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Cited by 286

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 133 of the 133 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Megafaunal Impacts on Structure and Function of Ocean Ecosystems

Open access
Estes, James A., Heithaus, Michael, McCauley, Douglas J., Rasher, Douglas B., Worm, Boris·2016·Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Abstract

Here, we identify the extant species of marine megafauna (>45 kg maximum reported mass), provide a conceptual template for the ways in which these species influence the structure and function of ocean ecosystems, and review the published evidence for such influences. Ecological influences of more than 90% of the 338 known species of extant ocean megafauna are unstudied and thus unknown. The most widely known effect of those few species that have been studied is direct prey limitation, which occurs through consumption and risk avoidance behavior. Consumer-prey interactions result in indirect effects that extend through marine ecosystems to other species and ecological processes. Marine megafauna transport energy, nutrients, and other materials vertically and horizontally through the oceans, often over long distances. The functional relationships between these various ecological impacts and megafauna population densities, in the few well-studied cases, are characterized by phase shifts and hysteresis.

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Crossref · 10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085622

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Metadata

Authors
Estes, J. A., Heithaus, M., McCauley, D. J., Rasher, D. B., & Worm, B.
Venue
Annual Review of Environment and Resources
Published
2016-11-01
Volume
41
Issue
1
Pages
83-116
ISSN
  • 1543-5938 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-2050
OpenAlex
W2310785523
Cited by
286
References
133
FWCI
1.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Megafaunal Impacts on Structure and Function of Ocean Ecosystems. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085622
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Estes, J. A., Heithaus, M., McCauley, D. J., Rasher, D. B., & Worm, B. (2016). Megafaunal Impacts on Structure and Function of Ocean Ecosystems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085622

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.