Methodology for defining homogeneous water bodies for management purposes.

European legislation requires monitoring of toxic algae in marine areas where shellfish are harvested for consumption. Monitoring assumes the existence of homogeneous water bodies, the definition of which have important implications for stakeholders and consumers. Yet, the definition of homogeneous water bodies remains unclear.

A versatile marine modelling tool applied to arctic, temperate and tropical waters.

The improved understanding of complex interactions of marine ecosystem components makes the use of fully coupled hydrodynamic, biogeochemical and individual based models more and more relevant. At the same time, the increasing complexity of the models and diverse user backgrounds calls for improved user friendliness and flexibility of the model systems. We present FlexSem, a versatile and user-friendly framework for 3D hydrodynamic, biogeochemical, individual based and sediment transport modelling.

Maritime Spatial Planning supported by systematic site selection: Applying Marxan for offshore wind power in the western Baltic Sea.

The development of offshore wind energy and other competing interests in sea space are a major incentive for designating marine and coastal areas for specific human activities. Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) considers human activities at sea in a more integrated way by analysing and designating spatial and temporal distributions of human activities based on ecological, economic and social targets. However, specific tools supporting spatial decisions at sea incorporating all relevant sectors are rarely adopted.

Ocean currents and acoustic backscatter data from shipboard ADCP measurements at three North Atlantic seamounts between 2004 and 2015.

Seamounts are amongst the most common physiographic structures of the deep-ocean landscape, but remoteness and geographic complexity have limited the systematic collection of integrated and multidisciplinary data in the past. Consequently, important aspects of seamount ecology and dynamics remain poorly studied. We present a data collection of ocean currents and raw acoustic backscatter from shipboard Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) measurements during six cruises between 2004 and 2015 in the tropical and subtropical Northeast Atlantic to narrow this gap.

Ecosystem engineering creates a direct nutritional link between 600-m deep cold-water coral mounds and surface productivity.

Cold-water corals (CWCs) form large mounds on the seafloor that are hotspots of biodiversity in the deep sea, but it remains enigmatic how CWCs can thrive in this food-limited environment. Here, we infer from model simulations that the interaction between tidal currents and CWC-formed mounds induces downwelling events of surface water that brings organic matter to 600-m deep CWCs. This positive feedback between CWC growth on carbonate mounds and enhanced food supply is essential for their sustenance in the deep sea and represents an example of ecosystem engineering of unparalleled magnitude.

Possible causes of a harbour porpoise mass stranding in Danish waters in 2005.

An unprecedented 85 harbour porpoises stranded freshly dead along approximately 100 km of Danish coastline from 7-15 April, 2005. This total is considerably above the mean weekly stranding rate for the whole of Denmark, both for any time of year, 1.23 animals/week (ranging from 0 to 20 during 2003-2008, excluding April 2005), and specifically in April, 0.