How are the impacts of multiple anthropogenic drivers considered in marine ecosystem service research? A systematic literature review

In recent decades, great research efforts have been made to understand how specific anthropogenic drivers impact coastal marine ecosystems and their services. Nevertheless, we still lack a synthesis of the existing knowledge on single and multiple anthropogenic drivers impacts to coastal marine systems, which is necessary to guide future work. The objective of this paper is to assess the current knowledge on the impacts of anthropogenic drivers and their interactions on coastal marine ecosystem services, with emphasis on abiotic drivers as dissolved nutrients (eutrophication or de-eutrophication), temperature (warming), pH (acidification) and oxygen (hypoxia). We performed a systematic review of the literature consisting of 164 papers using the PRISMA method (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). We only include English-written papers, we exclude non-English papers to avoid potential errors in representing or interpreting scientific information due to language limitations among the authors. The results show that coastal marine ecosystem service research has largely focused on single drivers, while multiple driver assessments are less common. Assessments partially integrate multiple driver complexity, but they do not consider (1) relations and feedbacks between drivers; 2() social processes dynamics; and (3) temporal and spatial scales. Synthesis and applications. We have reviewed the current scientific knowledge on how human drivers affect coastal marine ecosystem services. We found that understanding the combined effects of different drivers and considering various time and space scales is still a pending issue. Ignoring multiple drivers, their interactions and time and space scales limits our understanding of reality, and results in high levels of uncertainty. This affects policies and actions, as they rely on uncertain information. Thus, incomplete knowledge leads to poor management of coastal ecosystem services. To improve this, we propose research framework to better consider multiple drivers and time and space factors. En las ultimas decadas, se han realizado grandes esfuerzos de investigacion para comprender como los impulsores antropogenicos afectan a los ecosistemas marinos costeros y sus servicios. Sin embargo, aun carecemos de una sintesis del conocimiento existente sobre los impactos de impulsores antropogenicos individuales y multiples en los sistemas marinos costeros, lo cual es necesario para orientar la investigacion academica en el futuro. El objetivo de este articulo es evaluar el conocimiento actual sobre los impulsores antropogenicos, sus interacciones y sus impactos en los servicios del ecosistema marino costero, con enfasis en los impulsores abioticos como nutrientes disueltos (eutrofizacion o de-eutrofizacion), temperatura (calentamiento), pH (acidificacion) y oxigeno (hipoxia). Hemos realizado una revision sistematica de la literatura que consta de 164 articulos utilizando el metodo PRISMA (Elementos de Informes Preferidos para Revisiones Sistematicas y Metaanalisis). Solo hemos incluido articulos escritos en ingles, excluyendo aquellos en otros idiomas para evitar posibles errores en la representacion o interpretacion de la informacion cientifica debido a limitaciones idiomaticas entre los autores. Los resultados muestran que la investigacion sobre los servicios del ecosistema marino costero se ha centrado en gran medida en impulsores individuales, mientras que las evaluaciones de multiples impulsores son menos comunes. Las evaluaciones integran parcialmente la complejidad de multiples impulsores, pero no consideran (1) relaciones y retroalimentaciones entre impulsores; (2) dinamicas de procesos sociales; y (3) escalas temporales y espaciales. Sintesis y aplicaciones. Hemos revisado el conocimiento cientifico actual sobre como los impulsores humanos afectan a los servicios del ecosistema marino costero. Encontramos que entender los efectos combinados de diferentes impulsores y considerar diversas escalas de tiempo y espacio aun es una tarea pendiente. No obstante, no integrar los efectos de los impulsores multiples, sus interacciones y las escalas temporales y espaciales limita nuestra comprension de la realidad y resulta en niveles elevados de incertidumbre. Esto afecta a las decisiones politicas y a la gestion de los servicios de los ecosistemas, ya que se basan en informacion incierta. Por lo tanto, el conocimiento incompleto conduce a una gestion deficiente de los servicios del ecosistema costero. Para mejorar abordar esta problematica, proponemos un marco de investigacion para integrar los impulsores multiples y los factores temporales y espaciales en la investigacion cientifica. We have reviewed the current scientific knowledge on how human drivers affect coastal marine ecosystem services. We found that understanding the combined effects of different drivers and considering various time and space scales is still a pending issue. Ignoring multiple drivers, their interactions and time and space scales limits our understanding of reality, and results in high levels of uncertainty. This affects policies and actions, as they rely on uncertain information. Thus, incomplete knowledge leads to poor management of coastal ecosystem services. To improve this, we propose research framework to better consider multiple drivers and time and space factors.image