An integrated view on the uncertainties of sea-level rise, hazards and impacts, and adaptation.

While adapting to future sea-level rise (SLR) and its hazards and impacts is a multidisciplinary challenge, the interaction of scientists across different research fields, and with practitioners, is limited. To stimulate collaboration and develop a common research agenda, a workshop held in June 2024 gathered 22 scientists and policymakers working in the Netherlands. Participants discussed the interacting uncertainties across three different research fields: sea-level projections, hazards and impacts, and adaptation.

Migration of Crab Plovers Wintering at Barr Al Hikman, Oman.

Crab plovers are shorebirds endemic to the coasts of the Indo-West Pacific biogeographical area. Very little is known about the migration of this enigmatic bird. Here, we studied the migratory itineraries of six crab plovers tracked between their wintering grounds in Barr Al Hikman, Oman, and their breeding grounds on islands in the north-west of the Arabian/Persian Gulf in Iran and Kuwait.

Unusual Plastoquinones in Non-Phototrophic Nitrifying Bacteria.

Isoprenoid quinones are important compounds in most organisms. They are essential in electron and proton transport in respiratory and photosynthetic electron transport chains, and additional functions include oxidative stress defence. The biologically most relevant quinones are naphthoquinones including menaquinone and benzoquinones including ubiquinone and plastoquinone.

Measuring juvenile habitat quality for fishes and invertebrates.

Identifying the role of marine and estuarine habitats in supporting fish and invertebrate populations during vulnerable juvenile life stages is essential to achieve effective conservation and fisheries management. There remains general agreement that: (i) the quality of juvenile habitat is best measured as the contribution of juveniles to adult populations (here "juvenile-adult contribution") and (ii) this contribution may be measured directly or inferred from habitat-specific abundance, growth and survival. Obtaining effective estimates of juvenile habitat quality using these four metrics, however, is challenging.

Marine fungal enzymes as potential degraders of the diverse seaweed cell-walls.

Marine fungi play a critical yet understudied role in marine ecosystems, contributing to microbial diversity and ecological balance through their interactions with seaweed and other organisms. These interactions are essential for nutrient cycling and maintaining ecosystem health. While the carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) of terrestrial fungi are well-documented for plant biomass degradation, the enzymatic capabilities of marine fungi, specifically for degrading seaweed biomass, remain less explored.

Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic.

Plastic pollution of the marine realm is widespread, with most scientific attention given to macroplastics and microplastics. By contrast, ocean nanoplastics (<1 μm) remain largely unquantified, leaving gaps in our understanding of the mass budget of this plastic size class. Here we measure nanoplastic concentrations on an ocean-basin scale along a transect crossing the North Atlantic from the subtropical gyre to the northern European shelf.

The joint effects of planetary , topography and friction on baroclinic instability in a two-layer QG model.

The quasi-geostrophic two-layer model is a widely used tool to study baroclinic instability in the ocean. One instability criterion for the inviscid two-layer model is that the potential vorticity (PV) gradient must change sign between the layers. This has a well-known implication if the model includes a linear bottom slope: for sufficiently steep retrograde slopes, instability is suppressed for a flow parallel to the isobaths.

Diel rhythmicity of activity and corticosterone metabolites in Arctic barnacle geese during breeding.

Birds that migrate from temperate areas to the Arctic to breed lose their strongest of circadian organization when they cross the Arctic circle in spring - the 24h light-dark cycle. Under continuous daylight, diverse behavioral and physiological patterns have been detected in both free-ranging and laboratory animals. To better understand the evolution of plasticity in circadian clocks, it is essential to study behavioral and physiological rhythmicity in the context of a species' ecology.

Coastal Shorebirds Delay Maturity More Than Inland Ones.

Delaying the age of first breeding will lower lifetime reproductive output unless compensated for by increased fecundity or survival. Yet, in many migratory shorebird species (Charadriiformes) individuals delay their first return migration to the breeding grounds until they are several years old. Using data from non-breeding and breeding season counts of shorebirds in the non-breeding areas, recaptures, and long-term banding studies, we assess the age of first return migration (as a measure of maturity) for 37 shorebird species that have migrated to Australian non-breeding grounds.

Combining co-introduction with patch-size optimization as a novel strategy to maximize seagrass restoration.

Coastal ecosystem engineers, such as mussels, oysters, salt marsh grasses, and seagrasses, typically shape their environment by ameliorating stressors when they grow beyond a critical population size. In doing so, they not only facilitate themselves but also provide habitat for diverse communities, which in turn, can engage in reciprocal interspecific facilitation. Over the last decades, anthropogenic disturbances have caused rapid degradation of coastal ecosystems, emphasizing the need for their restoration.

Synthesis of Population Trends Reveals Seascape-Wide Reorganisation of Biodiversity From Microalgae to Birds.

Many monitoring programs aim to understand regional biodiversity patterns in relation to global and regional conservation targets, using either community-wide biodiversity metrics to describe the community status or trends of pre-selected "key" species as biodiversity change indicators. However, the former often lacks information on which species are changing, and the latter is heavily skewed towards specific taxa, potentially overlooking changes in other, functionally important taxa. We gathered an extensive set of monitoring data with over 3000 population trends (ranging from 5 to 91 years in duration) for a wide range of taxa across the Wadden Sea.

Evaluating the environmental impact of cleaning the North Pacific Garbage Patch.

Cleanup of existing plastic pollution is crucial to mitigate its impact on marine ecosystems, but such efforts must ensure benefits outweigh potential environmental damage caused by the cleanup. Here, we present an impact assessment framework and apply it to evaluate whether cleaning the North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP) benefits marine life and carbon cycling, using The Ocean Cleanup as a case study. Our findings indicate that marine life is more vulnerable to plastic pollution than to macroplastic cleanup, with average vulnerability scores (1 = low, 3 = high) of 2.

Global interfertility and heterosis in sugar kelp populations: a next step in sugar kelp breeding.

Unlabelled: The potential of seaweed aquaculture is restricted by high labor, production and processing costs, leading to low economic viability. Selective breeding can improve yields and cultivation efficiency, thereby decreasing production costs. Until now, genetic resources as input for  breeding trials have been sourced strictly locally, due to concerns regarding outplanting genetically exogenous material in local waters.

Natronomicrosphaera hydrolytica, gen. nov., sp. nov., a first representative of the phylum Planctomycetota from soda lakes.

Despite intensive microbiological characterization of soda lake microbial communities, no culturable representatives from the phylum Planctomycetota have been isolated from these haloalkaline habitats. In the context of studying polysaccharide utilization by soda lake microbial communities, we used polysaccharide hyaluronic acid as enrichment substrate at aerobic, moderate haloalkaline conditions (1 M total Na, pH 9.5).

Open or closed: pH modulation and calcification by foraminifera.

Marine calcifying organisms precipitate their shells either in equilibrium with seawater or under strict biological control. Here, we show that these two options represent two ends of a spectrum. In species with a more "closed" system, rates of H removal and Ca uptake are high and exceed the amount of ions required for calcification.

The distribution of subsurface microplastics in the ocean.

Marine plastic pollution is a global issue, with microplastics (1 µm-5 mm) dominating the measured plastic count. Although microplastics can be found throughout the oceanic water column, most studies collect microplastics from surface waters (less than about 50-cm depth) using net tows. Consequently, our understanding of the microplastics distribution across ocean depths is more limited.

Microbiota dynamics in lionfish (Pterois): insights into invasion and establishment in the Mediterranean Sea.

Lionfishes ( spp.), originally native to the Indo-Pacific and Red Sea, have become one of the most invasive marine species globally, including the recent establishment in the Mediterranean Sea. This study investigates the microbiota of lionfish to explore its potential role in their invasion success and establishment.

Demand-Resource Mismatch Explains Body Shrinkage in a Migratory Shorebird.

Recent observations of body size declines in animal populations have given rise to discussions of whether or not this is related to climate change-induced temperature increases, with which the body size changes would follow Bergmann's rule. Although the debate is ongoing, the limited thermal benefits of currently observed size reductions make it unlikely that temperature increase shapes a direct selection pressure. Food constraints during early-life development, which could be caused by mismatches between available resources and energetic demands, could cause smaller body sizes too.

Establishing a comprehensive host-parasite stable isotope database to unravel trophic relationships.

Over the past decades, stable isotopes have been infrequently used to characterise host-parasite trophic relationships. This is because we have not yet identified consistent patterns in stable isotope values between parasites and their host tissues across species, which are crucial for understanding host-parasite dynamics. To address this, we initiated a worldwide collaboration to establish a unique database of stable isotope values of novel host-parasite pairs, effectively doubling the existing data in published literature.

Migratory Birds Advance Spring Arrival and Egg-Laying in the Arctic, Mostly by Travelling Faster.

In the current warming climate, many organisms in seasonal environments advance their timing of reproduction to benefit from resource peaks earlier in spring. For migrants, the potential to advance reproduction may be constrained by their migration strategies, notably their ability to advance arrival at the breeding grounds. Recent studies show various changes in migration strategies, including wintering closer to the breeding grounds, earlier departure from the wintering grounds or faster travels by spending less time at stopover sites.

Microbial Community Metabolism of Coral Reef Exometabolomes Broadens the Chemodiversity of Labile Dissolved Organic Matter.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) comprises diverse compounds with variable bioavailability across aquatic ecosystems. The sources and quantities of DOM can influence microbial growth and community structure with effects on biogeochemical processes. To investigate the chemodiversity of labile DOM in tropical reef waters, we tracked microbial utilisation of over 3000 untargeted mass spectrometry ion features exuded from two coral and three algal species.

Environmental effects of the Kakhovka Dam destruction by warfare in Ukraine.

The use of water as a weapon in highly industrialized areas in the Russo-Ukrainian war has resulted in catastrophic economic and environmental damages. We analyze environmental effects caused by the military destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. We link field, remote sensing, and modeling data to demarcate the disaster's spatial-temporal scales and outline trends in reestablishment of damaged ecosystems.

Methanotroph-methylotroph lipid adaptations to changing environmental conditions.

Methanotrophs, in particular methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB), regulate the release of methane from lakes, and often co-occur with methylotrophs that may enhance methane-oxidation rates. Assessing the interaction and physiological status of these two microbial groups is essential for determining the microbial methane buffering capacity of environmental systems. Microbial membrane lipids are commonly used as taxonomic markers of specific microbial groups; however, few studies have characterized the changes of membrane lipids under different environmental conditions.

Exploring carbon dynamics in a slow sand filter using stable isotopes.

Slow sand filtration (SSF) is one of the oldest biofiltration methods for reducing pathogens and organic matter (OM) in water. Due to its efficiency, affordability, and operational simplicity, SSF remains a widely used approach for producing biologically stable drinking water. Although biological activity plays a role in the removal of OM during SSF, its contribution is poorly constrained.

Investigating the influence of scuticociliatosis on host microbiome composition.

Mass mortality of Diadematidae urchins, caused by the scuticociliatosis Philaster clade (DScPc) affected the Caribbean in spring 2022 and subsequently spread to the eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, and western Indian Ocean. A key question around Diadematidae scuticociliatosis (DSc), the disease caused by the scuticociliate, is whether the urchin microbiome varies between scuticociliatosis-affected and grossly normal urchins. Tissue samples from both grossly normal and abnormal were collected in the field during the initial assessment of the DSc causative agent and from an experimental challenge of DScPc culture on aquacultured .