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Marine protected areas (MPAs) can protect and restore marine biodiversity and fisheries, but there are concerns that they may also benefit invasive species. The spatial and temporal colonization of invasive lionfish (Pterois miles) in the eastern Mediterranean was compared across zones with varying fishing restrictions (no fishing, recreational and commercial fishing, and commercial fishing only), and stations where targeted removal events were conducted by volunteer SCUBA divers. Lionfish density in no fishing areas was nearly double that of areas with commercial fishing only, and over four times greater than in areas where both commercial and recreational fishing were allowed. Lionfish density increased with depth, possibly due to easier human exploitation in shallow waters (0–10 m) that are accessible to recreational spearfishers. Targeted removals by volunteer divers decreased lionfish densities by over 60%, while areas without removals had a 200%–400% increase. Along with management actions, natural and ecological processes might drive lionfish densities within MPAs, and the speed with which lionfish colonized fishery‐restricted zones, emphasized the need for a more sophisticated MPA management strategy that considers invasive species impacts and dynamics in an ecosystem‐based approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within soils there are microorganisms that act to break down complex substrates (saprophytes), microorganisms that actively aid nutrient delivery (mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria), and others that hijack the system to their own benefit (parasitic bacteria and fungi). The complex interaction between plants, these microbes, and the soil determines how effectively nutrients will be recycled, with a significant impact on regional productivity and biodiversity. Each microbe plays a role in overall soil function but, despite the critical role they play, soil microbial communities and their functions remain challenging to accurately quantify. The functional behaviour of soils is difficult to quantify, in part due to the effects of disturbance when sampling. This suggests that noninvasive analytical tools are necessary to diagnose current soil function and to predict changes in soil behaviour with changing climate or land use. Microbial communities, the drivers of soil function, are diverse, and their individual metabolisms are often tightly coupled, such that the microbial community in aggregate may be considered to have a "net" metabolism. This net metabolism can be described by the volatile signatures that propagate from the soil into the atmosphere and, by proxy, allowing a noninvasive analysis of the microbial community active in the subsurface. Here, we detail the complexities of the soil volatile metabolism, propose a "fingerprint" strategy to describe this complex community that uses trace gas fluxes combined with environmental data, and describe the promising outcomes from an initial foray using this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]