1. This article introduces a special issue of Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (AQC) whose contributions demonstrate examples of the practical impact of the authors' previous AQC articles on the conservation of aquatic ecosystems.
2. The submitting authors of all articles published in AQC since 2009 were invited to express their interest in writing an article for the special issue. The 20 articles selected for publication discuss 33 AQC articles published from 2004 to 2019, spanning a wide range of geographical locations, habitat types, species groups, and impacts on aquatic conservation.
3. The two impacts reported most frequently are ‘Undertaking practical management of habitats and species’ and ‘Establishing partnerships’, closely followed by ‘Restoring habitats/reintroducing or translocating species’. Many authors demonstrate the importance of their articles in raising awareness across an extensive range of organizations.
4. Some impacts occur soon after publication (e.g. introduction of conservation guidelines), whereas others (e.g. influencing policy) take far longer. Authors report a wide range of methods for disseminating research results appropriate for different audiences, such as technical handbooks, seminars, magazine articles, media broadcasts, and field workshops.
5. To assess whether ‘conventional’ measures of impact match authors' perceptions, three metrics were calculated for the 33 AQC articles discussed in this issue: the number of citations, the number of downloads, and the Altmetric Attention Score. These metrics were not significantly higher for the 33 articles than the corresponding median metrics of the articles in the issues in which the 33 were published.
6. The goal of AQC is to continue to encourage scientists to recognize and promote the application of their research to practical conservation and management. Given the growing threats to aquatic ecosystems, much remains to be done to make this process even more effective.

中文翻译：

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将出版物付诸实践：水生保护：海洋和淡水生态系统中所选文章的影响摘要

1. 本文介绍了一个特别的水生生物养护：海洋和淡水生态系统（AQC），其贡献展示了作者以前的AQC文章对水生生态系统养护的实际影响的实例。
2. 自2009年以来，在AQC上发表的所有文章的投稿作者均被邀请表达对撰写此期特刊的兴趣。选择发表的20篇文章讨论了2004年至2019年发表的33篇AQC文章，涵盖了广泛的地理位置，栖息地类型，物种种类以及对水生保护的影响。
3. 最常报告的两个影响是“对栖息地和物种进行实际管理”和“建立伙伴关系”，紧随其后的是“恢复栖息地/重新引入或转移物种”。许多作者证明了他们的文章对于提高广泛组织的认识的重要性。
4. 一些影响在出版后不久就会发生（例如，引入保护指南），而其他影响（例如，影响政策）则需要更长的时间。作者报告了广泛的方法来传播适合不同受众的研究结果，例如技术手册，研讨会，杂志文章，媒体广播和现场研讨会。
5. 为了评估影响力的“常规”衡量标准是否符合作者的看法，本期讨论的33篇AQC文章计算了三个度量标准：引文数量，下载数量和关注度得分。对于33篇文章，这些指标并不明显高于33篇文章中相应文章的中位数指标。
6. AQC的目标是继续鼓励科学家认识并促进其研究在实际的保护和管理中的应用。鉴于对水生生态系统的威胁越来越大，要使这一过程更加有效，仍有许多工作要做。