140 results match your criteria: "Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)[Affiliation]"

Although the symbiotic partnership between corals and algal endosymbionts has been extensively explored, interactions between corals, their algal endosymbionts and microbial associates are still less understood. Screening the response of natural microbial consortiums inside corals can aid in exploiting them as markers for dysbiosis interactions inside the coral holobiont. The coral microbiome includes archaea, bacteria, fungi, and viruses hypothesized to play a pivotal vital role in coral health and tolerance to heat stress condition via different physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis of blue carbon stocks in Brazilian mangroves. We evaluated the effect of characteristics and site status (impacted versus non-impacted) on carbon stocks found in the various compartments on total ecosystem carbon stock (TECS). TECS followed an inverse trend with the latitudinal position: the highest values were found on the North coast (mean 511 Mg C ha), followed by the Northeast and Southeast.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Climate change poses various threats to marine life, particularly in shallow tropical waters.

Objective: The impact of increased temperature and ultraviolet (UV) exposure on two photosymbiotic cnidarians, a common bubble-tip anemone and an upside-down jellyfish, was investigated.

Methods: To illustrate the response of aquatic organisms, the metabolomes of unstressed Entacmaea quadricolor and Cassiopea andromeda were compared for detailed metabolite profiling.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Climate change is causing problems for sea creatures like sea anemones and upside-down jellyfish, mainly from warmer oceans and harmful sunlight.
  • Scientists studied how these animals react when exposed to heat and UV light, finding they change their body chemistry.
  • They found different chemicals in jellyfish and sea anemones, showing that heat increases amino acids in jellyfish and both amino acids and sugars in sea anemones after a few days of UV exposure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Coral reefs support an incredible abundance and diversity of fish species, with reef-associated fisheries providing important sources of income, food, and dietary micronutrients to millions of people across the tropics. However, the rapid degradation of the world's coral reefs and the decline in their biodiversity may limit their capacity to supply nutritious and affordable seafood while meeting conservation goals for sustainability. Here, we conduct a global-scale analysis of how the nutritional quality of reef fish assemblages (nutritional contribution to the recommended daily intake of calcium, iron, and zinc contained in an average 100 g fish on the reef) relates to key environmental, socioeconomic, and ecological conditions, including two key metrics of fish biodiversity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Allelochemicals determine competition and grazing control in Alexandrium catenella.

Harmful Algae

September 2024

Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, School of Mathematics and Science, Ammerländer Heerstraße 114-118, 26219 Oldenburg, Germany; Systems Ecology Group, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), 28359 Bremen, Germany.

The production of allelochemicals by the toxigenic dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella is one of the suggested mechanisms to facilitate its bloom formation and persistence by outcompeting other phototrophic protists and reducing grazing pressure. In Southern California, toxic events caused by A. catenella and paralytic shellfish toxins (PSTs) regularly impact coastal ecosystems; however, the trophic interactions and mechanisms promoting this species in a food web context are still not fully understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The permeability of aquifers strongly influences groundwater flow characteristics. Worldwide, coastal groundwater is often the primary freshwater source for coastal communities and ecosystems but is also particularly vulnerable to abstraction since saltwater intrusion may threaten its quality. Thus, understanding coastal permeability is crucial to the sustainable use of coastal groundwater.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mangrove trees occur in a variety of geomorphic and sedimentary settings. Yet, studies investigating their role as habitat providers often focus on the most common biophysical types, such as deltaic, estuarine, open coast or lagoonal mangroves on soft sediments, disregarding less typical environments. Here, we investigated the influence of individual mangrove trees growing on a consolidated backreef system (Laucala Bay, Fiji) on habitat use by reef fishes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

is one of the dominant dinitrogen (N) fixers in the ocean, influencing global carbon and nitrogen cycles through biochemical reactions. Although its photosynthetic activity fluctuates rapidly, the physiological or ecological advantage of this fluctuation is unclear. We develop a metabolic model of that can perform daytime N fixation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Simultaneous ocean acidification and warming do not alter the lipid-associated biochemistry but induce enzyme activities in an asterinid starfish.

Sci Total Environ

July 2024

Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Fahrenheitstraße 6, 28359 Bremen, Germany; Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Str. 2-4, 28359 Bremen, Germany.

Ocean acidification and warming affect marine ecosystems from the molecular scale in organismal physiology to broad alterations of ecosystem functions. However, knowledge of their combined effects on tropical-subtropical intertidal species remains limited. Pushing the environmental range of marine species away from the optimum initiates stress impacting biochemical metabolic characteristics, with consequences on lipid-associated and enzyme biochemistry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Opinion dynamics are affected by cognitive biases and noise. While mathematical models have focused extensively on biases, we still know surprisingly little about how noise shapes opinion patterns. Here, we use an agent-based opinion dynamics model to investigate the interplay between confirmation bias-represented as bounded confidence-and different types of noise.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unveiling the intricate relationships between animal movement ecology, feeding behavior, and internal energy budgeting is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem functioning, especially on coral reefs under significant anthropogenic stress. Here, herbivorous fishes play a vital role as mediators between algae growth and coral recruitment. Our research examines the feeding preferences, bite rates, inter-bite distances, and foraging energy expenditure of the Brown surgeonfish () and the Yellowtail tang () within the fish community on a Red Sea coral reef.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Algal blooms are increasing worldwide, driven by elevated nutrient inputs. However, it is still unknown how tropical benthic algae will respond to heatwaves, which are expected to be more frequent under global warming. In the present study, a multifactorial experiment was carried out to investigate the potential synergistic effects of increased ammonium inputs (25 μM, control at 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthropogenic nutrients and phytoplankton diversity in Kenya's coastal waters: An ecological quality assessment of sea turtle foraging sites.

Mar Pollut Bull

February 2024

Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Fahrenheitstrasse 6, 28359 Bremen, Germany; Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Kiel University (CAU), Germany.

We assessed ecological quality status (EQS) of coastal waters following claims of increasing sea turtle fibro-papillomatosis (FP) infections in Kenya, a disease hypothesized to be associated with 'poor' ecological health. We established widespread phosphate (P) and silicate (Si) limitation, dissolved ammonium contamination and an increase in potential harmful algal blooming species. Variations in the EQS was established in the sites depending on the indicators used and seasons.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Social influence aligns people's opinions, but social identities and related in-group biases interfere with this alignment. For instance, the recent rise of young climate activists (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Turbidity buffers coral bleaching under extreme wind and rainfall conditions.

Mar Environ Res

November 2023

Institute of Marine Sciences (LABOMAR), Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil; Reef Systems Group, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Fahrenheitstraße 6, 28359 Bremen, Germany.

Coral reefs in turbid waters have been hypothesized to be a refuge from climate change. These naturally occurring communities were brought into the spotlight because some of their species exhibited record levels of resistance to marine heatwaves (MHWs) by disturbance-tolerant corals. However, long-term monitoring data on the drivers of coral bleaching in these extreme reef habitats are scarce.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Meso- and microplastic composition, distribution patterns and drivers: A snapshot of plastic pollution on Brazilian beaches.

Sci Total Environ

January 2024

Núcleo de Ecologia Aquática e Pesca da Amazônia (NEAP), Universidade Federal do Pará, Avenida Perimetral 2651, Belém, Brasil; Instituto de Ciências do Mar (LABOMAR), Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Avenida da Abolição 3207, Fortaleza, Ceará 60165-081, Brasil.

Pollution by plastics is a worldwide problem on par with climatic change and biological invasions. In coastal sediments, plastic particles tend to accumulate and persist over the long term. We assessed the plastic pollution using a standardized surface sediment sampling protocol on 22 sandy beaches along >4600 km of the Brazilian coast.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Sustainably managing fisheries requires regular and reliable evaluation of stock status. However, most multispecies reef fisheries around the globe tend to lack research and monitoring capacity, preventing the estimation of sustainable reference points against which stocks can be assessed. Here, combining fish biomass data for >2000 coral reefs, we estimate site-specific sustainable reference points for coral reef fisheries and use these and available catch estimates to assess the status of global coral reef fish stocks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Marine debris provide long-distance pathways for spreading invasive corals.

Sci Total Environ

November 2023

Instituto de Ciências do Mar (LABOMAR), Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil; Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra 08193, Spain.

Anthropogenic marine debris and invasive species are pervasive in the ocean. However, research on the mechanisms and dynamics controlling their distribution in marine systems (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Seascape connectivity increases carbon and nitrogen exchange across coastal ecosystems through flow of particulate organic matter (POM). However, there are still critical gaps in knowledge about the drivers that mediate these processes, especially at regional seascape scales. The aim of this study was to associate three seascape-level drivers which could influence carbon and nitrogen stocks in intertidal coastal seascape: connectivity between ecosystems, ecosystem surface area, and standing vegetation biomass of ecosystems.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Regional and global impact of CO uptake in the Benguela Upwelling System through preformed nutrients.

Nat Commun

May 2023

Oceans & Coasts Research Branch, Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, PO Box 52126, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa.

Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUS) are highly productive ecosystems. However, being poorly sampled and represented in global models, their role as atmospheric CO sources and sinks remains elusive. In this work, we present a compilation of shipboard measurements over the past two decades from the Benguela Upwelling System (BUS) in the southeast Atlantic Ocean.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Many lagoons surrounded by reefs are partially or completely infilled with reef-derived detrital carbonate sediment. Sediment deposits in such restricted environments are archives of prevailing environmental conditions during lagoon infill. For Indonesia, no paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on Holocene lagoon sediments exist.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Severe ecological impacts caused by one of the worst orphan oil spills worldwide.

Mar Environ Res

May 2023

Universidade Federal Rural do Semi Árido (UFERSA), Biosciences Department, Mossoró, Brazil.

Orphan oil spills pose a severe risk to ocean sustainability; however, they are understudied. We provide the first synthetic assessment of short-term ecological impacts of the most extensive oil spill in tropical oceans, which affected 2900 km of Brazil's coastline in 2019. Oil ingestion, changes in sex ratio and size of animals, morphological abnormalities of larvae and eggs, mutagenic, behavioral, and morphological alterations, contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and mortality were detected.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Anthropogenic pressures are restructuring coral reefs globally. Sound predictions of the expected changes in key reef functions require adequate knowledge of their drivers. Here we investigate the determinants of a poorly-studied yet relevant biogeochemical function sustained by marine bony fishes: the excretion of intestinal carbonates.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This empirical study examines seafood consumption patterns in the province of West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia at the regency level, and analyzes changes in consumption patterns during the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) virus outbreak. We used a stratified semi-random general population survey administered online through mobile devices from November 24th-December 31st 2020 for rapid assessment and dissemination, which received 1518 respondents. Our findings enabled us to generate a COVID-19 impact index at the regency level, indicating an urban-to-rural gradient in the degree of change in seafood consumption patterns, with rural areas incurring more changes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF