ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a special issue stemming directly and indirectly from contributions and discussions at the 2015 Aquatic Biodiversity & Ecosystems Conference in Liverpool, UK, plus related work from research teams represented at that conference. The Aquatic Biodiversity & Ecosystems Conference was organised by Dr Louise Firth at the University of Liverpool in August–September 2015. The overarching theme was "evolution, interactions and global change in aquatic ecosystems", with a number of subthemes, within which over 250 papers were presented to delegates from 30 different countries. Enge et al. take this theme further by discussing defences against herbivory of invasive seaweeds. The themes of the conference—evolution, interactions and global change—are all explored in the contributions. Through structured workshops and informal discussions at the 2015 conference, suggestions were garnered for review articles for this special Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, issue.
