# Gary Sánchez

A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Marine coastal ecosystems include many different types of marine habitats, such as estuaries and lagoons, salt marshes and mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs, kelp forests and backwaters. Directly and indirectly these provide a vast range of ecosystem services for humans, such as sequestering carbon, cycling nutrients and elements, providing nurseries and fishing grounds for commercial fisheries, preventing coastal erosion and moderating extreme events, as well as providing recreational services and supporting tourism.