Table 1.

The questions used in this survey (in the order of the scientists’ rankings in Rudd 2014). The asterisks denote the five questions selected for relevance to US coastal and marine stakeholders rather than through latent class cluster analysis.

	Abbreviation	Full Question Text	Overall rank by scientists, Rudd (2014)
Q1	Ocean acidification*	How will ocean acidification affect marine biological diversity, including noncalcifying organisms, and ecosystem function and processes such as nutrient speciation and availability, trophic interactions, reproduction, metabolism, and diseases?	3
Q2	Monitoring cumulative effects	What monitoring technologies and methods can effectively and efficiently deliver comparable ocean data and data products for observation and assessment in the long-term, incremental, and cumulative effects of multiple stressors in the marine environment?	4
Q3	Coral-reef management strategies	Which management actions are most effective for ensuring the long-term survival of coral reefs in response to the combined impacts of climate change and other existing stressors?	18
Q4	Ocean literacy messages	What are the most critical messages and concepts that should be communicated to citizens to change their beliefs and attitudes regarding ocean health and management, and will those messages change behavior?	21
Q5	Aquaculture effects*	How can aquaculture and open-water farming be developed so that impacts on wild fish stocks and coastal and marine habitats are minimized?	23
Q6	Upland hydrology effects on oceans	How will changing terrestrial hydrological regimes affect coastal and marine ecosystem structure, function, and services?	24
Q7	Bycatch effects*	How can the impacts of bycatch from legal and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fisheries be reduced to a level that will allow for the reversal of declining trends of affected species?	25
Q8	Sea-level rise and vulnerable coasts	How can the relationships between coastal sea-level forcing mechanisms, regional variability in sea-level rise, and future storm tracks be modeled and used to identify and protect vulnerable coastlines?	26
Q9	Restoration effectiveness	To what extent can coastal and ocean habitat restoration or rehabilitation compensate for loss of the quantity or quality of existing species’ habitat?	29
Q10	MPAs and resilience*	To what degree can no-take or highly protected MPAs provide resilience or a buffer against ecosystem disruption caused by climate change and ocean acidification?	30
Q11	Risk assessment for governance*	How should uncertainty, risk, and precaution be incorporated into effective ocean governance and policymaking?	34
Q12	Coastal hazard management	How can the spatial extent, frequency, and risk of marine hazards affecting coastal waters (e.g., hydrate-triggered landslides, tsunamis, and extreme storm events) be forecast and their effects minimized?	35
Q13	Uncertainty in modeling	How can we efficiently and effectively plan adaptation measures to cope with extreme events given the uncertainty associated with model predictions?	42
Q14	Polar oil spills	What are the impacts of oil spills in cold and deep oceans and under sea ice, and what are the appropriate strategies and technologies for prevention and mitigation?	44
Q15	High seas governance	What are the unique challenges of high-seas management, and what are the best methods for ensuring effective and credible high-seas governance and conservation outside the legal jurisdiction of any single country?	46
Q16	Shifting ecological baselines	How can effective policymaking and evaluation of marine systems be proactively advanced in light of the recognized shifting of historical baselines?	52
Q17	Ecosystem service valuation implications	How can marine goods and services be valued, and how will the adoption of monetary value by ocean managers affect the conservation of marine resources?	53
Q18	Local ecological knowledge	How can local and traditional knowledge be most effectively communicated and synthesized with scientific knowledge to inform ocean science management and governance?	54
Q19	Effects of marine diseases on human health	How can we best manage diseases that have the potential to move among wild and domestic marine species and directly or indirectly affect human health?	55
Q20	Management capacity of human communities	What are the effects of different strategies for building community capacity on the levels of citizen engagement in coastal and ocean stewardship, restoration, and conservation?	56
Q21	Information for sustainable food choices	What information is most useful to consumers wishing to make informed decisions about the environmental and social impacts of their seafood choices?	62
Q22	Macroalgal culture	What are the economic opportunities for and ecological consequences of rapidly increasing macroalgal culture as a raw material for food and biofuel production?	63
Q23	Human dissociation from nature	What are the effects of increasing human dissociation from nature on the conservation of marine biological diversity?	64
Q24	Effects of worldviews on conservation	How have humankind's various worldviews shaped the perceptions, relationships, and narratives related to the marine environment, and how do these influence marine conservation?	65
Q25	Job creation	What types and numbers of jobs can be created by ocean research?	67