Extreme original data yield extreme decline effects.

Clements et al. respond to Munday's claim that his "reanalysis shows there is not an extreme decline effect in fish ocean acidification studies". They contend that extreme data reported in early studies authored by Dixson and Munday indeed result in an "extreme" decline effect in this field, and conclude that the decline effect is primarily driven by papers by particular authors.

Paths towards greater consensus building in experimental biology.

In a recent editorial, the Editors-in-Chief of Journal of Experimental Biology argued that consensus building, data sharing, and better integration across disciplines are needed to address the urgent scientific challenges posed by climate change. We agree and expand on the importance of cross-disciplinary integration and transparency to improve consensus building and advance climate change research in experimental biology. We investigated reproducible research practices in experimental biology through a review of open data and analysis code associated with empirical studies on three debated paradigms and for unrelated studies published in leading journals in comparative physiology and behavioural ecology over the last 10 years.

Meta-analysis reveals an extreme "decline effect" in the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behavior.

Ocean acidification-decreasing oceanic pH resulting from the uptake of excess atmospheric CO2-has the potential to affect marine life in the future. Among the possible consequences, a series of studies on coral reef fish suggested that the direct effects of acidification on fish behavior may be extreme and have broad ecological ramifications. Recent studies documenting a lack of effect of experimental ocean acidification on fish behavior, however, call this prediction into question.

Siltation negatively affects settlement and gaping behaviour in eastern oysters.

While high levels of siltation are known to be deleterious to eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica), the collective effect of suspended and bedded sediment is understudied from the perspective of oyster farming and bed restoration. In this study, we used laboratory experiments to explore spat settlement rates on a wild bed proxy substrate (i.e.

Re-evaluation of solutions to the problem of unprofessionalism in peer review.

Our recent paper ( https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-020-00096-x ) reported that 43% of reviewer comment sets (n=1491) shared with authors contained at least one unprofessional comment or an incomplete, inaccurate of unsubstantiated critique (IIUC).

Group versus individual exposure: Do methodological decisions in aquatic toxicology alter experimental results?

In aquatic toxicology, methods that are chosen for exposures have profound consequences on experimental outcomes and thus can skew policy initiatives. For example, as compared to single-organism exposures, toxicity test results of group exposures may be impacted by confounding factors such as social interactions between animals or individual variation in accumulation rates. To test for differences in organismal response between group and individual toxicological exposures, we exposed Daphnia magna to copper and subsequently compared the toxicity (median lethal concentration or LC50) between groups and individuals.

Behavioural responses to predators in Mediterranean mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) are unaffected by elevated pCO.

Ocean acidification is expected to affect marine organisms in the near future. Furthermore, abrupt short-term fluctuations in seawater pCO characteristic of near-shore coastal regions and high-density aquaculture sites currently have the potential to influence organismal and community functioning by altering animal behaviour. While anti-predator responses in fishes exposed to elevated pCO are well documented, such responses in benthic marine invertebrates are poorly studied.

Quantifying professionalism in peer review.

Background: The process of peer-review in academia has attracted criticism surrounding issues of bias, fairness, and professionalism; however, frequency of occurrence of such comments is unknown.

Methods: We evaluated 1491 sets of reviewer comments from the fields of "Ecology and Evolution" and "Behavioural Medicine," of which 920 were retrieved from the online review repository Publons and 571 were obtained from six early career investigators. Comment sets were coded for the occurrence of "unprofessional comments" and "incomplete, inaccurate or unsubstantiated critiques" using an a-prior rubric based on our published research.

Seawater acidification and temperature modulate anti-predator defenses in two co-existing Mytilus species.

The effects of short-term (7 days) experimental ocean acidification (-0.4 pH units) and warming (+5 °C) on anti-predator defenses of two sympatric Mytilus species from China, M. coruscus and M.

Transgenerational effects of short-term exposure to acidification and hypoxia on early developmental traits of the mussel Mytilus edulis.

Transgenerational effects of multiple stressors on marine organisms are emerging environmental themes. We thus experimentally tested for transgenerational effects of seawater acidification and hypoxia on the early development traits of the mussel Mytilus edulis. Fertilization rate, embryo deformity rate, and larval shell length were negatively impacted by acidification, while hypoxia had little effect except for increasing deformity rates under control pH conditions.

Elevated seawater temperature, not CO, negatively affects post-spawning adult mussels () under food limitation.

Pre-spawning blue mussels () appear sensitive to elevated temperature and robust to elevated CO; however, the effects of these stressors soon after investing energy into spawning remain unknown. Furthermore, while studies suggest that elevated CO affects the byssal attachment strength of from southern latitudes, CO and temperature impacts on the byssus strength of other species at higher latitudes remain undocumented. In a 90 day laboratory experiment, we exposed post-spawning adult blue mussels () from Atlantic Canada to three CO levels (CO ~625, 1295 and 2440 μatm) at two different temperatures (16°C and 22°C) and assessed energetic reserves on Day 90, byssal attachment strength on Days 30 and 60, and condition index and mortality on Days 30, 60 and 90.

Effects of CO-driven sediment acidification on infaunal marine bivalves: A synthesis.

While ocean acidification (OA) effects on marine organisms are well documented, impacts of sediment acidification on infaunal organisms are relatively understudied. Here we synthesize CO-driven sediment acidification effects on infaunal marine bivalves. While sediment carbonate system conditions can already exceed near-future OA projections, sediments can become even more acidic as overlying seawater pH decreases.