Article
Environmental Sciences
Yaamini R. Venkataraman, Amanda Shore, Sukanya Dayal, James Sanghyun Lee, Mahsa Alidoost Salimi, Grace Crandall, Malina M. Loeher, Mark Stoops, Megan Swanger, Morgan E. Eisenlord, Kathryn L. Van Alstyne, Mark D. Fast, Colleen A. Burge, Maya L. Groner
Summary: This study explores the effects of temperature and a wetland pathogen on seagrass, finding that the infection caused by the pathogen has a more pronounced impact on the physiological response of seagrass than temperature. By combining whole organism physiological assays with transcriptomic analysis, this study reveals the host-pathogen interaction between seagrass and the pathogen.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Microbiology
Deanna S. Beatty, Lillian R. Aoki, Brendan Rappazzo, Chelsea Bergman, Lia K. Domke, J. Emmett Duffy, Katie Dubois, Ginny L. Eckert, Carla Gomes, Olivia J. Graham, Leah Harper, C. Drew Harvell, Timothy L. Hawthorne, Margot Hessing-Lewis, Kevin Hovel, Zachary L. Monteith, Ryan S. Mueller, Angeleen M. Olson, Carolyn Prentice, Fiona Tomas, Bo Yang, John J. Stachowicz
Summary: Predicting outcomes of marine disease outbreaks is challenging due to global and local stressors. This study investigates the role of host-associated microbiomes in disease dynamics, particularly in eelgrass (Zostera marina) affected by wasting disease. The study found that the composition of microbiomes varied with disease prevalence and severity, and identified specific microbial members associated with wasting disease. These findings suggest that including microbiomes in disease studies can improve our understanding of infection rates and plant survival.
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Maria Potouroglou, Danielle Whitlock, Luna Milatovic, Gillian MacKinnon, Hilary Kennedy, Karen Diele, Mark Huxham
Summary: Seagrasses are highly productive ecosystems that provide numerous benefits to the environment and people. This study evaluates the carbon storage capacity of Zostera noltii and Zostera marina in intertidal seagrass meadows in Scotland, finding that seagrass areas show enhanced carbon storage compared to reference unvegetated ones. However, the variability in carbon storage across depth, sites, and estuaries indicates a need for further research and effective management strategies.
ESTUARINE COASTAL AND SHELF SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biology
Olivia J. J. Graham, Tiffany Stephens, Brendan Rappazzo, Corinne Klohmann, Sukanya Dayal, Emily M. M. Adamczyk, Angeleen Olson, Margot Hessing-Lewis, Morgan Eisenlord, Bo Yang, Colleen Burge, Carla P. P. Gomes, Drew Harvell
Summary: Eelgrass is a vital seagrass that plays a crucial role in creating important coastal habitats and fulfilling essential ecosystem functions worldwide. The warming climate and diseases pose a threat to eelgrass, causing mass mortalities and ecological impacts. Subtidal meadows, which are deeper than intertidal areas, may provide refuge from temperature-sensitive diseases. A study involving cross-boundary surveys and a machine-language algorithm found that disease prevalence was 16% lower in subtidal leaves compared to intertidal leaves. Cooler conditions were associated with lower disease risk in both tidal zones. Despite being more environmentally stable, subtidal meadows still exhibited high disease levels, highlighting the interaction between disease and temperature. The study also revealed that dense eelgrass meadows had lower disease prevalence, implying the importance of maintaining healthy and dense meadows for disease suppression. These findings emphasize the value of subtidal eelgrass and cooler locations as refuges, demonstrate the potential of cooling to suppress disease, and have implications for eelgrass conservation and management in the face of future climate change scenarios.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Holly K. K. Plaisted, Erin C. C. Shields, Alyssa B. B. Novak, Christopher P. P. Peck, Forest Schenck, Jillian Carr, Paul A. A. Duffy, N. Tay Evans, Sophia E. E. Fox, Stephen M. M. Heck, Robbie Hudson, Trevor Mattera, Kenneth A. A. Moore, Betty Neikirk, David B. B. Parrish, Bradley J. J. Peterson, Frederick T. T. Short, Amanda I. I. Tinoco
Summary: This study suggests vulnerability in eelgrass meadows of the Northeast USA due to changes in water temperature, with higher than average summer temperatures leading to a decrease in eelgrass presence.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Fisheries
M. Victoria Agnew, Maya L. Groner, Morgan E. Eisenlord, Carolyn S. Friedman, Colleen A. Burge
Summary: Oyster aquaculture and seagrasses play important roles in coastal ecosystems, but the transmission and infection of seagrass wasting disease (SWD) pose challenges to both. Results from laboratory and field experiments show that oysters can reduce lesion severity and infection intensity in seagrasses, but they may also serve as vectors for the pathogen. Temperature does not affect the ability of oysters to mitigate SWD.
AQUACULTURE ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Lauren M. Schiebelhut, Richard K. Grosberg, John J. Stachowicz, Rachael A. Bay
Summary: The degree of parallel genomic responses to similar selective pressures depends on various factors. Laboratory experiments show mixed results, and limited understanding of genomic parallelism in the wild. Genomic signals of selection in eelgrass were examined across temperature gradients in adjacent embayments. While many genomic regions showed selection signals within each bay, there was little overlap at the SNP level, but overlap at the gene level. Polygenic models indicated that some candidate SNPs could predict temperature in both bays, suggesting parallel shifts in allele frequencies may be missed by independent genome scans. These results highlight the continuous nature of parallel evolution and the complexity of evolutionary predictability.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Maria E. Asplund, Stefano Bonaglia, Christoffer Bostrom, Martin Dahl, Diana Deyanova, Karine Gagnon, Martin Gullstrom, Marianne Holmer, Mats Bjork
Summary: Shallow coastal soft bottoms are important carbon sinks, with Nordic seagrass meadows having a high capacity for carbon storage. The relatively low methane emissions from these meadows do not outweigh their importance as carbon sinks.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Wenjie Yan, Zhaohua Wang, Yanzhao Pei, Bin Zhou
Summary: Extreme ocean events caused by global warming are projected to intensify and may have severe consequences for marine ecosystems. This study focuses on the response of seagrass Zostera marina to ocean acidification in hot conditions using a combination of morphology, transcriptomics, and metabolomics. The results show that Z. marina adapts to ocean acidification and marine heatwaves by upregulating certain metabolic pathways and activating the antioxidant system.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Seung Hyeon Kim, Hyegwang Kim, Zhaxi Suonan, Fei Zhang, Kun-Seop Lee
Summary: Climate change associated sea surface temperature rise could significantly affect the physiology and distribution of seagrasses. This study investigated the photosynthetic and respiratory responses of warm affinity Halophila nipponica and cold affinity Zostera marina to a change in water temperature, and estimated the whole-plant carbon balance to predict their future geographic distributions. The results suggest that increases in water temperature could induce substantial changes in the seagrass ecosystem structure in the northwestern Pacific region.
FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Wendel W. Raymond, Brent B. Hughes, Tiffany A. Stephens, Catherine R. Mattson, Ashley T. Bolwerk, Ginny L. Eckert
Summary: The presence and strength of trophic cascades involving sea otters in southeast Alaska may not be generalized, potentially due to local scale factors such as spatial heterogeneity, low resource availability, and non-linear food chains in southeast Alaska seagrass communities. Correlation analyses suggest further interactions among biological and environmental variables in southeast Alaska seagrass communities, highlighting the need for local assessment on the ecology and management of apex-predator populations.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Xiao-Fan Deng, Yan-Hao Zhang, Jie Liu, Bing Yu, Hong-Chen Li, Pei-Dong Zhang
Summary: This study quantified the responses of Zostera marina seeds to different planting times and found that mid-September to mid-October is the optimal time for seed planting, which is crucial for successful eelgrass restoration.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2022)
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Shigeki Wada, Yuhi Satoh, Takeo Hama
Summary: The biomass of Zostera marina in temperate coastal zones shows seasonal variation with a peak during spring, largely due to the development of reproductive organs in shoots. However, this high biomass period is short-lived, with many reproductive shoots disappearing after. Loss of biomass, especially reproductive, is significant during the Declining Period, accounting for 14-81% of annual production. Dislodgement of reproductive shoots plays a key role in the fate of photosynthetic products, with microbial decomposition not reflecting nitrogen content in reproductive shoots.
ESTUARINE COASTAL AND SHELF SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yan-Hao Zhang, Bing Yu, You-Cai Liu, Wang Ma, Wen-Tao Li, Pei-Dong Zhang
Summary: Low salinity promotes the growth and propagation of temperate seagrasses, with an optimal salinity range of 18-21 PSU for Zostera marina shoots. Decreased salinity levels enhance the survival and growth of the shoots through increased chlorophyll content and accumulated nonstructural carbohydrates.
MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Forest R. R. Schenck, Katherine DuBois, Melissa R. R. Kardish, John J. J. Stachowicz, A. Randall Hughes
Summary: Temperature increases due to climate change have impacted disease distribution and severity, leading to outbreaks that can harm host populations. The identity, diversity, and microbiome of hosts can influence their response to infection and temperature, but little is known about their role as important mediators of disease in altered thermal environments. In this study, an 8-week warming experiment was conducted to examine the effects of warming, host genotypic identity, and host genotypic diversity on infection prevalence and intensity in seagrass. The results showed that genotypically diverse host assemblages had lower infection intensity, but not prevalence, at elevated temperatures. Additionally, changes in the host microbiome were correlated with genotype-specific responses to infection under warming. This research highlights the context dependence of biodiversity-disease relationships and emphasizes the potential significance of interactions between biodiversity loss, climate change, and disease outbreaks.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Atefeh Zendehboudi, Azam Mohammadi, Sina Dobaradaran, Gabriel E. De-la-Torre, Bahman Ramavandi, Seyed Enayat Hashemi, Reza Saeedi, Emran Moradpour Tayebi, Ahmad Vafaee, Amirhossein Darabi
Summary: This study investigated the characteristics and ecological risks of microplastics (MPs) in ballast water for the first time, and found high levels of MP pollution. These findings contribute to our understanding of the sources and risks of microplastics in marine ecosystems.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Rose Boahemaa Pinto, Linda Bogerd, Martine van der Ploeg, Kwame Duah, Remko Uijlenhoet, Tim H. M. van Emmerik
Summary: Catchment-scale plastic pollution assessments provide insights into the sources, sinks, and pathways of plastic pollution. We propose an approach to quantify macroplastic transport and density in the Odaw catchment, Ghana, and find that the urban riverine zone has the highest transport, while the urban tidal zone has the highest riverbank and land macroplastic density.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Aliya Baidourela, Qian Sun, Gongxin Yang, Umut Halik, Zhongkai Dong, Kaixu Cai, Guili Sun, Wenya Zhang, Sisi Cheng
Summary: The study focused on heavy metal pollution in the green vegetation of a suburban industrial area in Tuokexun County, Xinjiang, China. The results showed that the overall level of heavy metal pollution in the soil was minor, with mercury (Hg) being the most severe contamination, likely caused by human activities. The composition of heavy metal elements in trees was more stable compared to grass and shrubs, with varying concentrations across different vegetation. Shrubbery was found to be the most effective in heavy metal restoration, and there were disparities in heavy metal enrichment among different vegetation types.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
James H. Bridson, Hayden Masterton, Beatrix Theobald, Regis Risani, Fraser Doake, Jessica A. Wallbank, Stefan D. M. Maday, Gavin Lear, Robert Abbel, Dawn A. Smith, Joanne M. Kingsbury, Olga Pantos, Grant L. Northcott, Sally Gaw
Summary: Plastic pollution has significant environmental impacts, largely due to chemical additives. However, the behavior of plastic additives in marine environments is not well understood. A marine deployment experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of weathering on the extractables profile of four types of plastics in New Zealand over a period of nine months. The concentration of additives in polyethylene and oxo-degradable polyethylene was strongly influenced by artificial weathering, while polyamide 6 and polyethylene terephthalate showed minimal change. These findings emphasize the importance of considering leaching and weathering effects on plastic composition when assessing the potential impact and risk of plastic pollution in receiving environments.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Alan G. Scarlett, Francis D. Spilsbury, Steven J. Rowland, Marthe Monique Gagnon, Kliti Grice
Summary: This study used diamondoid hydrocarbon distributions to identify the sources of environmental oil contamination. A suite of 20 diamondoids was found to accumulate in fish adipose tissue. The scatter plots of indices between fish and exposure oils showed a close to ideal 1:1 relationship, which can be used to determine the origin of the oil.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shan Jiang, Mengmeng Wan, Kun Lin, Yanshan Chen, Rui Wang, Liju Tan, Jiangtao Wang
Summary: In this study, the concentration, composition, distribution, and sources of PCBs in surface seawater of the Bohai Bay were analyzed. The results showed that PCBs in the Bohai Bay had high concentrations and were primarily derived from land-based sources such as port activities and river inputs. The PCBs in the Bohai Bay may come from commercial PCBs and their incineration products, municipal landfills, wood and coal combustion, and industrial activities, etc.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Icaro S. A. Porto, Saulo V. A. Dantas, Caio S. A. Felix, Francisco A. S. Cunha, Jailson B. de Andrade, Sergio L. C. Ferreira
Summary: This study evaluated the risks of mercury levels in sardines consumed by low-income population in Salvador, Brazil. The results showed that the mercury content in the sampled sardines posed no risks to human health. This study is significant as most sardines in Salvador come from Todos os Santos Bay, which has a history of mercury contamination.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Jiahui Chen, Chengyu Yuan, Guanqun Zhai, Guangcheng Chen, Heng Zhu, Jun Liu, Yong Ye
Summary: This study investigated the combined influences of species selection and site elevation on greenhouse gas fluxes from restored mangrove soils. The results suggest that Avicennia marina should be selected for mangrove restoration to minimize carbon release and reduce the influence of greenhouse gas fluxes on the global greenhouse effect.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Emmanuel Onyeabor, Uju Obuka
Summary: The Gulf of Guinea region in Africa is a significant area for coastal countries, playing a vital role in their economic and environmental development. This study aims to reduce marine plastic pollution in the region by utilizing legal instruments.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yuanli Liu, Stephan Luttjohann, Alvise Vianello, Claudia Lorenz, Fan Liu, Jes Vollertsen
Summary: Large area attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (LAATR-FTIR) is a novel technique for detecting small microplastics, with limited accuracy for large microplastics. However, it shows promise in homogeneous matrices. The spectra quality is comparable between transmission mode and LAATR mode.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Phuc T. D. Le, Andrew M. Fischer, Britta D. Hardesty, Heidi J. Auman, Chris Wilcox
Summary: This study explores the relationship between ocean currents and the accumulation of floating marine debris (FMD) and finds that higher concentrations of FMD are associated with frontal frequencies (FF). FMD is primarily trapped in accumulation zones between fronts and the coastline, which have high biodiversity value.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Rosa Sawan, Perine Doyen, Florence Viudes, Rachid Amara, Celine Mahfouz
Summary: Few studies have examined the impact of urbanization and meteorological events on microplastics discharged into the sea through rivers. Surface water samples were collected from two Lebanese rivers, with differing degrees of urbanization, during dry and wet periods. The results showed that the most industrialized river had a significantly higher abundance of microplastics compared to the less-industrialized river. There was also a correlation between particle contamination and the season at each site, with microplastic concentrations highest on the first day of the wet season. These findings highlight the importance of considering meteorological events in accurately assessing plastic pollution influx into coastal waters.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Katherine R. Shaw, Jonathan L. Whitney, Eileen M. Nalley, Madeline C. Schmidbauer, Megan J. Donahue, Jesse Black, Raquel N. Corniuk, Kellie Teague, Rachel Sandquist, Catherine Pirkle, Rachel Dacks, Max Sudnovsky, Jennifer M. Lynch
Summary: This study examines the ingestion of plastic in reef fish in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Plastic particles were found in the gastrointestinal tracts of multiple fish species. However, further analysis revealed that these particles were actually natural materials and posed no threat to human consumers.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Revati Hardikar, C. K. Haridevi, Shantaj Deshbhratar
Summary: This study investigated the variability in phytoplankton functional structure using a trait-based approach and explored the relationship between species traits and environmental factors, as well as their impact on ecosystem functioning. The results revealed that morphological traits, temperature, and ammonia played a decisive role in the seasonal succession of phytoplankton species. It was found that certain traits favored higher biomass production but might hinder energy transfer efficiency. The strong correlation between environmental variables and phytoplankton functional structure supports the practical implementation of a trait-based approach in studying phytoplankton community dynamics under different environmental conditions.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Engki A. Kisnarti, Nining Sari Ningsih, Mutiara R. Putri, Nani Hendiarti, Bernhard Mayer
Summary: This study examines the movement patterns of plastic marine debris in Indonesian waters, revealing that Indonesia contributes significantly to transboundary marine debris in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea. Most of the debris remains in Indonesian waters and moves back and forth due to the influence of monsoon currents.
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
(2024)