The marine areas of South America (SA) include almost 30,000 km of coastline and encompass three different oceanic domains--the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Atlantic--ranging in latitude from 12∘N to 55∘S. The 10 countries that border these coasts have different research capabilities and taxonomic traditions that affect taxonomic knowledge. This paper analyzes the status of knowledge of marine biodiversity in five subregions along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America (SA): the Tropical East Pacific, the Humboldt Current,the Patagonian Shelf, the Brazilian Shelves, and the Tropical West Atlantic, and it provides a review of ecosystem threats and regional marine conservation strategies. South American marine biodiversity is least well known in the tropical subregions (with the exception of Costa Rica and Panama). Differences in total biodiversity were observed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the same latitude. In the north of the continent, the Tropical East Pacific is richer in species than the Tropical West Atlantic, however, when standardized by coastal length, there is very little difference among them. In the south, the Humboldt Current system is much richer than the Patagonian Shelf. An analysis of endemism shows that 75% of the species are reported within only one of the SA regions, while about 22% of the species of SA are not reported elsewhere in the world. National and regional initiatives focusing on new exploration, especially to unknown areas and ecosystems, as well as collaboration among countries are fundamental to achieving the goal of completing inventories of species diversity and distribution.These inventories will allow accurate interpretation of the biogeography of its two oceanic coasts and latitudinal trends,and will also provide relevant information for science based policies.

Bivalve habitat restoration is growing in geographic extent and scale globally. While addressing the wide‐scale loss of these biogenic habitats is still a key motivation behind restoration efforts, stakeholders and funders are increasingly drawn to shellfish restoration for the many ecosystem services these habitats provide. There is clear evidence for the provision of ecosystem services from species targeted for restoration in the USA, in particular Crassostrea virginica. Ecosystem services, however, remain largely unquantified or even undescribed for the majority of other species targeted for restoration. A structured review of the literature was undertaken and supplemented by expert knowledge to identify which ecosystem services are documented in the following other bivalve species targeted for restoration: Ostrea edulis, Ostrea angasi, Crassostrea rhizophorae, Perna canaliculus, Modiolus modiolus, Mytilus edulis, Mytilus platensis, Crassostrea gigas, Ostrea denselamellosa, Crassostrea ariakensis, and Crassostrea sikamea. Key knowledge gaps in quantifying ecosystem services and the ecosystem engineering properties of habitat‐building bivalves contributing to the provision of ecosystem services were identified. Ecosystem services with the potential to be widely applicable across bivalve habitat‐building species were identified. Though there is evidence that many of the ecosystem engineering properties that underpin the provision of ecosystem services are universal, the degree to which services are provided will vary between locations and species. Species‐specific, in situ, studies are needed in order to avoid the inappropriate transfer of the ecosystem service delivery between locations, and to further build support and understanding for these emerging targets of restoration.

Farming of marine organisms (mariculture) represented 36% of global aquaculture, with mollusks representing 58.8% in live weight. Mollusk populations in some locations are, however, threatened by degradation of the ecosystems and/or over-fishing. This threat is increasingly being addressed through Restorative Shellfish Mariculture (RSM), as opposed to mariculture alone. There is no general consensus in the literature on what can and cannot be considered RSM. While maximization of benefits other than provisioning services is often considered a prerequisite, in other cases the maximization of fisheries yields is prioritized. Here we define RSM as the farming of marine shellfish, implying some form of intervention during the species life cycle, in order to address negative socio-ecological issues arising from the unsustainable use of marine ecosystems, independent of the final ownership regime of the resource. Strategies for developing RSM were reviewed and classified along a gradient from the most conservation-oriented (e.g., habitat restoration, reintroduction of locally extinct endangered species), to the most fisheries-oriented (including some forms of fisheries enhancement), and classified as Non-hatchery Dependent or Hatchery Dependent strategies. We reviewed the targeted species and strategies implemented across 584 individual projects developed in the last decades in North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and South America. We found that some 48 species, including 34 bivalves and 15 gastropods were targets of RSM in 34 countries. US projects accounted for ca. three quarters of the total (N = 438), with Philippines, Japan and Australia also being home to a large number. More than 90% of the projects involved five species, namely the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica, N = 379), the giant clam (Tridacna gigas, N = 65), the Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida, N = 25), the bay scallop (Argopecten irradians, N = 25) and the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria, N = 15). Of the RSM projects, 51% used Non-hatchery dependent methods, mostly habitat restoration providing substrata for settlement, whereas some 49% involved hatcheries. 3% of the projects combined both methods. This review provides an overview of the breadth, depth and aims of RSM globally, develops a broad definition of the activity, and proposes a structure for classifying RSM.