The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.

Aquatic ecosystems have been managed for millennia. Indigenous communities in North America pioneered numerous marine resource management strategies to ensure food security and support thriving economies, which have been active throughout the Northwest Coast of North America for over 14 000 years. Developed to increase shellfish productivity, clam gardens have been active for millennia. The diverse infaunal communities within these ecosystems can act as indicators of habitat alterations and provide an opportunity to study ecological community responses to seascapes shaped by millennia-old resource management structures. To determine how community structure differs between clam gardens and unmodified areas, we assessed infaunal diversity and density between intertidal mudflats, sandflats, and clam gardens. Differences in community composition were found among site types, with certain taxa, including culturally important species increasing within clam gardens. Per cent similarity analyses indicated that infaunal communities were more dissimilar among, than within site types. Furthermore, regression trees indicated that increases in diversity and density were closely correlated with the amount of shell and gravel within each habitat, which are associated with clam garden function and management practices. Species-specific and environmental responses to clam gardens indicate that human modifications in nearshore habitats created novel and distinct types of soft sediment communities.

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The Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ) is a prominent geological feature offsetting the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR), consisting of two parallel fractures, creating a highly variable seafloor bathymetry. It has been defined as the most important latitudinal biodiversity transitional zone on the MAR. Despite this recognition, the faunal communities living on the fracture zone have not been extensively described. A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was utilised during the TOSCA (Tectonic Ocean Spreading at the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone) survey. The survey included five ROV video transects at depths between 560 and 2900 m. The objectives of the study were to use this video footage to quantify benthic megafaunal density and biodiversity patterns on the CGFZ and their environmental drivers. Species accumulation curves and generalised additive modelling show that depth and the presence of hard substrates play an important role in explaining species richness and abundance at the CGFZ. Coral taxa showed highest abundance between depths of 1500 and 2000 m, while sponge taxa were more abundant between 1750 and 2250 m. A dense sponge aggregation was identified on a ridge feature at 2250 m depth. The high biodiversity and presence of dense sponge aggregations and coral gardens found in this study highlight the need for detailed surveys to help support decisions made by governing bodies on the protection status of the CGFZ.