Nutrient Explorer: An analytical framework to visualize and investigate drivers of surface water quality.

Excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in lakes can lead to eutrophication, hypoxia, and algal blooms that may harm aquatic life and people. Some U.S.

Understanding the response of the Western Mediterranean cephalopods to environment and fishing in a context of alleged winners of change.

Increasing impacts of both fisheries and climate change have resulted in shifts in the structure and functioning of marine communities. One recurrent observation is the rise of cephalopods as fish recede. This is generally attributed to the removal of main predators and competitors by fishing, while mechanistic evidence is still lacking.

Decadal changes in biomass and distribution of key fisheries species on Newfoundland's Grand Banks.

Canadian fisheries management has embraced the precautionary approach and the incorporation of ecosystem information into decision-making processes. Accurate estimation of fish stock biomass is crucial for ensuring sustainable exploitation of marine resources. Spatio-temporal models can provide improved indices of biomass as they capture spatial and temporal correlations in data and can account for environmental factors influencing biomass distributions.

Spatial patterns of β-diversity under cumulative pressures in the Western Mediterranean Sea.

Understanding the spatial dynamics of biodiversity is an essential issue in marine ecology and requires combining information at local and regional scales. β-diversity is an important measure of biodiversity that informs on the differences in community composition between sites and, thus, in the species turnover in the community structure. In this study, we analysed and predicted the spatial patterns of β-diversity for fishes, invertebrates and the demersal assemblage along the Iberian Mediterranean coast.

Retrospective analysis of the pelagic ecosystem of the Western Mediterranean Sea: Drivers, changes and effects.

In the Western Mediterranean Sea, forage fishes have changed in abundance, body condition, growth, reproduction, and distribution in the last decades. Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain these changes, including increase in fishing mortality; changes in environmental conditions affecting species fitness, and planktonic productivity and quality; recovery of top predators; and increase in competitors. We investigated the main drivers and changes of the pelagic ecosystem and their effects using an ecosystem-based modelling approach.

Heterogeneous cardiac sympathetic innervation gradients promote arrhythmogenesis in murine dilated cardiomyopathy.

Ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) in heart failure are enhanced by sympathoexcitation. However, radiotracer studies of catecholamine uptake in failing human hearts demonstrate a proclivity for VAs in patients with reduced cardiac sympathetic innervation. We hypothesized that this counterintuitive finding is explained by heterogeneous loss of sympathetic nerves in the failing heart.

Comparing Drivers of Spatial Variability in U.S. Lake and Stream Phosphorus Concentrations.

Decision makers need to know the drivers of surface water phosphorus (P) concentrations, the environmental factors that mediate P loading in freshwater systems, and where pollution sources and mediating factors are co-located to inform water quality restoration efforts. To provide this information, publicly available spatial data sets of P pollution sources and relevant environmental variables, like temperature, precipitation, and agricultural soil erodibility, were matched with >7,000 stream and lake total P observations throughout the conterminous United States. Using three statistical approaches, consisting of (a) correlation, (b) regression, and (c) machine learning techniques, we identified likely drivers of P concentrations.

Footprints in Action: How UVA Is Managing Its Sustainability Stewardship.

Evaluating sustainability stewardship at higher educational institutions is essential to working towards improving our environment. Many institutions have used environmental footprint indicators as a way to evaluate, track, and improve their impact on the environment. In this article, we present the web-based Integrated Environmental Footprint Tool (IEFT), which allows users to test how changes in certain activities impact nitrogen (N), greenhouse gases (GHG), phosphorus (P), and water (W) footprints for a university campus.

Modelling seabirds biodiversity through Bayesian Spatial Beta regression models: A proxy to inform marine protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea.

Seabirds are bioindicators of marine ecosystems health and one of the world's most endangered avian groups. The creation of marine protected areas plays an important role in the conservation of marine environment and its biodiversity. The distributions of top predators, as seabirds, have been commonly used for the management and creation of these figures of protection.

The trade-off between condition and growth shapes juveniles' survival of harvested demersal fish of the Mediterranean sea.

Fish body condition and growth are two interrelated traits closely associated with species life history and fitness, whose trade-off can ultimately impact population dynamics albeit seldom empirically demonstrated. They can intricately affect survival rates, which are particularly relevant for species under exploitation. Using individual spatiotemporal information in Northwestern Mediterranean, we document for the first time the existence of a trade-off between condition and growth in regulating survival dynamics in two important fish species for the Mediterranean fisheries that are characterized by contrasting life histories.

Sardines at a junction: Seascape genomics reveals ecological and oceanographic drivers of variation in the NW Mediterranean Sea.

By evaluating genetic variation across the entire genome, one can address existing questions in a novel way while raising new ones. The latter includes how different local environments influence adaptive and neutral genomic variation within and among populations, providing insights into local adaptation of natural populations and their responses to global change. Here, under a seascape genomic approach, ddRAD data of 4609 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 398 sardines (Sardina pilchardus) collected in 11 Mediterranean and one Atlantic site were generated.

Differential effect of fisheries to the COVID-19 pandemic in the region of Andalusia (Spain).

Fishing is one of the most widespread and important human activities in coastal ecosystems and it plays a fundamental role in employment and the economy of coastal communities. However, in the period 2020-2021, the global outbreak of COVID-19 negatively affected fishing economic activity. Against this background, Andalusia (South of Spain) is an important region in which the resilience of different fishing exploitation systems can be studied, but within the same social and economic framework.

Freshwater Salinization Syndrome Alters Retention and Release of 'Chemical Cocktails' along Flowpaths: from Stormwater Management to Urban Streams.

We investigate impacts of Freshwater Salinization Syndrome (FSS) on mobilization of salts, nutrients, and metals in urban streams and stormwater BMPs by analyzing original data on concentrations and fluxes of salts, nutrients, and metals from 7 urban watersheds in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. and synthesizing literature data.

A mesoscale analysis of relations between fish species richness and environmental and anthropogenic pressures in the Mediterranean Sea.

Although there is a great knowledge about individual anthropogenic threats to different fish species in the Mediterranean Sea, little is known about how these threats accumulate and interact to affect fish species richness in conjunction with environmental dynamics. This study assesses the role of these threats in the fish richness component and identifies the main areas where the interaction between fish species richness and threats is highest. Our results show that fish richness seems to be higher in saltier and colder areas where the chlorophyll-a and phosphate concentrations are lower.

Long-term assessment of floodplain reconnection as a stream restoration approach for managing nitrogen in ground and surface waters.

Stream restoration is a popular approach for managing nitrogen (N) in degraded, flashy urban streams. Here, we investigated the long-term effects of stream restoration involving floodplain reconnection on riparian and in-stream N transport and transformation in an urban stream in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We examined relationships between hydrology, chemistry, and biology using a Before/After-Control/Impact (BACI) study design to determine how hydrologic flashiness, nitrate (NO ) concentrations (mg/L), and N flux, both NO and total N (kg/yr), changed after the restoration and floodplain hydrologic reconnection to its stream channel.

Parsing Weather Variability and Wildfire Effects on the Post-Fire Changes in Daily Stream Flows : A Quantile-Based Statistical Approach and its Application.

Determining wildland fire impacts on streamflow can be problematic as the hydrology in burned watersheds is influenced by post-fire weather conditions. This study presents a quantile-based analytical framework for assessing fire impacts on low and peak daily flow magnitudes, while accounting for post-fire weather influences. This framework entails (a) the bootstrap method to compute the relative change in the post-fire annual flow and weather statistics, (b) Double Mass analysis to detect if post-fire baseflow and quick flow yield ratios are significantly altered, and (c) a quantile regression method to parse fire effects on flow at a specific quantile.

Trophic niche overlap between round sardinella () and sympatric pelagic fish species in the Western Mediterranean.

The northward expansion of round sardinella () in the Mediterranean Sea, together with declines and fluctuations in biomass and landings of European sardine () and anchovy () observed in recent decades, may suggest potential inter-specific competition in the pelagic domain. The coexistence of sympatric zooplanktivorous fish species might therefore be exposed in part to trophic niche overlap and competition for food. Combining visual diet characterization under the microscope with DNA metabarcoding from stomach contents of fish collected in spring results show that predation on relatively large krill is equally important for sardinella than for the other two niche overlapping species.

Making spatial-temporal marine ecosystem modelling better - A perspective.

Marine Ecosystem Models (MEMs) provide a deeper understanding of marine ecosystem dynamics. The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development has highlighted the need to deploy these complex mechanistic spatial-temporal models to engage policy makers and society into dialogues towards sustainably managed oceans. From our shared perspective, MEMs remain underutilized because they still lack formal validation, calibration, and uncertainty quantifications that undermines their credibility and uptake in policy arenas.

Energy content of anchovy and sardine using surrogate calorimetry methods.

European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardine (Sardina pilchardus) are crucial species for the marine ecosystem of the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea. They account for a high percentage of fish landings and they represent an important economic income for the fishery sector. Concerns over their stock status are rising in recent years as biomass, growth, reproductive capacity, and body condition of both species are declining, with latitudinal variations.

Wildfires can increase regulated nitrate, arsenic, and disinfection byproduct violations and concentrations in public drinking water supplies.

Wildfires are a concern for water quality in the United States, particularly in the wildland-urban interface of populous areas. Wildfires combust vegetation and surface soil organic matter, reduce plant nutrient uptake, and can alter the composition of runoff and receiving waters. At the wildland-urban interface, fires can also introduce contaminants from the combustion of man-made structures.

Equity in science: advocating for a triple-blind review system.

We propose 'triple-blind review' for peer-reviewed journals - a process that keeps author identities and affiliations blind to manuscript editors until after first appraisal. Blinded appraisal will help to reduce the biases that negatively affect under-represented and minority scientists, ultimately better supporting equity in scientific publishing.

Coral distribution and bleaching vulnerability areas in Southwestern Atlantic under ocean warming.

Global climate change is a major threat to reefs by increasing the frequency and severity of coral bleaching events over time, reducing coral cover and diversity. Ocean warming may cause shifts in coral communities by increasing temperatures above coral's upper thermal limits in tropical regions, and by making extratropical regions (marginal reefs) more suitable and potential refugia. We used Bayesian models to project coral occurrence, cover and bleaching probabilities in Southwestern Atlantic and predicted how these probabilities will change under a high-emission scenario (RCP8.

Modelling the spatial distribution of Sardina pilchardus and Engraulis encrasicolus spawning habitat in the NW Mediterranean Sea.

We investigated the main drivers of eggs and larvae distributions of European sardine and anchovy from the NW Mediterranean Sea. We used Generalized Additive Models and satellite environmental data. Mainly sea surface temperature, but also currents, surface height, and primary production were significantly correlated with both species' early stages distributions.

Predicting potential compliance of small-scale fishers in Brazil: The need to increase trust to achieve fisheries management goals.

Many global management and conservation initiatives fail to prevent overfishing either because they do not plan for local engagement, surveillance, and enforcement, and/or because they fail to include alternatives for short-term losses. Thus, these initiatives do not gain support among fishers. In this study, we interviewed fishers to investigate their stated behavior toward fisheries regulations.