Coral reef ecology in the Anthropocene Functional Ecology

1. We are in the Anthropocene—an epoch where humans are the dominant force of plan - etary change. Ecosystems increasingly reflect rapid human‐induced, socioeconomic and cultural selection rather than being a product of their surrounding natural biophysical setting. This poses the intriguing question: To what extent do existing ecological para - digms capture and explain the current ecological patterns and processes we observe? 2. We argue that, although biophysical drivers still influence ecosystem structure and function at particular scales, their ability to offer predictive capacity over cou-pled social–ecological systems is increasingly compromised as we move further