Research progress in ecological security of tropical marine ranching.

Under the background of balancing marine resource exploitation and ecosystem conservation, marine ranching has become an important approach to enhance the sustainable use of fishery resources and to improve coastal environmental quality. Tropical marine ranching, situated in high-temperature, high-salinity, biodiversity-rich, and disturbance-prone waters, faces greater uncertainty and management challenges in ecological security. Based on a systematic review of literature, we summarized research progress on evaluation index systems, assessment methods, and weighting approaches. Most frameworks originate from temperate and subtropical marine ranch studies. Although recent efforts have begun to address tropical contexts, less attention has been paid on high-temperature stress responses, tourism carrying pressure, and high-frequency disturbance factors. With respect to metho-dology, studies have evolved from static composite evaluations to dynamic predictions integrating causal analysis, machine learning, and system dynamics, yet validation in tropical scenarios is still limited. Weighting approaches have applied subjective, objective, and combined methods, but optimization for tropical-specific ecological factors is lacking. To address these knowledge gaps, we proposed that the following directions for future studies: 1) develo-ping a multi-source uncertainty assessment framework integrating natural and anthropogenic disturbances to enhance the accuracy of risk early-warning; 2) constructing a comprehensive evaluation system reflecting tropical ecological characteristics and industry coupling to avoid 'climate-zone transfer' bias in indicators; and 3) creating time-series-embedded tools for dynamic monitoring and adaptive management of ecological security.