Harpacticoid copepods expand the scope and provide family-level indicators of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill deep-sea impacts.

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout and oil spill began on April 20, 2010 in the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) deep sea (1525 m). Previous studies documented an impacted area of deep-sea floor totaling 321 km and were based on taxonomy at the macrofauna family level and the meiofauna major taxonomic level. In the present study, finer taxonomic resolution of the meiofauna community was employed, specifically harpacticoid copepod family biodiversity.

Effects of climate change on Lepidoptera pollen loads and their pollination services in space and time.

Shifts in flowering time among plant communities as a result of climate change, including extreme weather events, are a growing concern. These plant phenological changes may affect the quantity and quality of food sources for specialized insect pollinators. Plant-pollinator interactions are threatened by habitat alterations and biodiversity loss, and changes in these interactions may lead to declines in flower visitors and pollination services.

Testing the applicability of random forest modeling to examine benthic foraminiferal responses to multiple environmental parameters.

The main environmental variables controlling benthic foraminiferal distributions were identified and used to assess their influence on ecological indices developed as predictors of Ecological Quality Status (EcoQS) in marine ecosystems. Gradient forest and random forest models were applied to assess the predictive value of a selection of abiotic (environmental) and biotic (foraminifera) variables in a costal marine area in the central Adriatic Sea (Italy). This approach yields evidence that the predictor variables sand, silt, Pollution Load Index, and TN have the greatest influence on the distribution of benthic foraminifera in this area.