Over the past century, the environment of the Gulf of Mexico has been significantly altered and impaired by extensive human activities. A national commitment to restore the Gulf was finally initiated in response to the unprecedented Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Consequently, there is a critical need for an assessment framework and associated set of indicators that can characterize the health and sustainability of an ecosystem having the scale and complexity of the Gulf. The assessment framework presented here was developed as an integration of previous ecological risk– and environmental management–based frameworks for assessing ecosystem health. It was designed to identify the natural and anthropogenic drivers, pressures, and stressors impinging on ecosystems and ecosystem services, and the ecological conditions that result, manifested as effects on valued ecosystem components. Four types of societal and ecological responses are identified: reduction of pressures and stressors, remediation of existing stressors, active ecosystem restoration, and natural ecological recovery. From this conceptual framework are derived the specific indicators to characterize ecological condition and progress toward achieving defined ecological health and sustainability goals. Additionally, the framework incorporates a hierarchical structure to communicate results to a diversity of audiences, from research scientists to environmental managers and decision makers, with the level of detail or aggregation appropriate for each targeted audience. Two proof‐of‐concept studies were conducted to test this integrated assessment and decision framework, a prototype Texas Coastal Ecosystems Report Card, and a pilot study on enhancing rookery islands in the Mission‐Aransas Reserve, Texas, USA. This Drivers–Pressures–Stressors–Condition–Responses (DPSCR4) conceptual framework is a comprehensive conceptual model of the coupled human–ecological system. Much like its predecessor, the ecological risk assessment framework, the DPSCR4 conceptual framework can be tailored to different scales of complexity, different ecosystem types with different stress regimes, and different environmental settings. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;15:544–564. © 2019 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)

Two new species of Amphilochus, Amphilochus casahoya and Amphilochus delacaya, and one new species of Gifanopsis, Gitanopsis laguna, are described. Relationships within these genera, particularly Amphilochus, are difficult to determine. The new species, however, are similar to some eastern Pacific forms. One known species, Amphilochus neapoliranus is also reported as occurring in both the Gulf and Caribbean.

Given today’s complex societal challenges, academia should work better with government, industry and others in offering innovative solutions that benefit our society, economy and environment. Researchers across disciplines must work together and with decision-makers to understand how science can have better on-the-ground impacts toward longer-term, resilient societal outcomes. This includes, for example, by working with end-users in problem formation and throughout research projects to ensure decision-making needs are being met, and by linking physical science to additional fields like economics, risk communication or psychology. However, persistent barriers to collaborating across disciplines and with external decision-makers remain. Despite decades of studies highlighting the need for interdisciplinary research and science for decision-making, academic institutions are still not structured to facilitate or reward such collaboration. A group of researchers and educators used a mixed-methods approach to consider the knowledge base on interdisciplinary research and evidence-based policymaking, as well as their own experiences, and formed targeted and actionable recommendations that can help academia overcome these barriers. Their recommendations, specifically targeted to administrators, institutional leads, individual researchers, and research funders, align to three categories: define the role of academia in linking to policy; incorporate nontraditional standards in evaluating success; and build trust while drawing the line between knowledge dissemination and activism. By implementing the following recommendations, academics can foster the culture change that is needed to promote interdisciplinarity, strengthen the impact of their work and help society address urgent and multi-faceted problems.

A hypoxic/anoxic event occurred in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico between May and July 1979. This event, associated with warm water temperatures, water column stratification and the decay of a phytoplankton bloom, led to the production of hydrogen sulphide which moved above the sediment—water interface and into the lower 2 metres of the water column. Regular monthly sampling at two sites (15 and 21 m depths) off Freeport, Texas, showed that abundances of benthic organisms declined precipitously during the event. Divers inspecting the study areas during the event observed ‘cottony’ mats, presumed to be sulphur bacteria colonies, covering large areas of bottom, and numerous bodies of dead benthic invertebrates. Recovery of the two communities was markedly different. The assemblage in deeper water apparently stabilized within a year; the species of polychaetous annelids that were dominant before the event quickly returned to dominance and there was very little evidence of succession of different species during the recovery process. The shallower water assemblage, however, underwent a very different recovery process. Following the hypoxic event, polychaete dominance was greatly reduced, and there occurred successional dominance which involved several species in different taxa. Each of these species underwent a ‘bloom’ and constituted the numerical dominant for 1 to 3 months, and then declined and was replaced by another species’ ‘bloom’. This sequential dominance pattern persisted until about May 1981, two years after the hypoxic event, at which time polychates again became, and remained, numerically dominant.

Non-technical summary Sharing information between different countries is key for developing sustainable solutions to environmental change. Coastal wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico are suffering significant environmental and human-related threats. Working across national boundaries, this research project brings together scientists, specialists and local communities from Cuba and the USA. While important advances have been made in strengthening collaborations, important obstacles remain in terms of international policy constraints, different institutional and academic cultures and technology. Overcoming these limitations is essential to formulating a comprehensive understanding of the challenges that coastal socioecological systems are facing now and into the future.