Articles

M
apped classifications of patterns in biodiversity
have long been an important tool in fields from
evolutionary studies to conservation planning (Forbes 1856,
Wallace 1876, Spellerberg and Sawyer 1999, Lourie and
Vincent 2004). The use of such systems (notably, the widely
cited system developed by Olson et al. [2001]) in broadscale
conservation, however, has largely been restricted to terres-
trial studies (Chape et al. 2003, Hazen and Anthamatten
2004, Hoekstra et al. 2005, Burgess et al. 2006, Lamoreux et
al. 2006). In the marine environment, existing global classi-
fication systems remain limited in their spatial resolution.
Some are inconsistent in their spatial coverage or method-
ological approach. The few publications that have attempted
to use biogeographic regionalization in global marine
conservation planning (e.g., Kelleher et al. 1995, Olson and
Dinerstein 2002) have been qualitative, and have expressed
concern about the lack of an adequate global classification.
In the absence of compelling global coverage, numerous
regional classifications have been created to meet regional
planning needs. This, of course, does not satisfy the need for
a global system that is consistent across the many marine
realms and coastal zones.
Biogeographic classifications are essential for developing
ecologically representative systems of protected areas, as re-
quired by international agreements such as the Convention
on Biological Diversitys Programme of Work on Protected
Areas and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Marine
space is still grossly underrepresented in the global protected
areas network (only about 0.5% of the surface area of the
oceans is currently protected; Chape et al. 2005), a fact that
adds urgency to the need for tools to support the scaling up
of effective, representative marine conservation. The key idea
underlying the term representative is the intent to protect
a full range of biodiversity worldwidegenes, species, and
Mark D. Spalding (e-mail: mspalding@tnc.org), Zach A. Ferdaa, Jennifer Molnar, and James Robertson are conservation scientists in The Nature Conservancys
Conservation Strategies Group, Arlington, VA 22203. Helen E. Fox and Al Lombana are marine biologists in the Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife FundUS,
Washington, DC 20037. Gerald R. Allen is a research associate at the Western Australian Museum, Perth, Western Australia 6986, Australia. Nick Davidson is the deputy
secretary general of the Ramsar Convention Secretariat, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland. Max Finlayson is a member and former chair of Ramsars Scientific and
Technical Review Panel and principal researcher in wetland ecology at the International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Benjamin S. Halpern is
project coordinator for ecosystem-based management of coastal marine systems at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA 93101.
Miguel A. Jorge is deputy director of WWF Internationals Global Marine Programme, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland. Sara A. Lourie is a research associate at the
Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2K6, Canada. Kirsten D. Martin was a marine program officer with IUCN (World Conservation Union)
when this article was prepared and is currently working as a freelance consultant for the Census of Marine Life Initiative, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland. Edmund McManus
is a senior program officer in the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge CB3 0DL, United
Kingdom. Cheri A. Recchia is marine program director at the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York, NY 10461. 2007 American Institute of Biological Sciences.
Marine Ecoregions of the World:
A Bioregionalization of Coastal
and Shelf Areas
MARK D. SPALDING, HELEN E. FOX, GERALD R. ALLEN, NICK DAVIDSON, ZACH A. FERDAA, MAX FINLAYSON,
BENJAMIN S. HALPERN, MIGUEL A. JORGE, AL LOMBANA, SARA A. LOURIE, KIRSTEN D. MARTIN, EDMUND
MCMANUS, JENNIFER MOLNAR, CHERI A. RECCHIA, AND JAMES ROBERTSON
The conservation and sustainable use of marine resources is a highlighted goal on a growing number of national and international policy agendas.
Unfortunately, efforts to assess progress, as well as to strategically plan and prioritize new marine conservation measures, have been hampered by the
lack of a detailed, comprehensive biogeographic system to classify the oceans. Here we report on a new global system for coastal and shelf areas: the
Marine Ecoregions of the World, or MEOW, a nested system of 12 realms, 62 provinces, and 232 ecoregions. This system provides considerably better
spatial resolution than earlier global systems, yet it preserves many common elements and can be cross-referenced to many regional biogeographic
classifications. The designation of terrestrial ecoregions has revolutionized priority setting and planning for terrestrial conservation; we anticipate
similar benefits from the use of a coherent and credible marine system.
Keywords: ecoregions, marine biogeography, mapping, marine protected areas, representative conservation
www.biosciencemag.org July/August 2007 / Vol. 57 No. 7 BioScience 573
higher taxa, along with the communities, evolutionary
patterns, and ecological processes that sustain this diversity.
Biogeographic classifications provide a crucial foundation for
the assessment of representativeness (Olson and Dinerstein
2002, Lourie and Vincent 2004).
The growing commitment by governments and the United
Nations (UN; e.g., the UN Law of the Sea, the UN Fish Stocks
Agreement) to implement comprehensive arrangements
for ocean governance provides an additional arena in which
marine biogeographic classifications are needed. Biogeo-
graphic regions are natural frameworks for marine zoning,
which is a tool increasingly used by regional fisheries man-
agement organizations.
In this article, we present a new biogeographic classifica-
tion for the worlds coastal and shelf areas, which draws heav-
ily on the existing global and regional literature. We believe
that this classification will be of critical importance in sup-
porting analyses of patterns in marine biodiversity, in un-
derstanding processes, and, perhaps most important, in
directing future efforts in marine resource management and
conservation.
Approaches for defining boundaries
Observations of global biogeographic patterns in the marine
environment include early works by Forbes (1856), Ekman
(1953, first published in German in 1935), and Hedgpeth
(1957a), and more recent publications by Briggs (1974, 1995),
Hayden and colleagues (1984), Bailey (1998), and Longhurst
(1998). These authors used a variety of definitions and cri-
teria for drawing biogeographic divisions. For example, Briggs
(1974, 1995) focused on a system of coastal and shelf provinces
defined by their degree of endemism (> 10%). This strong tax-
onomic focus and clear definition have led to relatively wide-
spread adoption of Briggss system, including its use by
Hayden and colleagues (1984), with minor amendments, as
a part of their classification of the coastal and marine envi-
ronments. Adey and Steneck (2001) provided independent
verification of many of Briggss subdivisions in a study that
modeled thermogeographicregions of evolutionary stability.
Another important systematic approach, aimed mainly at
pelagic systems, is the two-tier system devised by Longhurst
(1998), which focuses on biomes and biogeochemical
provinces. These subdivisions were based on a detailed array
of oceanographic factors, tested and modified using a large
global database of chlorophyll profiles. The results represent
one of the most comprehensive partitionings of the pelagic
biota, but the scheme is of limited utility in the complex sys-
tems of coastal waters, a fact acknowledged by the author, who
has recommended combining his open ocean system with oth-
ers for coastal and shelf waters (Watson et al. 2003; Alan R.
Longhurst, Galerie lAcademie, Cajarc, France, personal com-
munication, 2 November 2004).
The system of large marine ecosystems (LMEs) was de-
veloped over many years by a number of regional experts, with
considerable input from fisheries scientist Ken Sherman (e.g.,
Sherman and Alexander 1989, Hempel and Sherman 2003,
Sherman et al. 2005). Unlike the systems of Briggs and
Longhurst, LMEs represent an expert-derived system with-
out a rigorous, replicable core definition. LMEs are rela-
tively large regions on the order of 200,000 km
2
or greater,
characterized by distinct: (1) bathymetry, (2) hydrography, (3)
productivity, and (4) trophically dependent populations
(www.lme.noaa.gov/Portal/). LMEs are largely conceived as
units for the practical application of transboundary man-
agement issues (fish and fisheries, pollution, habitat restora-
tion, productivity, socioeconomics, and governance). The
LME system focuses on productivity and oceanographic
processes, and in its present form omits substantial areas of
islands in the Pacific and the Indian oceans.
These and other global systems continue to play an im-
portant role in developing our understanding of marine bio-
geography and in practical issues of natural resource
management. However, improvements are clearly possible and
desirable. An ideal system would be hierarchical and nested,
and would allow for multiscale analyses. Each level of the
hierarchy would be relevant for conservation planning or
management interventions, from the global to the local, al-
though it is beyond the scope of the present effort to classify
individual habitats or smaller features, such as individual es-
tuaries or seagrass meadows.
We focus here on coastal and shelf waters, combining ben-
thic and shelf pelagic (neritic) biotas. These waters represent
the areas in which most marine biodiversity is confined,
where human interest and attention are greatest, and where
there is often a complex synergy of threats far greater than in
offshore waters (UNEP 2006). From a biodiversity perspec-
tive, it is not simply that coastal and shelf waters have greater
species numbers and higher productivity, but also that they
are biogeographically distinct from the adjacent high seas and
deep benthic environments (Ekman 1953, Hedgpeth 1957a,
Briggs 1974).
Our intention was to develop a hierarchical system based
on taxonomic configurations, influenced by evolutionary
history, patterns of dispersal, and isolation. We drew up ini-
tial guidelines on definitions and nomenclature to guide the
first data-gathering phase, then reviewed and refined them
iteratively on the basis of the available data.
We reviewed over 230 works in journals, NGO (non-
governmental organization) reports, government publica-
tions, and other sources. For each of these, we looked at the
underlying data and at the process of identification and de-
finition of biogeographic units; we also considered the ob-
jectives of the classifications. To facilitate comparisons, we used
digital mapped versions of many of the existing biogeo-
graphic units. More than 40 independent experts provided fur-
ther advice (see the acknowledgments section). We refined a
draft classification scheme through an assessment and review
process that involved a three-day workshop. In arriving at our
classification scheme, we adhered to three principles for our
classification: that it should have a strong biogeographic ba-
sis, offer practical utility, and be characterized by parsimony.
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A strong biogeographic basis. All spatial units were defined
on a broadly comparable biogeographic basis. Existing sys-
tems rely on a broad array of source informationrange
discontinuities, dominant habitats, geomorphological fea-
tures, currents, and temperatures, for exampleto identify
areas and boundaries. In many cases these divergent ap-
proaches are compatible, given the close links between bio-
diversity and the underlying abiotic drivers (see the
comparisons below). We preferred to be informed by com-
posite studies that combined multiple divergent taxa or mul-
tiple oceanographic drivers in the derivation of boundaries,
as these were more likely to capture robust or recurring pat-
terns in overall biodiversity.
A number of systems we reviewed were broadly biogeo-
graphic, but with some adjustments to fit political boundaries.
Where it was possible to discern the biogeographic elements
from the political, these systems were still used to inform the
process.
Practical utility. We sought to develop a nested system, op-
erating globally at broadly consistent spatial scales and in-
corporating the full spectrum of habitats found across shelves.
We thus avoided very fine-resolution systems that separated
coastal and shelf waters into constituent habitats. We chose
not to try to define minimum or maximum spatial areas for
our bioregions, but in some cases we did seek out systems that
subdivided very large spatial units (such as Briggss Indo-
Polynesian Province, which covers more than 20% of the
worlds shallow shelf areas) or that amalgamated fine-scale
units such as single large estuaries or sounds.
Parsimony. There are a number of respected and widely uti-
lized global and regional systems, and lack of agreement be-
tween such systems can be problematic. In developing a new
system, we sought to minimize further divergence from ex-
isting systems, yet still to obtain a truly global classification
system. We did this by adopting a nested hierarchy that (a) uti-
lized systems that are already widely adopted (e.g., the Nature
Conservancys system in much of the Americas and the In-
terim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia) and
(b) fitted closely within broader-scale systems or alongside
other regional systems.
Definitions
After the review process, we arrived at a set of critical work-
ing definitions.
Realms. The systems largest spatial units are based on the ter-
restrial concept of realms, described by Udvardy (1975) as
continent or subcontinent-sized areas with unifying fea-
tures of geography and fauna/flora/vegetation. From our
marine perspective, realms are defined as follows:
Very large regions of coastal, benthic, or pelagic ocean
across which biotas are internally coherent at higher
taxonomic levels, as a result of a shared and unique
evolutionary history. Realms have high levels of
endemism, including unique taxa at generic and family
levels in some groups. Driving factors behind the devel-
opment of such unique biotas include water tempera-
ture, historical and broadscale isolation, and the prox-
imity of the benthos.
This article, with its focus on coastal and shelf areas, does
not consider realms in pelagic or deep benthic environments.
This is an area requiring further analysis and development.
Provinces. Nested within the realms are provinces:
Large areas defined by the presence of distinct biotas
that have at least some cohesion over evolutionary time
frames. Provinces will hold some level of endemism,
principally at the level of species. Although historical
isolation will play a role, many of these distinct biotas
have arisen as a result of distinctive abiotic features
that circumscribe their boundaries. These may include
geomorphological features (isolated island and shelf
systems, semienclosed seas); hydrographic features
(currents, upwellings, ice dynamics); or geochemical
influences (broadest-scale elements of nutrient supply
and salinity).
In ecological terms, provinces are cohesive units likely, for
example, to encompass the broader life history of many con-
stituent taxa, including mobile and dispersive species. In
many areas, the scale at which provinces may be conceived is
similar to that of the detailed spatial units used in global sys-
tems such as Briggss provinces, Longhursts biogeochemical
provinces, and LMEs.
Ecoregions. Ecoregions are the smallest-scale units in the
Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) system and are
defined as follows:
Areas of relatively homogeneous species composition,
clearly distinct from adjacent systems. The species com-
position is likely to be determined by the predominance
of a small number of ecosystems and/or a distinct suite
of oceanographic or topographic features. The domi-
nant biogeographic forcing agents defining the eco-
regions vary from location to location but may include
isolation, upwelling, nutrient inputs, freshwater influx,
temperature regimes, ice regimes, exposure, sediments,
currents, and bathymetric or coastal complexity.
In ecological terms, these are strongly cohesive units, suf-
ficiently large to encompass ecological or life history processes
for most sedentary species. Although some marine ecoregions
may have important levels of endemism, this is not a key
determinant in ecoregion identification, as it has been in ter-
restrial ecoregions.
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We suggest that the most appropriate outer boundary for
these coastal and shelf realms, provinces, and ecoregions is the
200-meter (m) isobath, which is a widely used proxy for the
shelf edge and often corresponds to a dramatic ecotone
(Forbes 1856, Hedgpeth 1957b, Briggs 1974). Such a sharp
boundary can only be indicative: Shelf breaks are not always
clear; the bathymetric location of an equivalentbiotic tran-
sition is highly variable; and there is considerable overlap
and influence between shelf, slope, and adjacent pelagic bio-
tas. At the same time, most of the classifications that we re-
viewed have been heavily influenced by data from nearshore
and intertidal biotas, and data from deeper water typically had
decreasing influence on boundary definitions. We believe
that beyond 200 m, other biogeographic patterns will in-
creasingly predominate, altering or hiding the patterns rep-
resented by the system proposed here.
A global, nested system
We propose a nested system of 12 realms, 62 provinces, and
232 ecoregions covering all coastal and shelf waters of the
world.
As the MEOW system is based on existing classifications,
variation and mismatch among systems led to challenges
and compromises. The global coastal classifications of Briggs
and Hayden, for example, do not show great congruence
with the LMEs. The Briggs and related Hayden systems
appeared to be more closely allied to our need for a system
with a stronger biogeographic basis than the current LME de-
lineations. Both the Briggs and Hayden systems and the
LMEs show considerable variation in the size of their spatial
units; the Briggs approach of using 10% endemism distin-
guishes many isolated communities around oceanic islands,
but fails to disaggregate vast areas with gradual faunal changes,
even where the incremental effects of such changes are very
large indeed (e.g., the Indo-Pacific). The large spatial units in
all of these systems clearly encompass significant levels of in-
ternal biogeographic heterogeneity, which we were keen to dis-
aggregate through a more detailed system of ecoregions.
We found regional systems for almost all coastal and shelf
waters, although many are described only in the gray litera-
ture. Notable exceptions were the Russian Arctic and the
continental coasts of much of South, Southeast, and East
Asia. For these areas, we relied heavily on global data sets and
unpublished expert opinion, using more focused biogeo-
graphic publications (where available) for refining individ-
ual boundaries.
Figure 1 depicts the review process, showing four biogeo-
graphic schemes: Briggss system of provinces (1974, 1995);
an expert-derived system combining biotic and abiotic fea-
tures for South America (Sullivan Sealey and Bustamante
1999); the current LMEs; and a regional classification based
on a single taxonomic grouping (decapod crustaceans; Boschi
2000). Despite their different origins, these systems show a re-
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576 BioScience July/August 2007 / Vol. 57 No. 7 www.biosciencemag.org
Figure 1. Reconciliation of differing boundary systems for South America. The map on the left illustrates four
biogeographic systems: (A) Briggss provinces, (B) Sullivan Sealey and Bustamantes provinces, (C) large
marine ecosystems, and (D) Boschis provinces. System similarities are exemplified in three inset maps:
northern Peru (inset 1), Cabo Frio (inset 2), and Chilo Island (inset 3). The map on the right shows the
Marine Ecoregions of the World provinces (labeled) and their ecoregion subdivision boundaries.
markable congruence at a number of key biogeographic
boundaries.
Thus, it was possible to adopt a single system as a pri-
mary source, and the MEOW provinces (figure 1, right) were
based almost entirely on Sullivan Sealey and Bustamante
(1999), while remaining well aligned with the other systems.
At a finer resolution, the ecoregions for South America are de-
rived almost entirely from the same publication (Sullivan
Sealey and Bustamante 1999), this being the only compre-
hensive system for these coasts. Even at this scale, however,
efforts were made to locate independent verification of
boundaries, and it is reassuring to note that these more de-
tailed subdivisions were often supported by data from other
oceanographic and ecological literature (see, e.g., Strub et al.
[1998], Fernandez et al. [2000], Ojeda et al. [2000], and
Camus [2001] for data concerning the Chilean coast).
Although the boundaries in other regions were not as
simple to resolve as those along the South American coast,
we applied the same approaches. The section that follows
gives some information on the key sources used in drawing
boundaries.
Marine Ecoregions of the World
Box 1 and figures 2 and 3 give a summary of the entire
MEOW system, which covers all coastal and shelf waters
shallower than 200 m. The shaded area of each map (figures
2, 3) extends 370 kilometers (200 nautical miles) offshore
(or to the 200-m isobath, where this lies further offshore),
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Figure 2. Final biogeographic framework: Realms and provinces. (a) Biogeographic realms with ecoregion
boundaries outlined. (b) Provinces with ecoregions outlined. Provinces are numbered and listed in box 1.
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578 BioScience July/August 2007 / Vol. 57 No. 7 www.biosciencemag.org
Arctic
1. Arctic (no provinces identified)
1. North Greenland
2. North and East Iceland
3. East Greenland Shelf
4. West Greenland Shelf
5. Northern Grand BanksSouthern
Labrador
6. Northern Labrador
7. Baffin BayDavis Strait
8. Hudson Complex
9. Lancaster Sound
10. High Arctic Archipelago
11. BeaufortAmundsenViscount
MelvilleQueen Maud
12. Beaufort Seacontinental coast
and shelf
13. Chukchi Sea
14. Eastern Bering Sea
15. East Siberian Sea
16. Laptev Sea
17. Kara Sea
18. North and East Barents Sea
19. White Sea
Temperate Northern Atlantic
2. Northern European Seas
20. South and West Iceland
21. Faroe Plateau
22. Southern Norway
23. Northern Norway and Finnmark
24. Baltic Sea
25. North Sea
26. Celtic Seas
3. Lusitanian
27. South European Atlantic Shelf
28. Saharan Upwelling
29. Azores Canaries Madeira
4. Mediterranean Sea
30. Adriatic Sea
31. Aegean Sea
32. Levantine Sea
33. Tunisian Plateau/Gulf of Sidra
34. Ionian Sea
35. Western Mediterranean
36. Alboran Sea
5. Cold Temperate Northwest Atlantic
37. Gulf of St. LawrenceEastern
Scotian Shelf
38. Southern Grand BanksSouth
Newfoundland
39. Scotian Shelf
40. Gulf of Maine/Bay of Fundy
41. Virginian
6. Warm Temperate Northwest Atlantic
42. Carolinian
43. Northern Gulf of Mexico
7. Black Sea
44. Black Sea
Temperate Northern Pacific
8. Cold Temperate Northwest Pacific
45. Sea of Okhotsk
46. Kamchatka Shelf and Coast
47. Oyashio Current
48. Northeastern Honshu
49. Sea of Japan
50. Yellow Sea
9. Warm Temperate Northwest Pacific
51. Central Kuroshio Current
52. East China Sea
10. Cold Temperate Northeast Pacific
53. Aleutian Islands
54. Gulf of Alaska
55. North American Pacific Fijordland
56. Puget Trough/Georgia Basin
57. Oregon, Washington, Vancouver
Coast and Shelf
58. Northern California
11. Warm Temperate Northeast Pacific
59. Southern California Bight
60. Cortezian
61. Magdalena Transition
Tropical Atlantic
12. Tropical Northwestern Atlantic
62. Bermuda
63. Bahamian
64. Eastern Caribbean
65. Greater Antilles
66. Southern Caribbean
67. Southwestern Caribbean
68. Western Caribbean
69. Southern Gulf of Mexico
70. Floridian
13. North Brazil Shelf
71. Guianan
72. Amazonia
14. Tropical Southwestern Atlantic
73. Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo Islands
74. Fernando de Naronha and Atoll
das Rocas
75. Northeastern Brazil
76. Eastern Brazil
77. Trindade and Martin Vaz Islands
15. St. Helena and Ascension Islands
78. St. Helena and Ascension Islands
16. West African Transition
79. Cape Verde
80. Sahelian Upwelling
17. Gulf of Guinea
81. Gulf of Guinea West
82. Gulf of Guinea Upwelling
83. Gulf of Guinea Central
84. Gulf of Guinea Islands
85. Gulf of Guinea South
86. Angolan
Western Indo-Pacific
18. Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
87. Northern and Central Red Sea
88. Southern Red Sea
89. Gulf of Aden
19. Somali/Arabian
90. Arabian (Persian) Gulf
91. Gulf of Oman
92. Western Arabian Sea
93. Central Somali Coast
20. Western Indian Ocean
94. Northern Monsoon Current Coast
95. East African Coral Coast
96. Seychelles
97. Cargados Carajos/Tromelin Island
98. Mascarene Islands
99. Southeast Madagascar
100. Western and Northern Madagascar
101. Bight of Sofala/Swamp Coast
102. Delagoa
21. West and South Indian Shelf
103. Western India
104. South India and Sri Lanka
22. Central Indian Ocean Islands
105. Maldives
106. Chagos
23. Bay of Bengal
107. Eastern India
108. Northern Bay of Bengal
24. Andaman
109. Andaman and Nicobar Islands
110. Andaman Sea Coral Coast
111. Western Sumatra
Central Indo-Pacific
25. South China Sea
112. Gulf of Tonkin
113. Southern China
114. South China Sea Oceanic Islands
26. Sunda Shelf
115. Gulf of Thailand
116. Southern Vietnam
117. Sunda Shelf/Java Sea
118. Malacca Strait
27. Java Transitional
119. Southern Java
120. Cocos-Keeling/Christmas Island
28. South Kuroshio
121. South Kuroshio
29. Tropical Northwestern Pacific
122. Ogasawara Islands
123. Mariana Islands
124. East Caroline Islands
125. West Caroline Islands
30. Western Coral Triangle
126. Palawan/North Borneo
127. Eastern Philippines
128. Sulawesi Sea/Makassar Strait
129. Halmahera
130. Papua
131. Banda Sea
132. Lesser Sunda
133. Northeast Sulawesi
31. Eastern Coral Triangle
134. Bismarck Sea
135. Solomon Archipelago
136. Solomon Sea
137. Southeast Papua New Guinea
32. Sahul Shelf
138. Gulf of Papua
139. Arafura Sea
140. Arnhem Coast to Gulf of Carpenteria
141. Bonaparte Coast
33. Northeast Australian Shelf
142. Torres Strait Northern Great
Barrier Reef
143. Central and Southern Great
Barrier Reef
34. Northwest Australian Shelf
144. Exmouth to Broome
145. Ningaloo
35. Tropical Southwestern Pacific
146. Tonga Islands
147. Fiji Islands
148. Vanuatu
149. New Caledonia
150. Coral Sea
36. Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands
151. Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands
Eastern Indo-Pacific
37. Hawaii
152. Hawaii
38. Marshall, Gilbert, and Ellis Islands
153. Marshall Islands
154. Gilbert/Ellis Island
Box 1. Marine Ecoregions of the World.
Numbers for the provinces and ecoregions match those shown on the maps in figures 2b and 3. Realms are indicated in boldface, provinces (162) in
italics, and ecoregions (1232) in roman type.
but, as already noted, we consider the principal focus of this
classification to be the benthos above 200 m and the overlying
water column.
Key sources included the following:
Biogeographic assessments in the peer-reviewed
literature, including the global studies already
mentioned and many regional publications (e.g.,
Bustamante and Branch [1996] and Turpie et al. [2000]
for temperate southern Africa, Linse et al. [2006] for the
Southern Ocean)
Ecoregional assessments conducted by NGOs (e.g.,
Sullivan Sealey and Bustamante [1999] for Latin
America, WWF [2004 and unpublished reports]
for much of Africa, Green and Mous [2006] for
the Coral Triangle provinces)
Government-derived or supported systems (e.g.,
Thackway and Cresswell [1998] for Australia,
Powles et al. [2004] for Canada)
Input from several of the authors of this article and
assessments commissioned explicitly for the MEOW
process (e.g., unpublished reports by Jerry M. Kemp in
2005 for the Middle Eastern seas and by S. A. L. in 2006
for the Andaman to Java coasts); the system for the
Indo-Pacific oceanic islands was developed by one of us
(G. R. A.) on the basis of many years of field experience,
expert review, and networking with other scientists
across the region
These schemes were assessed alongside other biogeographic
literature, and in some cases alterations were made to better
represent the arguments of biogeography, utility, and parsi-
mony outlined above. A full listing of the sources referenced
can be found at www.nature.org/MEOWor www.worldwildlife.
org/MEOW.
The proposed realms adopt the broad latitudinal divi-
sions of polar, temperate, and tropical, with subdivisions
based on ocean basin (broadly following the oceanic biomes
of Longhurst [1998]). In the temperate waters of the South-
ern Hemisphere, we diverge from this approach. We consider
the differences across the oceans too substantial, and the
connections around the continental margins too great, to
support either ocean basin subdivisions or a single circum-
global realm (equivalent to Longhursts Antarctic Westerly
Winds Biome), and hence we have adopted continental
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39. Central Polynesia
155. Line Islands
156. Phoenix/Tokelau/Northern
Cook Islands
157. Samoa Islands
40. Southeast Polynesia
158. Tuamotus
159. Rapa-Pitcairn
160. Southern Cook/Austral Islands
161. Society Islands
41. Marquesas
162. Marquesas
42. Easter Island
163. Easter Island
Tropical Eastern Pacific
43. Tropical East Pacific
164. Revillagigedos
165. Clipperton
166. Mexican Tropical Pacific
167. ChiapasNicaragua
168. Nicoya
169. Cocos Islands
170. Panama Bight
171. Guayaquil
44. Galapagos
172. Northern Galapagos Islands
173. Eastern Galapagos Islands
174. Western Galapagos Islands
Temperate South America
45. Warm Temperate Southeastern Pacific
175. Central Peru
176. Humboldtian
177. Central Chile
178. Araucanian
46. Juan Fernndez and Desventuradas
179. Juan Fernndez and Desventuradas
47. Warm Temperate Southwestern Atlantic
180. Southeastern Brazil
181. Rio Grande
182. Rio de la Plata
183. UruguayBuenos Aires Shelf
48. Magellanic
184. North Patagonian Gulfs
185. Patagonian Shelf
186. Malvinas/Falklands
187. Channels and Fjords of
Southern Chile
188. Chiloense
49. Tristan Gough
189. Tristan Gough
Temperate Southern Africa
50. Benguela
190. Namib
191. Namaqua
51. Agulhas
192. Agulhas Bank
193. Natal
52. AmsterdamSt Paul
194. AmsterdamSt Paul
Temperate Australasia
53. Northern New Zealand
195. Kermadec Island
196. Northeastern New Zealand
197. Three KingsNorth Cape
54. Southern New Zealand
198. Chatham Island
199. Central New Zealand
200. South New Zealand
201. Snares Island
55. East Central Australian Shelf
202. Tweed-Moreton
203. Manning-Hawkesbury
56. Southeast Australian Shelf
204. Cape Howe
205. Bassian
206. Western Bassian
57. Southwest Australian Shelf
207. South Australian Gulfs
208. Great Australian Bight
209. Leeuwin
58. West Central Australian Shelf
210. Shark Bay
211. Houtman
Southern Ocean
59. Subantarctic Islands
212. Macquarie Island
213. Heard and Macdonald Islands
214. Kerguelen Islands
215. Crozet Islands
216. Prince Edward Islands
217. Bouvet Island
218. Peter the First Island
60. Scotia Sea
219. South Sandwich Islands
220. South Georgia
221. South Orkney Islands
222. South Shetland Islands
223. Antarctic Peninsula
61. Continental High Antarctic
224. East Antarctic Wilkes Land
225. East Antarctic Enderby Land
226. East Antarctic Dronning Maud Land
227. Weddell Sea
228. Amundsen/Bellingshausen Sea
229. Ross Sea
62. Subantarctic New Zealand
230. Bounty and Antipodes Islands
231. Campbell Island
232. Auckland Island
Box 1. (continued)
Numbers for the provinces and ecoregions match those shown on the maps in figures 2b and 3. Realms are indicated in boldface, provinces (162) in
italics, and ecoregions (1232) in roman type.
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580 BioScience July/August 2007 / Vol. 57 No. 7 www.biosciencemag.org
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margin realms for temperate Australasia, southern Africa,
and South America. The paucity of existing literature dis-
cussing these broadest-scale biogeographic units from a
global perspective presents a stark contrast to the terrestrial
biogeographic literature.
The level of internal heterogeneity of biotas within differ-
ent realms is quite varied. For some realms, the differences in
biota at the provincial level are substantial, including the
warm temperate faunas on either side of the Temperate South
America realm and the tropical faunas on either side of the
Tropical Atlantic realm. By contrast, we have subdivided the
widely used Indo-Pacific realminto three units. This is the
region of greatest diversity, and it covers a vast area. Across this
region are clinal changes in taxa that lack clear breaks, but are
sufficiently large that faunas at either end bear little resem-
blance to each other. Our Indo-Pacific subdivisions (which
it might be appropriate to consider as subrealms) follow less
clearly defined biogeographic boundaries than other realms,
but these divisions produce spatial units that are more
comparable to other realms in overall biodiversity, levels of
endemism, and spatial area.
At broader scales, we undertook a simple spatial analysis
to explore the links or possible crossovers between the MEOW
system, LMEs, and Briggss provinces. The incomplete cov-
erage of the LME system is clearly limiting for global con-
servation planning: 78 of our 232 ecoregions include a
substantive area (greater than 10% of their total area) that is
not covered by any LME. Of the remainder, some 49% of
LMEs show good congruence (> 90% of shelf area) with ei-
ther single ecoregions or ecoregion combinations. (The
boundary of the Arctic LME has not been mapped, and so was
ignored in these calculations.) In comparison, 30 of Briggss
53 provinces (57%) show good congruence (> 90% of shelf
area) with single ecoregions or ecoregion combinations. This
figure rises to 39 (74%) if we include congruence at 85% of
the shelf area.
We also used the MEOW system to look at the coverage of
the marine and coastal network of Ramsar sites. Contracting
parties to the Ramsar Convention have committed to achieve
a coherent and comprehensive national and international net-
work(Ramsar Convention 1999), although until now it has
not been possible to assess the biogeographic coverage of
marine and coastal Ramsar sites at the global level. The results
of this overlay are presented in table 1.
One value of biogeographic classifications is their use in un-
covering inequities and dramatic gaps in conservation cov-
erage. Although a more thorough analysis would be required
to determine more clearly the degree of representation pro-
vided by the existing selection of Ramsar sites, some basic ob-
servations are immediately apparent. The Ramsar network is
extensive, but it is dominated by sites in the temperate North
Atlantic and shows a striking paucity of sites in, for example,
the eastern Indo-Pacific and the Southern Ocean. At finer hi-
erarchical resolution, further gaps can be identified: While 92%
of realms are represented, this translates to only 73% of
provinces and 52% of ecoregions, leaving some 112 ecoregions
with no Ramsar representation. These gaps are widespread,
including four ecoregions in the temperate North Atlantic.
Conclusions
The MEOW classification provides a critical tool for marine
conservation planning. It will enable gap analyses and
assessments of representativeness in a global framework. It
provides a level of detail that will support linkage to practi-
cal conservation interventions at the field level. For example,
two major international conservation organizations (the
Nature Conservancy and WWF) use ecoregions as planning
units. From a global standpoint, the MEOW system offers sim-
ilar opportunities for the marine environment. It also provides
a rational framework in which to analyze patterns and
processes in coastal and shelf biodiversity.
The global and hierarchical nature of the MEOW can
support analytical approaches that move between scales.
Using MEOW, global information can also be used to target
action on the ground, while field-level information can be
placed alongside information on adjacent or remote locations,
Articles
www.biosciencemag.org July/August 2007 / Vol. 57 No. 7 BioScience 581
Table 1. The geographic spread of marine and coastal Ramsar sites within the Marine Ecoregions of the World
classification.
Ecoregions Provinces
Total Number with Percentage Number with Percentage
Ramsar Ramsar Total with Ramsar Ramsar Total with Ramsar
Realm sites sites number sites sites number sites
Arctic 26 10 19 53 1 1 100
Temperate Northern Atlantic 374 21 25 84 6 6 100
Temperate Northern Pacific 38 12 17 71 4 4 100
Tropical Atlantic 117 17 25 68 4 6 67
Western Indo-Pacific 41 14 25 56 7 7 100
Central Indo-Pacific 35 16 40 40 10 12 83
Eastern Indo-Pacific 1 1 12 8 1 6 17
Tropical Eastern Pacific 29 8 11 73 2 2 100
Temperate South America 14 9 15 60 3 5 60
Temperate Southern Africa 9 3 5 60 2 3 67
Temperate Australasia 25 9 17 53 5 6 83
Southern Ocean 0 0 21 0 0 4 0
Total 709 120 232 52 45 62 73
providing a wider spatial perspective. Rooted in existing re-
gional systems, the base units of the MEOW already under-
pin conservation efforts at regional levels, and a strong body
of marine ecoregional planning literature illustrates how
global or regional concerns can be converted into field-based
conservation action (Banks et al. 2000, Beck and Odaya 2001,
Larsen et al. 2001, Kramer and Kramer 2002, Ferdaa 2005).
The value of the MEOW system extends beyond conser-
vation planning. Looking afresh at the broader-scale classes
and taking advantage of the improved resolution offered by
the MEOW system, it is possible to review wider issues of bio-
diversity distribution and evolution. At the broadest scales, the
most important elements of biogeographic subdivision are the
barriers that have separated substantial areas over evolu-
tionary timescales (Adey and Steneck 2001). In the MEOW
realms (noting the special case of the Indo-Pacific described
above), these barriers consist of landmasses, wide ocean
basins, and temperature gradients.
Although there is variation in degree, the provinces can be
seen as finer-scale units of evolutionary isolation. They align
with many of the more important factors driving recent and
contemporary evolutionary processes. Temperature, or lati-
tude, continues to play an important role (separating warm
and cold temperate provinces), but so does the further iso-
lation provided by deep water, narrow straits, or rapid changes
in shelf conditions. Elsewhere, the connectivity provided by
ocean currents, such as the Antarctic Coastal Current and the
Canaries Current, can be seen in the classifications, and the
importance of biological stepping-stones through various
island chains is clearly illustrated. Finally, the ecoregions,
which distinguish the MEOW system, reflect unique ecolog-
ical patterns that extend beyond the broad drivers of evo-
lutionary processes.
Of course, as Wallace (1876) noted, nothing like a perfect
zoological division of the earth is possible. The causes that have
led to the present distribution of animal life are so varied, their
action and reaction have been so complex, that anomalies and
irregularities are sure to exist which will mar the symmetry
of any rigid system (p. 53). Consequently, the use of bio-
geographic data in a global classification is inevitably a process
of accommodation and pragmatism. The lines we have drawn
should be regarded as indicative, marking approximate lo-
cations of relatively rapid change in dominant habitats or com-
munity composition. Ocean boundaries shift continuously
with weather patterns, with seasons, and with longer or more
random fluctuations in oceanographic conditions. In the fu-
ture, the impacts of climate change will add to the instabil-
ity of many boundaries in the ocean (Sagarin et al. 1999,
Beaugrand et al. 2002, Hiscock et al. 2004).
The need for a comprehensive, detailed, and globally con-
sistent marine biogeography has been recognized for many
years in marine conservation. The requirements for repre-
sentative approaches to marine protected area designation in
various national, regional, and global planning commitments
and legal frameworks have given added urgency to this need.
The MEOW system provides a basis for planning for coastal
and shelf areas, and the links between this system and other
global and regional systems make it possible to adopt and use
it with minimal disruption to existing data sets or analytical
approaches. The unique collaboration of conservation orga-
nizations in developing this system adds further value, and may
reduce the duplication of effort that so often undermines
global conservation approaches (Mace et al. 2000). In short,
the system proposed here is powerful and robust, and should
prove to be of great value in conservation planning and
broader biogeographic discussion. Two international con-
servation agencies (the Nature Conservancy and WWF) have
already begun to use this system and expect to use it more
widely in the future. Similarly, members of the Scientific and
Technical Review Panel of the Ramsar Convention who par-
ticipated in developing this system are undertaking more
detailed analyses to explore its utility to support the future
identification and designation of coastal and marine Wetlands
of International Importance.
Acknowledgments
The Marine Ecosystems of the World system draws heavily on
the work of others, including the hundreds of contributors
to the publications, gray literature, and workshops that
created the many regional classifications. In addition, we
would especially like to thank the following people, who have
provided advice or commentary: Asa Andersson, Jeff Ardron,
Allison Arnold, Paul Barber, Mike Beck, Carlo Nike Bianchi,
John Bolton, George Branch, John Briggs, Georgina Busta-
mante, Rodrigo Bustamante, Jose Farina, Sergio Floeter,
Angus Gascoigne, Serge Gofas, Charlie Griffiths, Huw
Griffiths, Randy Hagenstein, Jon Hoekstra, David John,
Peter Kareiva, Ken Kassem, Jerry Kemp, Phil Kramer, Katrin
Linse, Gilly Llewellyn, Stephan Lutter, Kasim Moosa, Alexis
Morgan, Dag Nagoda, Sergio Navarete, Kate Newman, (Bina)
Maya Paul, Sian Pullen, Callum Roberts, Rod Salm, Andrew
Smith, Jennifer Smith, Vassily Spiridonov, Victor Springer, Juan
Luis Surez de Vivero, Marco Taviani, Charlie Veron, Eleni
Voultsiadou, Mohideen Wafar, Carden Wallace, Kathy Walls,
and David Woodland.
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