About the Authors

Matthew S. Merrifield

mmerrifield@tnc.org

Affiliation Department of Science and Planning, The Nature Conservancy, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Ellen Hines

Affiliation Department of Geography and Human Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Xiaohang Liu

Affiliation Department of Geography and Human Environmental Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Michael W. Beck

Affiliation Global Marine Initiative, The Nature Conservancy, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MM MWB EH. Performed the experiments: MM. Analyzed the data: MM XL EH. Wrote the paper: MM. Periodic review, critical feedback: EH MWB XL.