Systematic literature review of ecosystem services associated with exported marine macrophyte biomass

We conducted a systematic literature review to assess the ecosystem services provided by exported marine macrophyte biomass (EMB; e.g., seagrasses, macroalga, salt marshes, mangroves) and document how these services have been studied previously. We describe the ecosystem services associated with EMB from vegetated marine ecosystems (i.e., "donors") and the ecosystems that receive these services (i.e., "recipients"). We determine the state of research on ecosystem services associated with EMB and the ecological drivers of their provisioning of ecosystem services. Using six search strings run in February 2020, we found 289 papers that measured ecosystem services associated with EMB and extracted 488 unique combinations (i.e., trials) of EMB donors, recipient ecosystems, and their ecosystem services. This data is associated with the paper, "A call to consider the contributions of exported marine macrophyte biomass to ecosystem services", published in Ecosystem Services in 2026 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2026.101836).