Sharpening resilience concepts to catalyze advances in marine social-ecological systems research

Marine social-ecological systems (SES) are increasingly affected by anthropogenic stressors such as climate change, fisheries, pollution, and habitat degradation. The responses of these complex adaptive systems, and the interactions between their ecological and social components, are still not fully understood. Resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and tipping points capture essential aspects of SES dynamics, but their heterogeneous use within the marine research community hampers progress toward integrative understanding and effective sustainable governance. Drawing from a session at MSEAS 2024, subsequent participatory activities, and a focused literature review, we examine how resilience-related concepts in marine SES are defined and assessed. We propose recommendations to guide resilience-related studies in marine SES: (1) begin with clear definitions of resilience-related concepts and underlying theory; (2) define the system, its components and boundaries, as well as the temporal and spatial scales of analysis; (3) contextualize the used methods or indicators within the wider SES research landscape; and (4) adopt a more holistic SES view by accounting for effects on system components beyond the primary focus of the study. The use of a shared set of guiding principles in marine SES research would strengthen conceptual coherence, facilitate cross-system comparisons, and support interdisciplinary integration in marine science.