water column, and higher trophic levels (Levin et al., 2001). Trait-based approaches indicate that community reorganization is not functionally neutral: the loss of large bioturbators or suspension feeders can alter nutrient cycling and oxygen dynamics, reducing the diversity of species performing similar ecological functions, and constraining resilience under climate change (de Juan et al., 2022; Lam-Gordillo et al., 2020). Via benthic-pelagic coupling, such changes can alter sediment oxygen demand and nutrient fluxes (Malone and Newton, 2020; Rohlfer et al., 2026). Marine heatwaves can modify macrofaunal activity and solute fluxes in soft sediments, increasing oxygen consumption and altering benthic–pelagic linkages (Kauppi et al., 2023). Land-sea exchanges influence benthic functioning, as terrestrial inputs of nutrients, sediments, and contaminants modify sediment properties, including organic matter content, habitat heterogeneity, and microbial oxygen demand (Levin et al., 2001; Hunt et al., 2024). Chronic eutrophication shifts assemblages toward small opportunistic taxa with reduced irrigation capacity (Malone and Newton, 2020; Lam-Gordillo et al., 2020). Ecosystem functioning depends on connectivity among disparate habitats across spatial scales (Preston et al., 2025; Swadling et al., 2024). Both shallow and deep benthic structures, including coral reefs and mangroves, can act as ecological infrastructure that mediates benthopelagic interactions and supports recruitment of associated taxa and secondary production (von Hammerstein et al., 2024; de Clippele et al., 2025). Cross-shelf and depth connectivity link coastal organic matter export to offshore sediment processes (Sturdivant et al., 2024; Hale et al., 2024). Together, these patterns suggest that benthic responses to changing oceans represent coupled shifts across land–sea–depth continua, with implications for nutrient cycling, oxygen regulation, fisheries support, and carbon processing under accelerating global change (de Juan et al., 2022; Lam-Gordillo et al., 2020; Preston et al., 2025; Hunt et al., 2024).

Open questions and future directions

Despite rapidly growing insight into the drivers of change in coastal benthic ecosystems, uncertainties remain regarding how these systems will reorganize under continued environmental pressures (IPCC, 2023; Pecl et al., 2017). While many experimental studies isolate individual drivers such as warming, acidification, or hypoxia, benthic organisms experience these pressures simultaneously and chronically (Halpern et al., 2015). Future research should therefore move beyond single-stressor approaches and address several unresolved questions.

A key challenge is determining whether multiple stressors act additively, synergistically, or antagonistically across different benthic taxa, habitats, and levels of biological organization. Similarly, albeit tipping points and ecological thresholds have been identified for a myriad of taxa and ecosystems (e.g., Ritchie et al., 2026), it remains unclear how species will respond to multi-level stressors and how ecosystems at large will fare close to or beyond their respective tipping points. Another important question concerns recovery processes: how do connectivity, dispersal, and habitat configuration influence recovery following disturbances such as marine heatwaves, hypoxic events, and mass mortality events? Many species across disparate ecosystems have been shown to acclimatize or even adapt to environmental change (Reusch, 2014; Missionário et al., 2026). However, another important research avenue is to determine whether such adaptation is possible over rapid timescales (i.e., years to decades, Voolstra et al., 2026) imposed by accelerating ocean warming. What role does phenotypic plasticity play in acclimatizing to environmental stress and how does it alter evolutionary adaptations across species and their distribution ranges? Further research is also needed to determine whether restoration interventions can enhance ecosystem resistance and resilience under future climate scenarios and to identify which approaches are most effective under multiple interacting stressors. In addition, understanding how climate change alters benthic–pelagic coupling, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem functioning across land–sea–depth continua remains a major research priority. Finally, the extent to which marine protected areas and other management interventions can buffer against the impacts of multiple interacting stressors remains poorly resolved.

Addressing these questions will require long-term observations, manipulative experiments, and large-scale experimental platforms such as benthic mesocosm systems that bridge the gap between laboratory experiments and ecosystem-level responses (Riebesell et al., 2013; Wahl et al., 2015). Such approaches will be essential for detecting ecological thresholds, quantifying recovery dynamics, and improving predictions of future ecosystem trajectories.

As a mini-review, this synthesis is intended to provide an overview of major stressors affecting benthic ecosystems rather than an exhaustive assessment of all available literature. Consequently, some regions, taxa, and ecosystems are less represented than others. In addition, the current body of literature is itself unevenly distributed, with a strong focus on well-studied systems such as coral reefs and temperate coastal habitats, while many benthic ecosystems remain comparatively understudied. Similarly, responses of habitat-forming and economically important species are often better documented than those of less conspicuous taxa. Methodological differences among observational, experimental, and monitoring studies further complicate comparisons across systems. Moreover, the magnitude and direction of stressor responses can vary among taxa, habitats, life stages, and environmental settings, making generalizations across ecosystems challenging. Furthermore, responses to environmental change often involve physiological and ecological trade-offs. While some species may tolerate warming, acidification, or hypoxia, this can occur at the expense of growth, reproduction, or competitive performance (Hemraj et al., 2023; Khalil et al., 2023; Roik et al., 2024; Solomon et al., 2026), whereas range shifts as a response to environmental change (Hiddink et al., 2015; Baldan et al., 2026) may expose organisms to novel ecological interactions and resource limitations. Regional differences in baseline environmental conditions may further influence organismal responses (Alderdice et al., 2025), meaning that observations from naturally extreme systems may not always be directly transferable to other coastal ecosystems. These limitations should be considered when interpreting current patterns and identifying future research priorities.

From a management perspective, improving predictions of ecosystem responses must be coupled with adaptive conservation strategies (Roberts et al., 2017). Marine protected areas will likely play an increasing role in safeguarding vulnerable habitats (Edgar et al., 2014), but their design must account for shifting species distributions, habitat connectivity, and climate-driven disturbance regimes (Green et al., 2014). Effective management will also require balancing conservation objectives with competing societal demands for marine resources and ecosystem services. International governance frameworks such as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement may support the protection of benthic ecosystems in areas beyond national jurisdiction (United Nations, 2023). Restoration of degraded habitats (e.g., seagrass meadows, oyster and coral reefs) is recognized as essential for ecosystem functioning and resilience (Beck et al., 2011). However, restoration practices must increasingly consider the use of active intervention methods (Edwards et al., 2024; Humanes et al., 2026), such as priming heat-adapted genotypes before reintroduction to degraded ecosystems as they are more likely to withstand ongoing stress (Szereday et al., 2025) or assisted evolution practices (van Oppen et al., 2015). Furthermore, reducing manageable local stressors such as eutrophication, pollution and destructive fishing practices may increase ecosystem resilience and improve the capacity of benthic communities to cope with climate-related disturbances.

Beyond their ecological importance, benthic ecosystems provide substantial social and economic benefits. Many coastal fisheries depend directly or indirectly on benthic habitats that serve as feeding grounds, nursery areas, and sources of secondary production (Beck et al., 2011). Consequently, stressor-driven changes in benthic community structure and ecosystem functioning may affect fisheries productivity, food security, and the livelihoods of coastal communities (Costanza et al., 2014). The degradation of habitats such as coral reefs, oyster reefs, seagrass meadows, and soft-sediment ecosystems can also reduce coastal protection, water quality regulation, and other ecosystem services upon which human societies depend (Costanza et al., 2014). Furthermore, future research should adopt socioecological perspectives, recognizing the role of benthic ecosystems in climate change mitigation and ecosystem service provision (Duarte et al., 2013; Costanza et al., 2014). Coastal habitats contribute substantially to carbon sequestration through blue carbon pathways (Macreadie et al., 2021), highlighting the importance of integrating ecological understanding into future ocean management and climate adaptation strategies. Maintaining resilient benthic ecosystems is therefore not only an ecological objective but also a socioeconomic priority under accelerating global climate change.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Carolin Müller, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (LG), Germany

Reviewed by: Sergi Taboada, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain

M. Roberto García-Huidobro, Universidad Santo Tomás, Chile

Ivana Komendic, McGill University, Canada

Statements

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding

The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. EKR was funded through the Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation (personal PhD grant). Open access funding was provided through the University of Konstanz.

Author contributions

EKR: Conceptualization, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. AF: Conceptualization, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

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Rohlfer, E. K. & Fiesinger, A. (2026). Coastal benthic ecosystems in a changing ocean: a mini review. Frontiers in Marine Science, Volume 13. https://doi.org/
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13 - 2026

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Copyright © 2026 Rohlfer and Fiesinger.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

*Correspondence: Eva Karin Rohlfer; Anna Fiesinger

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