Factors structuring microbial communities in highly impacted coastal marine sediments (Mar Menor lagoon, SE Spain).

Coastal marine lagoons are environments highly vulnerable to anthropogenic pressures such as agriculture nutrient loading or runoff from metalliferous mining. Sediment microorganisms, which are key components in the biogeochemical cycles, can help attenuate these impacts by accumulating nutrients and pollutants. The Mar Menor, located in the southeast of Spain, is an example of a coastal lagoon strongly altered by anthropic pressures, but the microbial community inhabiting its sediments remains unknown.

Sustainable desalination: Long-term monitoring of brine discharge in the marine environment.

The environmental impact of desalination is the most important concern related to its sustainable development. We present the results of a long-term environmental plan to monitor brine discharge (BD) from a desalination plant located in a high environmental value area in Spain. Generalized additive models were used to analyze the biological parameters of biological communities.

Long-Distance Benefits of Marine Reserves: Myth or Reality?

Long-distance (>40-km) dispersal from marine reserves is poorly documented; yet, it can provide essential benefits such as seeding fished areas or connecting marine reserves into networks. From a meta-analysis, we suggest that the spatial scale of marine connectivity is underestimated due to the limited geographic extent of sampling designs. We also found that the largest marine reserves (>1000km) are the most isolated.

Habitat continuity effects on gradients of fish biomass across marine protected area boundaries.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) could be useful as fisheries management tools for the exportation of pelagic eggs, larvae and adult fish. A decreasing gradient of fish biomass across MPAs boundary may indicate export. We determine whether gradients of decreasing biomass of fish assemblage occurred in Tabarca Marine Reserve over two habitats with different continuity across the boundaries, to test if the patchy nature of the marine environment might act as a barrier for the fish export.