Nature based solutions for removal of steroid estrogens in wastewater.

Estrogens are a growing problem in wastewater discharges because they are continuously entering the environment and are biologically active at extremely low concentrations. Their effects on wildlife were first identified several decades before, but the environmental limits and the remedial measures are still not completely elucidated. Most conventional treatment processes were not designed with sufficiently long retention times to effectively remove estrogens.

Lessons learned on the feasibility of coastal wetland restoration for blue carbon and co-benefits in Australia.

Diverse types of saline coastal wetlands contribute significantly to global biodiversity, carbon stocks, and ecosystem functions. Opportunities to incentivise coastal wetland restoration from carbon markets is growing across the world. However, little is known of the economic feasibility of blue carbon restoration across different regions, or the quantities of ecological and social co-benefits that accompany restoration.

Quality of cellulose and biostimulant extracts from Oedogonium calcareum cultivated during primary wastewater treatment.

A practical two-product cascading biorefinery was developed to extract a biostimulant and cellulose from the freshwater filamentous macroalga Oedogonium calcareum grown while treating primary wastewater. Biostimulant production provides a valuable extract with production of disinfected residual biomass for further product development. Both Escherichia coli and F-specific RNA bacteriophage, indicators of human pathogens contamination, were absent from the residual biomass.

Testing a health baseline during a bivalve mollusc mortality event: An investigation into die-offs of pipi Paphies australis from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Disease is a major threat to the economic, ecological and cultural services provided by wild bivalve populations. Over the past decade anecdotal reports on declining health of native bivalve populations around Aotearoa New Zealand have been supported by increasing observations of mass die-offs. Causes of declining health and mass die-offs of wild bivalves are not clear and could be due to a number of interactive and cumulative factors, including declining water quality, climate change, or disease.

Identification of long-preserved specimens reveals the historical geographic range of the Patagonian lamprey Geotria macrostoma (Burmeister, 1868) in southern South America.

The lamprey genus Geotria Gray, 1851 currently includes only two species: G. australis and G. macrostoma.

Host population crashes disrupt the diversity of associated marine microbiomes.

Host-associated microbial communities are shaped by myriad factors ranging from host conditions, environmental conditions and other microbes. Disentangling the ecological impact of each of these factors can be particularly difficult as many variables are correlated. Here, we leveraged earthquake-induced changes in host population structure to assess the influence of population crashes on marine microbial ecosystems.

Elucidating phosphorus removal dynamics in a denitrifying woodchip bioreactor.

Denitrifying woodchip bioreactors (DBRs) are an established nitrate mitigation technology, but uncertainty remains on their viability for phosphorus (P) removal due to inconsistent source-sink behaviour in field trials. We investigated whether iron (Fe) redox cycling could be the missing link needed to explain P dynamics in these systems. A pilot-scale DBR (Aotearoa New Zealand) was monitored for the first two drainage seasons (2017-2018), with supplemental in-field measurements of reduced solutes (Fe, HS/HS) and their conjugate oxidised species (Fe/SO) made in 2021 to constrain within-reactor redox gradients.

Perkinsus olseni in green-lipped mussels Perna canaliculus: diagnostic evaluation, prevalence, and distribution.

Perkinsus olseni (Perkinsidae) is a molluscan parasite notifiable to the World Organisation for Animal Health that is reported in several shellfish hosts in New Zealand, including the native green-lipped mussel Perna canaliculus. Green-lipped mussels comprise over half of New Zealand's aquaculture export value and have historically been considered free of serious diseases based on extensive histology-based surveillance. The discovery of P.

Sub-tropical benthic/epiphytic dinoflagellates of Aotearoa New Zealand and Rangitāhua Kermadec Islands.

Temperatures and temperature anomalies have been increasing in the sub-tropical regions of Aotearoa New Zealand and these changes may impact on harmful algal bloom (HAB) events. Benthic and epiphytic dinoflagellates, particularly the toxin producers, are the focus of this study as it is predicted that under future climate conditions they may produce more toxins or marine animals may become more susceptible to them. The results of past expeditions to Rangitāhua Kermadec Islands and sampling trips to Northland, Aotearoa New Zealand, are summarised and the results of the most recent trips to both regions are presented.

Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds.

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world's oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation.

Effects of operational parameters on the performance of unialgal Oedogonium sp. filamentous algae nutrient scrubbers under controlled environmental conditions.

Filamentous algae nutrient scrubber (FANS) operating parameters can strongly influence algal biomass productivity and nutrient removal. However, few studies to date have investigated the effects of FANS operating parameters such as initial standing crop, harvesting frequency and influent flow rate on biomass productivity and nutrient removal performance, especially for FANS that cultivate a single species of algae. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to investigate how operating parameters affect the biomass productivity and nutrient removal performance of Oedogonium sp.

Potential for redistribution of post-moult habitat for Eudyptes penguins in the Southern Ocean under future climate conditions.

Anthropogenic climate change is resulting in spatial redistributions of many species. We assessed the potential effects of climate change on an abundant and widely distributed group of diving birds, Eudyptes penguins, which are the main avian consumers in the Southern Ocean in terms of biomass consumption. Despite their abundance, several of these species have undergone population declines over the past century, potentially due to changing oceanography and prey availability over the important winter months.

Genomic insights into the secondary aquatic transition of penguins.

Penguins lost the ability to fly more than 60 million years ago, subsequently evolving a hyper-specialized marine body plan. Within the framework of a genome-scale, fossil-inclusive phylogeny, we identify key geological events that shaped penguin diversification and genomic signatures consistent with widespread refugia/recolonization during major climate oscillations. We further identify a suite of genes potentially underpinning adaptations related to thermoregulation, oxygenation, diving, vision, diet, immunity and body size, which might have facilitated their remarkable secondary transition to an aquatic ecology.

Assessing ecological health in areas with limited data by using biological traits.

A multitude of biotic indices that represent environmental status have been developed over the past decades making status comparisons difficult. However, transferring an existing index to a new region can be problematic due to differing stressors, ecosystem components and lack of knowledge on regional species sensitivities. Here we assess whether calculating species sensitivities to specific stressors based on biological traits offers a solution.

Meteorological data rescue: Citizen science lessons learned from Southern Weather Discovery.

Daily weather reconstructions (called "reanalyses") can help improve our understanding of meteorology and long-term climate changes. Adding undigitized historical weather observations to the datasets that underpin reanalyses is desirable; however, time requirements to capture those data from a range of archives is usually limited. Southern Weather Discovery is a citizen science data rescue project that recovered tabulated handwritten meteorological observations from ship log books and land-based stations spanning New Zealand, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica.

Effect of algal contact time and horizontal water velocity on the performance of Filamentous Algal Nutrient Scrubbers (FANS).

We investigated the effect of algal contact time (ACT) and horizontal water velocity (HWV) on the performance of pilot-scale Filamentous Algae Nutrient Scrubbers (FANS) treating river water during the NZ summer. The FANS floways were seeded with a mixture of four New Zealand native filamentous algal species (Oedogonium sp., Cladophora sp.

Histopathology of a threatened surf clam, toheroa (Paphies ventricosa) from Aotearoa New Zealand.

The toheroa (Paphies ventricosa) is endemic to Aotearoa (New Zealand). Following decades of overfishing in the 1900 s, commercial and recreational fishing of toheroa is now prohibited. For unknown reasons, protective measures in place for over 40 years have not ensured the recovery of toheroa populations.

Metal forms and dynamics in urban stormwater runoff: New insights from diffusive gradients in thin-films (DGT) measurements.

Stormwater runoff typically contains significant quantities of metal contaminants that enter urban waterways over short durations and represent a potential risk to water quality. The origin of metals within the catchment and processes that occur over the storm can control the partitioning of metals between a range of different forms. Understanding the fraction of metals present in a form that is potentially bioavailable to aquatic organisms is useful for environmental risk assessment.

On the invalid resurrection of the lamprey genus Exomegas Gill, 1883.

The lamprey genus Exomegas Gill, 1883, was erected on the assumption that it was distinguishable from Geotria Gray, 1851, by possessing three rather than two cusps on the transverse lingual lamina (TLL). Based on literature review and examination of holotypes and new data, the authors reaffirm that the TLL of Geotria possesses two or three cusps in the adult stage. The reduction or disappearance of the middle cusp at the beginning or during the spawning run constitutes a key feature of Geotria.

Response to Comment on "A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago".

Our paper about the impacts of the Laschamps Geomagnetic Excursion 42,000 years ago has provoked considerable scientific and public interest, particularly in the so-called Adams Event associated with the initial transition of the magnetic poles. Although we welcome the opportunity to discuss our new ideas, Hawks’ assertions of misrepresentation are especially disappointing given his limited examination of the material.

Response to Comment on "A global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago".

Our study on the exact timing and the potential climatic, environmental, and evolutionary consequences of the Laschamps Geomagnetic Excursion has generated the hypothesis that geomagnetism represents an unrecognized driver in environmental and evolutionary change. It is important for this hypothesis to be tested with new data, and encouragingly, none of the studies presented by Picin . undermine our model.

Rhizosphere metabolism and its effect on phosphorus pools in the root zone of a submerged macrophyte, Isoëtes kirkii.

The presence of oxygen in lake sediments reduces sediment oxygen demand, and potentially improves sediment phosphorus retention and coupled nitrification/denitrification. However, the release of oxygen from the roots of macrophytes has not previously been measured in highly reducing sediments. Here, in the highly reducing environments of a commercial garden soil and sediment from a hyper-eutrophic lake, we used nine oxygen optodes, placed onto scintillation vials to detect oxygen in the rhizosphere of Isoetes kirkii referred to as quillworts.

From data compilation to model validation: comparing three ecosystem models of the Tasman and Golden Bays, New Zealand.

The Tasman and Golden Bays (TBGB) are a semi-enclosed embayment system in New Zealand that supports numerous commercial and recreational activities. We present three ecosystem models of the TBGB ecosystem with varying levels of complexity, aimed at contributing as tools to aid in understanding this ecosystem and its responses to anthropogenic and natural pressures. We describe the process of data compilation through to model validation and analyse the importance of knowledge gaps with respect to model dynamics and results.