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In this Research Topic, 14 publications highlighted ecological responses in coastal environments (Table 1) to a number of potential changes, including climate change (Gross et al. 2023, Huard et al. 2024), marine heatwaves (Beck et al. 2024, Graham et al. 2025), atmospheric heatwaves (Miner et al. 2025, Raymond et al. 2024, Rubinoff et al. 2025), aquaculture (Veggerby et al. 2024), wetland habitat loss (Chamberlin et al. 2025, Greene et al. 2025, Toft et al. 2023), species reintroductions (McArdle et al. 2025), and introduction of non-native species (Beck et al. 2024, Grason et al. 2025, Rubinoff et al. 2025). While this suite of changes is not an exhaustive list, it collectively highlights that due to the intersection of terrestrial and marine processes, impacts to coastal environments are likely to be greater than their landward and seaward counterparts. Importantly, authors highlighted the significance of cumulative natural and anthropogenic effects that complicate recovery of coastal habitats and the species they support (Huard et al. 2024, Greene et al. 2025, Gross et al. 2023, McArdle et al. 2025, Raymond et al. 2024, Sobocinski et al. 2025, Toft et al. 2023).This collection also offered solutions to some of these threats (Table 1), including habitat restoration (Greene et al. 2025, Chamberlin et al. 2025, Sobocinski et al. 2025, Toft et al. 2023 2025) detected successful growth and adequate survival rates in native Olympia oyster reintroductions, they also noted numerous challenges and recruitment failure. The studies collectively demonstrated that recovering coastal communities takes time and investment because of constraints such as opposing natural geomorphic processes (Toft et al. 2023), lags in ecological responses, inherent sensitivity of key species to intertidal extremes (Graham et al. 2025, Gross et al. 2023), and society's tendencies to underinvest recovery and restoration efforts (Chamberlin et al. 2025). All of these issues delay the timeline for functional recovery.The studies collectively noted the many challenges of documenting responses of coastal habitats and their resident species. Intertidal environments are inherently dynamic, and studies must account for highly variable changes in water levels, temperature, and salinity (Rubinoff et al. Despite these challenges, this Frontiers Research topic highlights the importance of monitoring coastal ecosystems. While the concept of "monitoring" has sometimes been criticized as secondtier science due to the lack of controlled experimentation or a strong basis in hypothesis testing (Lindenmayer and Likens 2009), this collection of studies reveals their power, especially in the context of land-and seascape-scale questions often associated with coastal ecosystems. Longterm monitoring of juvenile salmon cohorts was essential to link habitat restoration "experiments" to their demographic responses (Greene et al. 2025), and even shorter monitoring efforts can help shed light on species sensitivity to climate impacts (Graham et al. 2025, Gross et al. 2023, Miner et al. 2025, Rubinoff et al. 2025, Beck et al. 2024). The concept of monitoring extends as well to monitoring habitat change -for example, Chamberlin et al. ( 2025) and Greene et al. ( 2025) highlight how tracking habitat change of vegetated wetlands using multiple spaced years of aerial photography revealed the pace of wetland recovery through restoration projects. In addition, monitoring can help bridge the gap between scientists and practitioners through participatory science. As shown by several authors, data gathered by engaging citizens in shoreline monitoring can help reveal recovery of ecosystem function (Toft et al. 2023, Rubinoff et al. 2025) and serve to warn us about invasions of nonnative species (Grason et al. 2025, Beck et al. 2024).The studies in this collection also raise questions for additional research. Table 1. Summary of studies in the Salish Sea intertidal Research Topic by author. We illustrate the topics concerning hypothesized impacts (red) or efforts to ameliorate them (blue), the ecological responses studied, and whether impacts/improvements and their ecological responses were measured.