Transcriptomics aids in uncovering the metabolic shifts and molecular machinery of Schizochytrium limacinum during biotransformation of hydrophobic substrates to docosahexaenoic acid.

Background: Biotransformation of waste oil into value-added nutraceuticals provides a sustainable strategy. Thraustochytrids are heterotrophic marine protists and promising producers of omega (ω) fatty acids. Although the metabolic routes for the assimilation of hydrophilic carbon substrates such as glucose are known for these microbes, the mechanisms employed for the conversion of hydrophobic substrates are not well established.

120-years of ecological monitoring data shows that the risk of overhunting is increased by environmental degradation for an isolated marine mammal population: The Baltic grey seal.

The Baltic Sea is home to a genetically isolated and morphologically distinct grey seal population. This population has been the subject of 120-years of careful documentation, from detailed records of bounty statistics to annual monitoring of health and abundance. It has also been exposed to a range of well-documented stressors, including hunting, pollution and climate change.

Plastics in the environment in the context of UV radiation, climate change and the Montreal Protocol: UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, Update 2023.

This Assessment Update by the Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (EEAP) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) considers the interactive effects of solar UV radiation, global warming, and other weathering factors on plastics. The Assessment illustrates the significance of solar UV radiation in decreasing the durability of plastic materials, degradation of plastic debris, formation of micro- and nanoplastic particles and accompanying leaching of potential toxic compounds. Micro- and nanoplastics have been found in all ecosystems, the atmosphere, and in humans.

Applying genetic technologies to combat infectious diseases in aquaculture.

Disease and parasitism cause major welfare, environmental and economic concerns for global aquaculture. In this review, we examine the status and potential of technologies that exploit genetic variation in host resistance to tackle this problem. We argue that there is an urgent need to improve understanding of the genetic mechanisms involved, leading to the development of tools that can be applied to boost host resistance and reduce the disease burden.

Negative Coupling: The Coincidence of Premating Isolating Barriers Can Reduce Reproductive Isolation.

Speciation can be mediated by a variety of reproductive barriers, and the interaction among different barriers has often been shown to enhance overall reproductive isolation, a process referred to as "coupling." Here, we analyze a population genetics model to study the establishment of linkage disequilibrium (LD) among loci involved in multiple premating barriers, an aspect that has received little theoretical attention to date. We consider a simple genetic framework underlying two distinct premating barriers, each encoded by a preference locus and its associated mating trait locus.

An historical "wreck": A transcriptome assembly of the naval shipworm, Teredo navalis Linnaeus, 1978.

Historically famous for their negative impact on human-built marine wood structures, mollusc shipworms play a central ecological role in marine ecosystems. Their association with bacterial symbionts, providing cellulolytic and nitrogen-fixing activities, underscores their exceptional wood-eating and wood-boring behaviours, improving energy transfer and the recycling of essential nutrients locked in the wood cellulose. Importantly, from a molecular standpoint, a minute of omic resources are available from this lineage of Bivalvia.

A brittle star is born: Ontogeny of luminous capabilities in Amphiura filiformis.

Bioluminescence is the production of visible light by living organisms thanks to a chemical reaction, implying the oxidation of a substrate called luciferin catalyzed by an enzyme, the luciferase. The luminous brittle star Amphiura filiformis depends on coelenterazine (i.e.

Do Ionic Liquids Exhibit the Required Characteristics to Dissolve, Extract, Stabilize, and Purify Proteins? Past-Present-Future Assessment.

Proteins are highly labile molecules, thus requiring the presence of appropriate solvents and excipients in their liquid milieu to keep their stability and biological activity. In this field, ionic liquids (ILs) have gained momentum in the past years, with a relevant number of works reporting their successful use to dissolve, stabilize, extract, and purify proteins. Different approaches in protein-IL systems have been reported, namely, proteins dissolved in () neat ILs, () ILs as co-solvents, () ILs as adjuvants, () ILs as surfactants, () ILs as phase-forming components of aqueous biphasic systems, and () IL-polymer-protein/peptide conjugates.

Enhanced risk of record-breaking regional temperatures during the 2023-24 El Niño.

In 2023, the development of El Niño is poised to drive a global upsurge in surface air temperatures (SAT), potentially resulting in unprecedented warming worldwide. Nevertheless, the regional patterns of SAT anomalies remain diverse, obscuring where historical warming records may be surpassed in the forthcoming year. Our study underscores the significant influence of El Niño and the persistence of climate signals on the inter-annual variability of regional SAT, both in amplitude and spatial distribution.

Benzalkonium chloride disinfectant residues stimulate biofilm formation and increase survival of bacterial pathogens.

spp. are opportunistic human and animal pathogens found ubiquitously in marine environments. Globally, there is a predicted rise in the prevalence of spp.

Exploring the antioxidant and antimicrobial potential of three common seaweeds of Saint Martin's Island of Bangladesh.

Antioxidants, which have long been deemed an indispensable guardian of human health, play a pivotal role in bolstering the body's defense against a plethora of diseases. Three well-recognized seaweeds in Bangladesh, including , and , were subjected to meticulous analysis to reveal their phytochemical composition, antioxidant activity, and antimicrobial efficacy using advanced spectroscopic and disc diffusion methods. Intriguingly, we observed that emerges as frontrunners, possessing a substantial arsenal of phenol (143.

Diverse pathways to speciation revealed by marine snails.

Speciation is a key evolutionary process that is not yet fully understood. Combining population genomic and ecological data from multiple diverging pairs of marine snails (Littorina) supports the search for speciation mechanisms. Placing pairs on a one-dimensional speciation continuum, from undifferentiated populations to species, obscured the complexity of speciation.

Biotic interactions between benthic infauna and aerobic methanotrophs mediate methane fluxes from coastal sediments.

Coastal ecosystems dominate oceanic methane (CH4) emissions. However, there is limited knowledge about how biotic interactions between infauna and aerobic methanotrophs (i.e.

Vittrup Man-The life-history of a genetic foreigner in Neolithic Denmark.

The lethally maltreated body of Vittrup Man was deposited in a Danish bog, probably as part of a ritualised sacrifice. It happened between c. 3300 and 3100 cal years BC, i.

Mass spectroscopy reveals compositional differences in copepodamides from limnic and marine copepods.

Marine copepods, the most abundant animals in the global ocean, imprint their surrounding waters with chemical cues, called copepodamides. Copepodamides induce defensive traits such as toxin production, bioluminescence, and colony size plasticity in a variety of marine phytoplankton. The role of copepodamides in freshwater ecosystems is, however, unknown.

Genetic Coupling of Mate Recognition Systems in the Genomic Era.

The concept of "genetic coupling" in mate recognition systems arose in the 1960s as a potential mechanism to maintain coordination between signals and receivers during evolutionary divergence. At its most basic it proposed that the same genes might influence trait and preference, and therefore mutations could result in coordinated changes in both traits. Since then, the concept has expanded in scope and is often used to include linkage or genetic correlation between recognition system components.

Emergence and dissemination of epidemic-causing OXA-244 carbapenemase-producing Escherichia coli ST38 through hospital sewage in Norway, 2020-2022.

Background: Population-based sewage surveillance has emerged as a promising approach for studying the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in pathogens.

Aim: To determine the temporal prevalence of cefotaxime-resistant Escherichia coli in sewage from five sewage treatment plants located in Bergen city, to determine whether ESBL- and carbapenemase-producing E. coli are consistently disseminated in the receiving environment through sewage.

Sources and contamination routes of seafood with human pathogenic Vibrio spp.: A Farm-to-Fork approach.

Vibrio spp., known human foodborne pathogens, thrive in freshwater, estuaries, and marine settings, causing vibriosis upon ingestion. The rising global vibriosis cases due to climate change necessitate a deeper understanding of Vibrio epidemiology and human transmission.

Creating New Antifoulants Using the Tools and Tactics of Medicinal Chemistry.

The unwanted accumulation of marine micro- and macroorganisms such as algae and barnacles on submerged man-made structures and vessel hulls is a major challenge for any marine operation. Known as biofouling, this problem leads to reduced hydrodynamic efficiency, significantly increased fuel usage, microbially induced corrosion, and, if not managed appropriately, eventual loss of both performance and structural integrity. Ship hull biofouling in the international maritime transport network conservatively accounts for 0.

Deep learning to extract the meteorological by-catch of wildlife cameras.

Microclimate-proximal climatic variation at scales of metres and minutes-can exacerbate or mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. However, most microclimate studies are temperature centric, and do not consider meteorological factors such as sunshine, hail and snow. Meanwhile, remote cameras have become a primary tool to monitor wild plants and animals, even at micro-scales, and deep learning tools rapidly convert images into ecological data.

Assessment of hydrogen peroxide as a bioindicator of stress in seaweed aquaculture.

The rapid expansion in commercial seaweed farming has highlighted the need for more effective monitoring methods, and health diagnostics. The production of the reactive oxygen species (ROS) hydrogen peroxide (HO) is a trait that is tied to all major macroalgal groups and holds significance both for its involvement in the oxidative stress response and in the production of climatically relevant gases such as halocarbons. Observations of increased production of HO by plants as a stress response, along with its comparative stability and ease of quantification in seawater in comparison to other ROS, suggest that HO could be used as an indicator of health.

Hidden cost of pH variability in seagrass beds on marine calcifiers under ocean acidification.

Coastal ecosystems experience large environmental variability leading to local adaptation. The key role of variability and adaptation in modulating the biological sensitivity to ocean acidification is increasingly acknowledged. Monitoring and understanding the ecological niche at the right spatio-temporal scale is key to understand the sensitivity of any organism and ecosystems.

Global species delimitation of the cosmopolitan marine littoral earthworm Pontodrilus litoralis (Grube, 1855).

The marine littoral earthworm Pontodrilus litoralis (Grube, 1855) is widely distributed and is reported as a single species. This study utilized an integrative taxonomic approach based upon morphological examination, phylogenetic reconstruction, and molecular species delimitation, to test whether the taxon is a single species or a species complex. For this, a total of 114 P.