Pub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1749044
Sulastri Arsad, Romain Gastineau, Małgorzata Bąk, Mateusz Rybak, Ewa Górecka, Claude Lemieux, Monique Turmel, Fiddy Semba Prasetiya, Christopher S. Lobban
Introduction Caloneis egena is a species of diatom originally described from Campeche Bay (Mexico) that is regarded as cosmopolitan, with several reports from the Pacific region. Methods A strain of diatom from the genus Caloneis was isolated from the Gulf of Tomini, Sulawesi (Indonesia). It was subjected to an integrated approach combining microscopy, genomic analyses, and phylogeny. Results Although looking similar to C. egena , the strain from Tomini was found to be a new species, hereby described as Caloneis paraegena sp. nov. The complete mitochondrial and plastid genomes were sequenced and annotated and represent the first organellar genomes made available for the genus Caloneis . The multigene phylogeny inferred from these results positions C. paraegena as sister to a clade that associates Caloneis fontinalis , C. silicula , and C. lewisii . Discussion A survey of the literature dedicated to C. egena led to questioning its distribution, suggesting that records from the Pacific region might, in fact, represent C. paraegena based on morphology. Because of the absence of a molecular reference for C. egena , the exact relationship between these two species remains to be verified.
{"title":"Not Caloneis egena: morphological description and complete plastid and mitochondrial genomes of Caloneis paraegena sp. nov. from the Gulf of Tomini, Indonesia","authors":"Sulastri Arsad, Romain Gastineau, Małgorzata Bąk, Mateusz Rybak, Ewa Górecka, Claude Lemieux, Monique Turmel, Fiddy Semba Prasetiya, Christopher S. Lobban","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1749044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1749044","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction <jats:italic>Caloneis egena</jats:italic> is a species of diatom originally described from Campeche Bay (Mexico) that is regarded as cosmopolitan, with several reports from the Pacific region. Methods A strain of diatom from the genus <jats:italic>Caloneis</jats:italic> was isolated from the Gulf of Tomini, Sulawesi (Indonesia). It was subjected to an integrated approach combining microscopy, genomic analyses, and phylogeny. Results Although looking similar to <jats:italic>C. egena</jats:italic> , the strain from Tomini was found to be a new species, hereby described as <jats:italic>Caloneis paraegena</jats:italic> sp. nov. The complete mitochondrial and plastid genomes were sequenced and annotated and represent the first organellar genomes made available for the genus <jats:italic>Caloneis</jats:italic> . The multigene phylogeny inferred from these results positions <jats:italic>C. paraegena</jats:italic> as sister to a clade that associates <jats:italic>Caloneis fontinalis</jats:italic> , <jats:italic>C. silicula</jats:italic> , and <jats:italic>C. lewisii</jats:italic> . Discussion A survey of the literature dedicated to <jats:italic>C. egena</jats:italic> led to questioning its distribution, suggesting that records from the Pacific region might, in fact, represent <jats:italic>C. paraegena</jats:italic> based on morphology. Because of the absence of a molecular reference for <jats:italic>C. egena</jats:italic> , the exact relationship between these two species remains to be verified.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1739607
Andrew C. Poje, Takaya Uchida, Quentin Jamet, Luolin Sun, Thierry Penduff, Bruno Deremble, Joseph Schoonover, Megan Trapanese, Nicolas Wienders, William K. Dewar
We address the question of separating the ocean’s deterministic response to time-dependent forcing from its intrinsic chaotic variability. Ideally, one could compute the ensemble mean directly without performing numerous realizations, but this requires knowledge or closure of the second-order statistics — the classical turbulent-closure problem, here recast for a non-equilibrium, geophysical setting. Building on the ideas of nonlinear midlatitude ocean adjustment, we examine this problem using idealized quasi-geostrophic (QG) double-gyre ensembles subjected to episodic temporal variations in wind forcing. Our objective here is not to develop a subgrid parameterization of unresolved eddies, but rather to construct and test prognostic equations for the ensemble mean itself, using the simplest possible closure assumptions. We find that the performance of ensemble mean closures is highly dependent on the spatiotemporal structure of the forcing. Under slowly varying forcing, approximate closures reproduce the mean evolution reasonably well; under rapidly varying, near-zero-mean forcing, the simplest ensemble-mean closures fail, even at the level of basin-averaged total energy and enstrophy. In both regimes, the ensemble-mean response is not simply the accumulated imprint of the applied forcing, but instead appears as a continuing, non-equilibrated dialogue between the mean and eddy fields.
{"title":"Thoughts on prognostically modeling an eddying double-gyre ensemble mean","authors":"Andrew C. Poje, Takaya Uchida, Quentin Jamet, Luolin Sun, Thierry Penduff, Bruno Deremble, Joseph Schoonover, Megan Trapanese, Nicolas Wienders, William K. Dewar","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1739607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1739607","url":null,"abstract":"We address the question of separating the ocean’s deterministic response to time-dependent forcing from its intrinsic chaotic variability. Ideally, one could compute the ensemble mean directly without performing numerous realizations, but this requires knowledge or closure of the second-order statistics — the classical turbulent-closure problem, here recast for a non-equilibrium, geophysical setting. Building on the ideas of nonlinear midlatitude ocean adjustment, we examine this problem using idealized quasi-geostrophic (QG) double-gyre ensembles subjected to episodic temporal variations in wind forcing. Our objective here is not to develop a subgrid parameterization of unresolved eddies, but rather to construct and test prognostic equations for the ensemble mean itself, using the simplest possible closure assumptions. We find that the performance of ensemble mean closures is highly dependent on the spatiotemporal structure of the forcing. Under slowly varying forcing, approximate closures reproduce the mean evolution reasonably well; under rapidly varying, near-zero-mean forcing, the simplest ensemble-mean closures fail, even at the level of basin-averaged total energy and enstrophy. In both regimes, the ensemble-mean response is not simply the accumulated imprint of the applied forcing, but instead appears as a continuing, non-equilibrated dialogue between the mean and eddy fields.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-11DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1773304
Eric Yong Joong Lee, Juhyun Park, MooYoung Choi, Junghwan Choi
Background Japan's ongoing discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, approved by the IAEA as consistent with international safety standards, has generated significant scientific and legal controversy. The safety justification relies on assumptions regarding TEPCO's ALPS treatment system effectiveness, monitoring reliability, data transparency, and minimal risks to marine ecosystems and human health. Methods This paper employs an interdisciplinary approach integrating marine science and international law. We categorize Japan and TEPCO's scientific justifications into four core claims and highlight the scientific uncertainties that weaken the strength of such claims. As part of this, we apply fundamental dose-calculation methods to estimate organ-specific absorbed and effective doses for key radionuclides (tritium, cesium-137, strontium-90) and their potential health impacts. We then systematically map identified scientific uncertainties to corresponding structural weaknesses in international legal accountability mechanisms. Results Our analysis reveals substantial uncertainties undermining Japan's safety claims. These empirical gaps systematically expose structural failures in international governance: absence of technology verification standards, lack of binding testing protocols, inadequacies in instantaneous concentration-based compliance frameworks, outdated safety standards, national control preventing independent verification, and weaknesses in the IAEA institutional architecture. Conclusions The systematic pattern where scientific uncertainties map onto legal gaps reflects a fundamental mismatch between current frameworks, which are designed for routine operations, and the unprecedented circumstances of the multi-decade discharges from Fukushima. We provide concrete scientific, legal, and policy recommendations targeting each identified vulnerability to prevent Fukushima from establishing a dangerous precedent for inadequately regulated ocean disposal.
日本正在进行的福岛第一核电站（Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant）处理过的放射性废水的排放，已被国际原子能机构（IAEA）批准为符合国际安全标准，这在科学和法律上引发了重大争议。安全理由依赖于关于TEPCO的ALPS处理系统有效性、监测可靠性、数据透明度以及对海洋生态系统和人类健康的最小风险的假设。方法采用跨学科研究方法，将海洋科学与国际法相结合。我们将日本和东京电力公司的科学理由分为四个核心主张，并强调了削弱这些主张力量的科学不确定性。作为这项工作的一部分，我们应用基本剂量计算方法来估计关键放射性核素（氚、铯-137、锶-90）的器官特异性吸收剂量和有效剂量及其潜在的健康影响。然后，我们系统地将已确定的科学不确定性映射到国际法律问责机制中相应的结构性弱点。结果：我们的分析揭示了大量的不确定性，这些不确定性削弱了日本的安全声明。这些经验上的差距系统地暴露了国际治理中的结构性缺陷：缺乏技术核查标准、缺乏具有约束力的测试协议、基于即时集中的合规框架的不足、过时的安全标准、阻碍独立核查的国家控制以及原子能机构机构架构中的弱点。科学上的不确定性映射到法律漏洞的系统模式反映了当前为日常操作设计的框架与福岛数十年排放的前所未有的情况之间的根本不匹配。我们针对每一个已确定的脆弱性提供具体的科学、法律和政策建议，以防止福岛核电站为监管不力的海洋处置建立一个危险的先例。
{"title":"Resisting oblivion: scientific criticism and legal possibilities concerning the discharges of radioactive water from Fukushima","authors":"Eric Yong Joong Lee, Juhyun Park, MooYoung Choi, Junghwan Choi","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1773304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1773304","url":null,"abstract":"Background Japan's ongoing discharge of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, approved by the IAEA as consistent with international safety standards, has generated significant scientific and legal controversy. The safety justification relies on assumptions regarding TEPCO's ALPS treatment system effectiveness, monitoring reliability, data transparency, and minimal risks to marine ecosystems and human health. Methods This paper employs an interdisciplinary approach integrating marine science and international law. We categorize Japan and TEPCO's scientific justifications into four core claims and highlight the scientific uncertainties that weaken the strength of such claims. As part of this, we apply fundamental dose-calculation methods to estimate organ-specific absorbed and effective doses for key radionuclides (tritium, cesium-137, strontium-90) and their potential health impacts. We then systematically map identified scientific uncertainties to corresponding structural weaknesses in international legal accountability mechanisms. Results Our analysis reveals substantial uncertainties undermining Japan's safety claims. These empirical gaps systematically expose structural failures in international governance: absence of technology verification standards, lack of binding testing protocols, inadequacies in instantaneous concentration-based compliance frameworks, outdated safety standards, national control preventing independent verification, and weaknesses in the IAEA institutional architecture. Conclusions The systematic pattern where scientific uncertainties map onto legal gaps reflects a fundamental mismatch between current frameworks, which are designed for routine operations, and the unprecedented circumstances of the multi-decade discharges from Fukushima. We provide concrete scientific, legal, and policy recommendations targeting each identified vulnerability to prevent Fukushima from establishing a dangerous precedent for inadequately regulated ocean disposal.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"415 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147393261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-10DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1762170
Muhammad Rashid, Junfeng Wang, Faheem Ahmed, Naeem Ahmed, Syed Agha Hassnain Mohsan, Eatedal Alabdulkreem, Samih M. Mostafa
Introduction Underwater target detection plays a crucial role in marine environmental monitoring and ocean exploration. However, accurate detection remains challenging due to low illumination, blurred small objects, and complex background interference. Although convolutional neural network-based detectors have improved detection performance, many existing approaches are computationally expensive, limiting their deployment on resource-constrained underwater platforms. Methods To address these challenges, we propose YOLOv8n-PFA, a lightweight and high-precision underwater object detection framework. The proposed method introduces a novel Parallel Fusion Attention (PFA) module that models channel and spatial attention in parallel using residual connections to enhance discriminative features while suppressing background noise. The Wise Intersection over Union (WIoUv3) loss is incorporated to stabilize training and improve localization accuracy. Additionally, depth-wise convolutions (DWConv) are strategically applied to reduce model parameters and computational complexity. To further validate generalization capability, the PFA module is also integrated into YOLOv11n. Results Experimental results show that YOLOv8n-PFA achieves 84.2% mean Average Precision (mAP) on the URPC2020 dataset with 2.68 M parameters and 7.7 GFLOPs, and 84.8% mAP on the RUOD dataset with 2.98 M parameters and 7.9 GFLOPs. When integrated into YOLOv11n, the model achieves 84.7% mAP on URPC2020 and 85.3% on RUOD with only 2.76 M parameters and 6.5 GFLOPs. Across both datasets, the proposed approach improves mAP by 2.8-4.1% over baseline models while maintaining a lightweight architecture. Discussion The results demonstrate that the proposed framework provides an effective and computationally efficient solution for real-time underwater target detection in challenging marine environments. The consistent performance gains across different YOLO generations further confirm the scalability and robustness of the proposed PFA module.
{"title":"YOLOv8n-PFA: a parallel fusion attention network for enhanced target detection in challenging environments","authors":"Muhammad Rashid, Junfeng Wang, Faheem Ahmed, Naeem Ahmed, Syed Agha Hassnain Mohsan, Eatedal Alabdulkreem, Samih M. Mostafa","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1762170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1762170","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Underwater target detection plays a crucial role in marine environmental monitoring and ocean exploration. However, accurate detection remains challenging due to low illumination, blurred small objects, and complex background interference. Although convolutional neural network-based detectors have improved detection performance, many existing approaches are computationally expensive, limiting their deployment on resource-constrained underwater platforms. Methods To address these challenges, we propose YOLOv8n-PFA, a lightweight and high-precision underwater object detection framework. The proposed method introduces a novel Parallel Fusion Attention (PFA) module that models channel and spatial attention in parallel using residual connections to enhance discriminative features while suppressing background noise. The Wise Intersection over Union (WIoUv3) loss is incorporated to stabilize training and improve localization accuracy. Additionally, depth-wise convolutions (DWConv) are strategically applied to reduce model parameters and computational complexity. To further validate generalization capability, the PFA module is also integrated into YOLOv11n. Results Experimental results show that YOLOv8n-PFA achieves 84.2% mean Average Precision (mAP) on the URPC2020 dataset with 2.68 M parameters and 7.7 GFLOPs, and 84.8% mAP on the RUOD dataset with 2.98 M parameters and 7.9 GFLOPs. When integrated into YOLOv11n, the model achieves 84.7% mAP on URPC2020 and 85.3% on RUOD with only 2.76 M parameters and 6.5 GFLOPs. Across both datasets, the proposed approach improves mAP by 2.8-4.1% over baseline models while maintaining a lightweight architecture. Discussion The results demonstrate that the proposed framework provides an effective and computationally efficient solution for real-time underwater target detection in challenging marine environments. The consistent performance gains across different YOLO generations further confirm the scalability and robustness of the proposed PFA module.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147383678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-09DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1793802
Yan Zheng, Wenhai Lu, Zhaoyang Liu, Chang Liu, Yangyi Ai, Xiaoqian Li, Hefeng Wang
Coastal salt marshes store substantial organic carbon, but strong heterogeneity in carbon density complicates upscaling for blue carbon accounting, national inventories, and restoration planning. Using a standardized monitoring dataset from 361 salt marsh sites across eight coastal provinces in China (2021–2024), we quantified sediment carbon density in the upper 0–1 m and biomass carbon density (aboveground and belowground), and evaluated plausible drivers. Carbon densities were highly skewed, with sediment carbon dominating the combined carbon density. Vegetation composition explained the strongest contrasts: Spartina spp.-dominated marshes exhibited higher sediment and combined carbon density than Phragmites spp. and Bulrush/Sedge (mixed Cyperaceae taxa; including Schoenoplectus spp., Bolboschoenoplectus spp., and Carex spp.) marshes, whereas Phragmites spp. marshes supported the highest total biomass carbon density. After adjustment for vegetation group, sampling year, and latitude, sediment carbon density showed a modest negative latitudinal trend. Sediment fine fraction had little marginal association with sediment carbon density, but emerged as a positive predictor of sediment and combined carbon density once geographic and compositional structure was accounted for, consistent with context-dependent texture effects. In contrast, total biomass carbon density showed limited covariate-adjusted association with either fine fraction or sediment carbon density, and biomass allocation metrics did not provide a direct proxy for sediment carbon density. These results support stratified monitoring, reporting and verification designs that use vegetation group as a first-order stratum and sediment texture as a secondary modifier to strengthen higher-tier, accounting-relevant reporting and restoration targeting.
{"title":"Vegetation composition and sediment texture jointly shape carbon density in China’s coastal salt marshes: implications for stratified monitoring, reporting and verification","authors":"Yan Zheng, Wenhai Lu, Zhaoyang Liu, Chang Liu, Yangyi Ai, Xiaoqian Li, Hefeng Wang","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1793802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1793802","url":null,"abstract":"Coastal salt marshes store substantial organic carbon, but strong heterogeneity in carbon density complicates upscaling for blue carbon accounting, national inventories, and restoration planning. Using a standardized monitoring dataset from 361 salt marsh sites across eight coastal provinces in China (2021–2024), we quantified sediment carbon density in the upper 0–1 m and biomass carbon density (aboveground and belowground), and evaluated plausible drivers. Carbon densities were highly skewed, with sediment carbon dominating the combined carbon density. Vegetation composition explained the strongest contrasts: <jats:italic>Spartina</jats:italic> spp.-dominated marshes exhibited higher sediment and combined carbon density than <jats:italic>Phragmites</jats:italic> spp. and Bulrush/Sedge (mixed Cyperaceae taxa; including <jats:italic>Schoenoplectus</jats:italic> spp., <jats:italic>Bolboschoenoplectus</jats:italic> spp., and <jats:italic>Carex</jats:italic> spp.) marshes, whereas <jats:italic>Phragmites</jats:italic> spp. marshes supported the highest total biomass carbon density. After adjustment for vegetation group, sampling year, and latitude, sediment carbon density showed a modest negative latitudinal trend. Sediment fine fraction had little marginal association with sediment carbon density, but emerged as a positive predictor of sediment and combined carbon density once geographic and compositional structure was accounted for, consistent with context-dependent texture effects. In contrast, total biomass carbon density showed limited covariate-adjusted association with either fine fraction or sediment carbon density, and biomass allocation metrics did not provide a direct proxy for sediment carbon density. These results support stratified monitoring, reporting and verification designs that use vegetation group as a first-order stratum and sediment texture as a secondary modifier to strengthen higher-tier, accounting-relevant reporting and restoration targeting.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"298 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147373821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-09DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1761490
Emrah Celik
Coastal wetlands host a particularly high share of global waterbird diversity relative to their spatial extent, yet they are among the ecosystems most exposed to rapid global change. This review synthesizes recent empirical and modelling studies on how interacting drivers—including climate warming, sea-level rise and coastal squeeze, land reclamation and agricultural intensification, hydrological alteration, drought and changing disturbance regimes—affect coastal waterbirds and their habitats. We first summarize major pathways of habitat change across coastal and coastal–inland systems. We then examine ecological responses in terms of range shifts and climate exposure, phenology, demographic rates and long-term population trends, as well as habitat selection, community structure and functional traits. Finally, we assess conservation and adaptation options, focusing on protected-area networks and flyway planning, nature-based solutions such as managed realignment and living shorelines, and the growing role of working wetlands within agricultural landscapes. Overall, the literature points to high exposure to multiple, interacting stressors but also to significant scope for adaptation through habitat management, network-level planning and strengthened long-term monitoring and governance.
{"title":"Coastal waterbirds under global change drivers, ecological responses and adaptation pathways","authors":"Emrah Celik","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1761490","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1761490","url":null,"abstract":"Coastal wetlands host a particularly high share of global waterbird diversity relative to their spatial extent, yet they are among the ecosystems most exposed to rapid global change. This review synthesizes recent empirical and modelling studies on how interacting drivers—including climate warming, sea-level rise and coastal squeeze, land reclamation and agricultural intensification, hydrological alteration, drought and changing disturbance regimes—affect coastal waterbirds and their habitats. We first summarize major pathways of habitat change across coastal and coastal–inland systems. We then examine ecological responses in terms of range shifts and climate exposure, phenology, demographic rates and long-term population trends, as well as habitat selection, community structure and functional traits. Finally, we assess conservation and adaptation options, focusing on protected-area networks and flyway planning, nature-based solutions such as managed realignment and living shorelines, and the growing role of working wetlands within agricultural landscapes. Overall, the literature points to high exposure to multiple, interacting stressors but also to significant scope for adaptation through habitat management, network-level planning and strengthened long-term monitoring and governance.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147380652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-06DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1767540
Cynthia Barile, Simon Berrow, Jonathan Gordon, Rossa Meade, Morgane Pommier, Joanne O’Brien
Species distribution models are increasingly used to understand species’ environmental preferences and habitat use as a means to inform management decisions. To identify important areas, mitigate impacts of anthropogenic activities, and forecast potential changes in habitat suitability under future climate conditions, emphasis should be placed on computing accurate and representative models from which reliable predictions can be derived, while ensuring that continued monitoring supports these predictions under increasing environmental uncertainty. In this study, we applied a Bayesian Additive Regression Trees modelling framework to data collected over the course of six seasonal passive acoustic surveys (2015-2016) along the Irish continental shelf break to assess habitat use by sperm whales, Physeter macrocephalus . Previous studies indicated that substantial numbers of sperm whales occur in Irish offshore waters, particularly along and beyond the shelf edge. It is likely that the area contains foraging habitats and that mature males also move through these waters when traveling between southern breeding grounds and northern feeding areas. However, more recent findings reported that females and immature individuals also occur in these habitats in significant numbers, indicating that the area supports a wider range of demographic groups. As a result, sperm whale presence in the region are likely to result from interactions between migrations and access to prey resources. The scale-dependent nature of those processes adds further complexities for the quantification of relationships between underlying environmental variables and species distribution. For this reason, we used a multiscale framework to investigate the influence of a set of topographic features and oceanographic processes acting as proxies for prey availability, on sperm whale occurrence. Occurrence was found to correlate with depth, slope gradient and slope orientation, as well as with distance to fronts, frontal strength, relative sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-a concentration and sea level anomaly. These variables were most informative at different scales, highlighting the value of multiscale approaches. This study shed light on the relative favourability of the region for sperm whales as well as on the complex interactions between sperm whales and their habitat, contributing towards future management and conservation efforts.
{"title":"Sperm whale hotspots off western Ireland and the importance of dynamic variables as shown by a multiscale Bayesian additive regression trees workflow","authors":"Cynthia Barile, Simon Berrow, Jonathan Gordon, Rossa Meade, Morgane Pommier, Joanne O’Brien","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1767540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1767540","url":null,"abstract":"Species distribution models are increasingly used to understand species’ environmental preferences and habitat use as a means to inform management decisions. To identify important areas, mitigate impacts of anthropogenic activities, and forecast potential changes in habitat suitability under future climate conditions, emphasis should be placed on computing accurate and representative models from which reliable predictions can be derived, while ensuring that continued monitoring supports these predictions under increasing environmental uncertainty. In this study, we applied a Bayesian Additive Regression Trees modelling framework to data collected over the course of six seasonal passive acoustic surveys (2015-2016) along the Irish continental shelf break to assess habitat use by sperm whales, <jats:italic>Physeter macrocephalus</jats:italic> . Previous studies indicated that substantial numbers of sperm whales occur in Irish offshore waters, particularly along and beyond the shelf edge. It is likely that the area contains foraging habitats and that mature males also move through these waters when traveling between southern breeding grounds and northern feeding areas. However, more recent findings reported that females and immature individuals also occur in these habitats in significant numbers, indicating that the area supports a wider range of demographic groups. As a result, sperm whale presence in the region are likely to result from interactions between migrations and access to prey resources. The scale-dependent nature of those processes adds further complexities for the quantification of relationships between underlying environmental variables and species distribution. For this reason, we used a multiscale framework to investigate the influence of a set of topographic features and oceanographic processes acting as proxies for prey availability, on sperm whale occurrence. Occurrence was found to correlate with depth, slope gradient and slope orientation, as well as with distance to fronts, frontal strength, relative sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-a concentration and sea level anomaly. These variables were most informative at different scales, highlighting the value of multiscale approaches. This study shed light on the relative favourability of the region for sperm whales as well as on the complex interactions between sperm whales and their habitat, contributing towards future management and conservation efforts.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147368199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-06DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1787934
Li Li, Guiguang Wu, Heng Luo, Ju Wang, Haijun Wu, Qianqian Hao, Yunxiao Han, Meihong Ge, Changbo Zhong, Yenan Wang
Oil spill incidents occur widely around the globe, posing significant threats to the multifunctionality of coastal ecosystems, economic development, and human health. However, conventional oil contamination remediation approaches are plagued by inherent limitations, including low treatment efficiency, secondary pollution risks, and poor universality. To address this issue, a copper-based metal-organic framework (Cu-MOF) was synthesized via a solvothermal route in this study. Utilizing this Cu-MOF as a hard template, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were immobilized within its cage-like porous channels through an in-situ reduction strategy, yielding a Ag@Cu-MOF composite photocatalytic material. The degradation performance of this composite toward oil pollutants derived from marine oil spills was systematically evaluated under UV-visible hybrid light irradiation. The experimental results demonstrated that when the loading content of Ag NPs was optimized to 5%, the composite achieved a degradation efficiency of 95.1% toward simulated oil spill pollutants (with crude oil employed as the model contaminant) at an initial concentration of 100 mg·L -1 within 2 hours. This degradation efficiency was significantly superior to that of pristine Cu-MOF (51.3%) and bare Ag NPs (25.9%). Mechanistic investigations revealed that the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) effect of Ag NPs enables the extension of the material’s light response range to the visible spectral region. Concurrently, the Schottky junction formed at the interface between Cu-MOF and Ag facilitates the efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, which remarkably enhances the photocatalytic activity of the composite. Furthermore, the Ag@Cu-MOF composite exhibited excellent structural and functional stability in a simulated seawater system with a salinity of 3.5% (mimicking real marine conditions). After four consecutive reuse cycles, the degradation efficiency remained above 88%, which not only validates the material’s reusability but also provides a novel material platform and technical paradigm for the efficient remediation of marine oil spills, holding great significance for advancing coastal ecological restoration practices.
{"title":"In-situ Ag nanoparticle-embedded core-shell Cu-MOFs: enhanced photocatalytic activity for efficient degradation of petroleum oil spills in high-salinity seawater","authors":"Li Li, Guiguang Wu, Heng Luo, Ju Wang, Haijun Wu, Qianqian Hao, Yunxiao Han, Meihong Ge, Changbo Zhong, Yenan Wang","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1787934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1787934","url":null,"abstract":"Oil spill incidents occur widely around the globe, posing significant threats to the multifunctionality of coastal ecosystems, economic development, and human health. However, conventional oil contamination remediation approaches are plagued by inherent limitations, including low treatment efficiency, secondary pollution risks, and poor universality. To address this issue, a copper-based metal-organic framework (Cu-MOF) was synthesized via a solvothermal route in this study. Utilizing this Cu-MOF as a hard template, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were immobilized within its cage-like porous channels through an <jats:italic>in-situ</jats:italic> reduction strategy, yielding a Ag@Cu-MOF composite photocatalytic material. The degradation performance of this composite toward oil pollutants derived from marine oil spills was systematically evaluated under UV-visible hybrid light irradiation. The experimental results demonstrated that when the loading content of Ag NPs was optimized to 5%, the composite achieved a degradation efficiency of 95.1% toward simulated oil spill pollutants (with crude oil employed as the model contaminant) at an initial concentration of 100 mg·L <jats:sup>-1</jats:sup> within 2 hours. This degradation efficiency was significantly superior to that of pristine Cu-MOF (51.3%) and bare Ag NPs (25.9%). Mechanistic investigations revealed that the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) effect of Ag NPs enables the extension of the material’s light response range to the visible spectral region. Concurrently, the Schottky junction formed at the interface between Cu-MOF and Ag facilitates the efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, which remarkably enhances the photocatalytic activity of the composite. Furthermore, the Ag@Cu-MOF composite exhibited excellent structural and functional stability in a simulated seawater system with a salinity of 3.5% (mimicking real marine conditions). After four consecutive reuse cycles, the degradation efficiency remained above 88%, which not only validates the material’s reusability but also provides a novel material platform and technical paradigm for the efficient remediation of marine oil spills, holding great significance for advancing coastal ecological restoration practices.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"204 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147368197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-03-06DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1787597
Ali Ibrahim, Noura Alkarbi, Meera Alsaadi, Alyazyeh Almazrouei, Sara Alshamsi, Mohamed A. Hamouda
Effective estimation of water quality parameters is essential for the sustainability of the coastal ecosystem. This research examines the potential use of Sentinel-2 Satellite images with machine learning models to measure the concentrations of Cholorophyll-a (Chl-a) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in the coastal area of Abu Dhabi. Google Earth Engine (GEE) was utilized to obtain Sentinel-2 Level-2A surface reflectance values, which are collocated with the in situ data. Field measurements were obtained from various locations, with 365 and 196 available samples for Chl-a and TSS, respectively. The former had 165 collocated points, whereas the latter had only 77 points. For feature engineering, two strategies were compared: spectral indices from the literature and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with raw bands. Four machine learning algorithms were examined to find the optimal model for each parameter by using 5-fold cross-validated hyperparameter tuning. The selected models are Random Forest Regression (RFR), Support Vector Regression (SVR), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), and Partial Least Squares (PLS) Regression. For Chl-a, the analysis showed that a general model was limited by localized bloom events near coastal outlets. Creating a specialized “Ambient-Conditions” model by excluding these outliers greatly improved performance. The optimal Chl-a model (XGB with PCA on six bands) achieved the highest accuracy with Test R 2 = 0.7 and Test RMSE of 1.62 µg/L, representing an 80% improvement in precision compared to the general model trained on the full dataset (Test R² = 0.65, RMSE = 8.21 µg/L). PCA + Random Forest (on 10 bands) was the optimal model for TSS, with R 2 = 0.61, despite the small dataset size. The results demonstrated that merging machine learning and remote sensing is effective for retrieving Chl-a and TSS in challenging marine waters.
{"title":"Satellite-based machine learning models for chlorophyll-a and TSS retrieval in Abu Dhabi’s coastal waters","authors":"Ali Ibrahim, Noura Alkarbi, Meera Alsaadi, Alyazyeh Almazrouei, Sara Alshamsi, Mohamed A. Hamouda","doi":"10.3389/fmars.2026.1787597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1787597","url":null,"abstract":"Effective estimation of water quality parameters is essential for the sustainability of the coastal ecosystem. This research examines the potential use of Sentinel-2 Satellite images with machine learning models to measure the concentrations of Cholorophyll-a (Chl-a) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) in the coastal area of Abu Dhabi. Google Earth Engine (GEE) was utilized to obtain Sentinel-2 Level-2A surface reflectance values, which are collocated with the <jats:italic>in situ</jats:italic> data. Field measurements were obtained from various locations, with 365 and 196 available samples for Chl-a and TSS, respectively. The former had 165 collocated points, whereas the latter had only 77 points. For feature engineering, two strategies were compared: spectral indices from the literature and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with raw bands. Four machine learning algorithms were examined to find the optimal model for each parameter by using 5-fold cross-validated hyperparameter tuning. The selected models are Random Forest Regression (RFR), Support Vector Regression (SVR), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), and Partial Least Squares (PLS) Regression. For Chl-a, the analysis showed that a general model was limited by localized bloom events near coastal outlets. Creating a specialized “Ambient-Conditions” model by excluding these outliers greatly improved performance. The optimal Chl-a model (XGB with PCA on six bands) achieved the highest accuracy with Test R <jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.7 and Test RMSE of 1.62 µg/L, representing an 80% improvement in precision compared to the general model trained on the full dataset (Test R² = 0.65, RMSE = 8.21 µg/L). PCA + Random Forest (on 10 bands) was the optimal model for TSS, with R <jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.61, despite the small dataset size. The results demonstrated that merging machine learning and remote sensing is effective for retrieving Chl-a and TSS in challenging marine waters.","PeriodicalId":12479,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Marine Science","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2026-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147368198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：