The ocean provides food, economic activity, and cultural value for a large proportion of humanity. Our knowledge of marine ecosystems lags behind that of terrestrial ecosystems, limiting effective protection of marine resources. We describe the outcome of 2 workshops in 2011 and 2012 to establish a list of important questions, which, if answered, would substantially improve our ability to conserve and manage the world’s marine resources. Participants included individuals from academia, government, and nongovernment organizations with broad experience across disciplines, marine ecosystems, and countries that vary in levels of development. Contributors from the fields of science, conservation, industry, and government submitted questions to our workshops, which we distilled into a list of priority research questions. Through this process, we identified 71 key questions. We grouped these into 8 subject categories, each pertaining to a broad component of marine conservation: fisheries, climate change, other anthropogenic threats, ecosystems, marine citizenship, policy, societal and cultural considerations, and scientific enterprise. Our questions address many issues that are specific to marine conservation, and will serve as a road map to funders and researchers to develop programs that can greatly benefit marine conservation.Setenta y Un Preguntas Importantes para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad MarinaResumenLos océanos proporcionan alimento, actividad económica y valor cultural para una gran porción de la humanidad. Nuestro conocimiento de los ecosistemas marinos está atrasado con respecto al que tenemos de los ecosistemas terrestres, lo que limita la protección efectiva de los recursos naturales. Describimos el resultado de dos talleres en 2011 y 2012 para establecer una lista de preguntas importantes, las cuales al ser respondidas, mejorarían sustancialmente nuestra habilidad de conservar y manejar los recursos marinos del mundo. Entre los participantes se incluyeron a individuos de la docencia, el gobierno y organizaciones no-gubernamentales, con una amplia experiencia que atraviesa disciplinas, ecosistemas marinos y países que varían en el nivel de desarrollo. Los contribuyentes de los campos de la ciencia, la conservación, la industria y el gobierno, presentaron preguntas a nuestros talleres, las cuales separamos en una lista de preguntas de investigación prioritarias. Por medio de este proceso, identificamos 71 preguntas clave. Las agrupamos en ocho categorías temáticas, cada una perteneciente a un componente amplio de la conservación marina: pesquerías, cambio climático, otras amenazas antropogénicas, ecosistemas, ciudadanía marina, política, consideraciones sociales y culturales, y la iniciativa científica. Nuestras preguntas se dirigen a muchas cuestiones que son específicas de la conservación marina, y servirán como una ruta a seguir para patrocinadores e investigadores que busquen desarrollar programas que puedan beneficiar ampliamente a la conservación marina.

Despite advances in marine conservation research, policy, and management, human activities continue to negatively affect marine species, habitats, and ecosystems, and the people who rely on them for needed resources. This begs the question: What is preventing us from being more effective in conserving marine species, habitats, and ecosystems? Answering this requires us to identify gaps in marine conservation efforts and develop a consensus on how best to target our efforts. One way to do this is to conduct research prioritization exercises. The questions discussed here were identified during a series of workshops designed to establish a list of important questions that need to be answered to advance marine conservation. We deemed these particular questions to be in a separate class than those considered in the associated paper "Seventy-One Important Questions for the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity" (Parsons et al., 2014b). These questions were put into a separate category because they were identified as areas of ecological, social, and economic research that include external drivers or required sizable paradigm shifts to address. Here we describe and discuss these "Kraken in the aquarium" questions-the marine equivalent of "the elephant in the room" questions-in four sections: human nature, meeting our responsibilities, entrenched interests, and corporate driven policy. Within each section, we address multiple questions by identifying the issues and offering examples of ways forward where possible. This paper is intended to start a dialog about these difficult questions that loom over marine conservation research and management. It is becoming increasingly important that the conservation practitioner community engages in these discussions and develops solutions in order for our work to be fully effective.