Modelling pollutants transport scenarios based on the X-Press Pearl disaster.

The MV X-Press Pearl accident near Sri Lanka in May 2021 released several pollutants into the ocean, including 1843.3 t of urea, raising concerns about the impact on the region. This study uses a coupled ocean (NEMO)-biogeochemistry (ERSEM) model to simulate urea dispersion under various scenarios.

Moving from features to functions: Bridging disciplinary understandings of urban environments to support healthy people and ecosystems.

Contact with nature can contribute to health and wellbeing, but knowledge gaps persist regarding the environmental characteristics that promote these benefits. Understanding and maximising these benefits is particularly important in urban areas, where opportunities for such contact is limited. At the same time, we are facing climate and ecological crises which require policy and practice to support ecosystem functioning.

Simple and Accurate Representation of Cumulative Nighttime Leaf Respiratory CO Efflux.

Leaf respiratory carbon loss decreases independent of temperature as the night progresses. Detailed nighttime measurements needed to quantify cumulative respiratory carbon loss at night are challenging under both lab and field conditions. We provide a simple yet accurate approach to represent variation in nighttime temperature-independent leaf respiratory CO efflux in environments with both stable and fluctuating temperatures, which requires no detailed measurements throughout the night.

Interpretation of river water quality data is strongly controlled by measurement time and frequency.

Water quality monitoring at high temporal frequency provides a detailed picture of environmental stressors and ecosystem response, which is essential to protect and restore lake and river health. An effective monitoring network requires knowledge on optimal monitoring frequency and data variability. Here, high-frequency hydrochemical datasets (dissolved oxygen, pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, water temperature, total reactive phosphorus, total phosphorus and nitrate) from six UK catchments were analysed to 1) understand the lowest measurement frequency needed to fully capture the variation in the datasets; and 2) investigate bias caused by sampling at different times of the day.

The genome sequence of the 6-spot burnet, (Linnaeus, 1758).

We present a genome assembly from an individual female (6-spot burnet; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Zygaenidae). The genome sequence is 365.9 megabases in span.

Antarctic krill sequester similar amounts of carbon to key coastal blue carbon habitats.

The carbon sequestration potential of open-ocean pelagic ecosystems is vastly under-reported compared to coastal vegetation 'blue carbon' systems. Here we show that just a single pelagic harvested species, Antarctic krill, sequesters a similar amount of carbon through its sinking faecal pellets as marshes, mangroves and seagrass. Due to their massive population biomass, fast-sinking faecal pellets and the modest depths that pellets need to reach to achieve sequestration (mean is 381 m), Antarctic krill faecal pellets sequester 20 MtC per productive season (spring to early Autumn).

A critical meta-analysis of predicted no effect concentrations for antimicrobial resistance selection in the environment.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the greatest threats to human health with a growing body of evidence demonstrating that selection for AMR can occur at environmental antimicrobial concentrations. Understanding the concentrations at which selection for resistance may occur is critical to help inform environmental risk assessments and highlight where mitigation strategies are required. A variety of experimental and data approaches have been used to determine these concentrations.

Benchmarking soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration provides more robust soil health assessment than the SOC/clay ratio at European scale.

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) confers benefits to soil health, biodiversity, underpins carbon sequestration and ameliorates land degradation. One recommendation is to increase SOC such that the SOC to clay ratio (SOC/clay) exceeds 1/13, yet normalising SOC levels based on clay alone gives misleading indications of soil structure and the potential to store additional carbon. Building on work by Poeplau & Don (2023) to benchmark observed against predicted SOC, we advance an alternative indicator: the ratio between observed and "typical" SOC (O/T SOC) for pan-European application.

Agrochemical inputs to managed oil palm plantations are a probable risk to ecosystems: Results from a screening level risk assessment.

Palm oil is a high value crop widely grown in the tropics. The management of palm oil is characterised by widespread agrochemical use. Here we report the results of a screening level risk assessment conducted from the available literature on the environmental concentration of agrochemicals in surface waters and soils in palm oil growing areas.

From tree to plot: investigating stem CO efflux and its drivers along a logging gradient in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

Stem respiration constitutes a substantial proportion of autotrophic respiration in forested ecosystems, but its drivers across different spatial scales and land-use gradients remain poorly understood. This study quantifies and examines the impact of logging disturbance on stem CO efflux (EA) in Malaysian Borneo. EA was quantified at tree- and stand-level in nine 1-ha plots over a logging gradient from heavily logged to old-growth using the static chamber method.

Network analysis to reveal the most commonly detected compounds in predator-prey pairs in freshwater and marine mammals and fish in Europe.

Marine and freshwater mammalian predators and fish samples, retrieved from environmental specimen banks (ESBs), natural history museum (NHMs) and other scientific collections, were analysed by LIFE APEX partners for a wide range of legacy and emerging contaminants (2545 in total). Network analysis was used to visualize the chemical occurrence data and reveal the predominant chemical mixtures for the freshwater and marine environments. For this purpose, a web tool was created to explore these chemical mixtures in predator-prey pairs.

Fecal IgE Analyses Reveal a Role for Stratifying Peanut-Allergic Patients.

Background And Objective: Peanut allergy (PA) is an IgE-mediated food allergy with variable clinical outcomes. Mild-to-severe symptoms affect various organs and, often, the gastrointestinal tract. The role of intestine-derived IgE antibodies in astrointestinal PA symptoms is poorly understood.

Regional invasion history and land use shape the prevalence of non-native species in local assemblages.

The ecological impact of non-native species arises from their establishment in local assemblages. However, the rates of non-native spread in new regions and their determinants have not been comprehensively studied. Here, we combined global databases documenting the occurrence of non-native species and residence of non-native birds, mammals, and vascular plants at regional and local scales to describe how the likelihood of non-native occurrence and their proportion in local assemblages relate with their residence time and levels of human usage in different ecosystems.

Optimal approaches for COVID-19 control: the use of vaccines and lockdowns across societal groups.

Background: By March 2023, the COVID-19 illness had caused over 6.8 million deaths globally. Countries restricted disease spread through non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs; e.

Visualisation of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in cultured cells, infected sheep and human tissue sections using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH).

We describe the development, testing and specificity of a modified oligonucleotide probe for the specific detection of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) in culture and in infected tissue using fluorescent in situ hybridisation and confocal microscopy. The detection of MAP in both animal and human tissue using our modified probe allows for a more rapid diagnosis of MAP infection compared to the more often applied detection methods of culture and PCR and has the potential for quantification of cellular abundance.

Increased crossing of thermal stress thresholds of vegetation under global warming.

Temperature extremes exert a significant influence on terrestrial ecosystems, but the precise levels at which these extremes trigger adverse shifts in vegetation productivity have remained elusive. In this study, we have derived two critical thresholds, using standard deviations (SDs) of growing-season temperature and satellite-based vegetation productivity as key indicators. Our findings reveal that, on average, vegetation productivity experiences rapid suppression when confronted with temperature anomalies exceeding 1.

Improved control of Trialeurodes vaporariorum using mixture combinations of entomopathogenic fungi and the chemical insecticide spiromesifen.

Greenhouse whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum) is a major global pest, causing direct damage to plants and transmitting viral plant diseases. Management of T. vaporariorum is problematic because of widespread pesticide resistance, and many greenhouse growers rely on biological control agents to regulate T.

Potential drivers of changing ecological conditions in English and Welsh rivers since 1990.

River invertebrate communities across Europe have been changing in response to variations in water quality over recent decades, but the underlying drivers are difficult to identify because of the complex stressors and environmental heterogeneity involved. Here, using data from ∼4000 locations across England and Wales, collected over 29 years, we use three approaches to help resolve the drivers of spatiotemporal variation in the face of this complexity: i) mapping changes in invertebrate richness and community composition; ii) structural equation modelling (SEM) to distinguish land cover, water quality and climatic influences; and iii) geographically weighted regression (GWR) to identify how the apparent relationships between invertebrate communities and abiotic variables change across the area. Mapping confirmed widespread increases in richness and the proportion of pollution-sensitive taxa across much of England and Wales.

A comparison of the MPN and pour plate methods for estimating shellfish contamination by Escherichia coli.

Aims: Shellfish production areas are classified for suitability for human consumption using counts of Escherichia coli in shellfish samples. Two alternative laboratory methods are approved in the European Union and UK for measuring E. coli in shellfish samples; the most probable number (MPN) and pour plate methods.