| Category | Study focus | Examples |
| Ecology | Marine habitats, spawning and nursery areas | Knutsen et al. 2010, Thornton et al. 2010 |
| Historical ecology of coral reef guilds | Shackeroff et al. 2011 | |
| Mangroves and lagoons | Johannes 1978, Johannes 1981, Kovacs 2000, Hernandez Cornejo et al. 2005, Aswani and Lauer 2006, Walters et al. 2008 | |
| Seagrass environments | Lauer and Aswani 2010, Turner and Clifton 2006, Wyllie-Echeverria et al. 2002 | |
| Marine/coastal habitats and tsunami impacts | Venkatachalam et al. 2010 | |
| Physical environment and cultural adaptation | Tidal cycles and wind patterns | Tobisson et al. 1998, Nirmale et al. 2004a |
| Lunar cycles | Cordell 1974, Nirmale et al. 2004a | |
| Effect of water color on catch | Nirmale et al. 2004a | |
| Weather and climate | Lefale 2010 | |
| Indicators of cyclone intensity | Nirmale et al. 2004b, 2007 | |
| Seabed morphology | Tobisson et al. 1998 | |
| Finding fishing spots based on physical environment | Forman 1967, Schafer and Reis 2008 | |
| Response to potentially tsunami-forming earthquakes | McAdoo et al. 2009 | |
| Interpreting satellite images and aerial photos using LTK | Aswani and Lauer 2006 | |
| Tropical coastal habitat connectivity | Garcia-Quijano 2007 | |
| Currents and island wakes | Johannes 1981 | |
| Sea ice (freeze/thaw processes, influence of winds and currents) | Nelson 1969, Dowsley and Wenzel 2008, Laidler and Elee 2008, Laidler and Ikummaq 2008, Aporta and Macdonald 2011, Inuksuk 2011 | |
| Adaptation to sea ice environment | Riewe 1991, George et al. 2004 | |
| Incorporation of sea ice LTK and satellite imagery | Laidler et al. 2011 | |
| Glaciers | Cruikshank 2001, 2005 | |
| Navigation (general) | Paine 1957, Gladwin 1970, Finney 1976, and Feinberg 1988 | |
| Navigation (landmarks) | Forman 1967, 1970, Igarashi 1984, Ammarell 1995 | |
| Navigation (stars, swells) | Ammarell 1995, Feinberg 1995 | |
| Navigation in the Arctic | Aporta 2002, 2004, 2009 | |
| Using GPS to map trails | Aporta 2003 | |
| Collaborative mapping | Gearheard et al. 2011 | |
| Weather/ocean/climate conditions | Alvarez and Vodden 2009 | |
| Assessing environmental change | Mangrove forests (e.g., disturbance, extent) | Kovacs 2000, Hernandez Cornejo et al. 2005 |
| Geographic distribution, seasonality and severity of algal blooms | Schlacher et al. 2010 | |
| Long-term ecological change in seagrass meadows and causal factors | Lauer and Aswani 2010 | |
| Nearshore macrobenthos affected by local sewage disposal | Jewett et al. 2009 | |
| Climate variability and Arctic | Knopp 2010, Barber et al. 2010 | |
| Changes in sea ice | Gearheard et al. 2006 | |
| Relationship between sea ice and climate change | Laidler 2006 | |
| Climate–walrus–human relationships | Krupnik and Carleton Ray 2007, Metcalf and Robards 2008 | |
| Language and marine cognition | Names for fish | Akimichi 1978, Akimichi 1986, Ankei 1989, Ambali et al. 2001, Anderson 2007 |
| Marine invertebrates | Sloan and Barthier 2009 | |
| Names for hydrological features | Burenhult 2008 | |
| Landscape and seascape terms | Cablitz 2008, Levinson 2008, O’Conner and Kroefges 2008, Senft 2008, Thornton 2011 | |
| Coastal proverbs | Kurien 1998 | |
| Terms for sea ice conditions | Norton 2002, Laidler and Elee 2008, Laidler and Ikummaq 2008, Heyes 2011, Krupnik 2011 | |
| Ancestral sayings and a coastal wetland plant | Wehi 2009 | |
| Terms for tidal current patterns | Johannes et al. 1981 | |
| Resource management | Management practices in small-scale subsistence or commercial fisheries (artisanal fisheries) | Morrill 1967, Johannes 1978, Johannes 1981, Klee 1980, Swezey and Heizer 1984, Amos 1993, Johannes and Yeeting 2000, Blount 2005, Hickey 2007, Thornton 2008, Mangahas 2010, Nguyen and Ruddle 2010, Satria and Adhuri 2010, Coulthard 2011 |
| Basic fisheries assessments | Arce-Ibarra and Charles 2008 | |
| Fish harvesting techniques and technologies (artisanal) | Akimichi 1986, Hviding 1996, Anuchiracheeva et al. 2003, Linkous Brown 2006, Nirmale et al. 2004a, Nirmale et al. 2004b, Langdon 2006, Nirmale 2007, Nsiku 2007, McClanahan and Cinner 2008, Manna et al. 2009, Rathakrishnan et al. 2009 | |
| Assessing bait to catch ratios (commercial) | Harnish and Willison 2009 | |
| Bycatch assemblages | Hill et al. 2010 | |
| Changing uses of bycatch | Lobo et al. 2010 | |
| Comparative study of fishing tuna | Moreno et al. 2007a | |
| Spatial distribution of scallops (commercial) | Wroblewski et al. 2009 | |
| Spatial distribution of lobster | Acheson 1988 | |
| Harvesting methods for seaweeds | Turner and Clifton 2006 | |
| Assessing effectiveness of conservation measures | McClanahan et al. 1997 | |
| Village-managed fish conservation zones | Baird and Flaherty 2005 | |