PLOS Biology: [searchName=, weekly=, monthly=, startPage=0, volume=, eLocationId=, id=, filterArticleType=, filterKeyword=, q=Marine and Aquatic Sciences, sort=Relevance, pageSize=20]

Black in Marine Science: A new wave is here

2022-10-17T14:00:00Z

by Tiara Moore

Black in Marine Science was founded in 2020 to celebrate black marine scientists, spread environmental awareness, and inspire the next generation of scientific thought leaders. Black in Marine Science began as a week but has become a movement. After decades of feeling isolated in the field, a group of Black marine scientists and allies came together to create the first ever Black In Marine Science Week. This Perspective discusses how the Black In Marine Science organizing team realized that after the major success of the week and the uncovering of shared experiences of racism, there was much more work to be done.

New methods of undertaking marine science in Antarctica using tourism vessels

2024-02-20T14:00:00Z

by Myrah Graham, Jennifer Herbig, Eugenie Jacobsen, Tatiana K. Maldonado, Jared Beck, Brent Lackey, Matthew Mulrennan

Aligning marine species range data to better serve science and conservation

2017-05-03T14:00:00Z

by Casey C. O'Hara, Jamie C. Afflerbach, Courtney Scarborough, Kristin Kaschner, Benjamin S. Halpern

Species distribution data provide the foundation for a wide range of ecological research studies and conservation management decisions. Two major efforts to provide marine species distributions at a global scale are the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which provides expert-generated range maps that outline the complete extent of a species' distribution; and AquaMaps, which provides model-generated species distribution maps that predict areas occupied by the species. Together these databases represent 24,586 species (93.1% within AquaMaps, 16.4% within IUCN), with only 2,330 shared species. Differences in intent and methodology can result in very different predictions of species distributions, which bear important implications for scientists and decision makers who rely upon these datasets when conducting research or informing conservation policy and management actions. Comparing distributions for the small subset of species with maps in both datasets, we found that AquaMaps and IUCN range maps show strong agreement for many well-studied species, but our analysis highlights several key examples in which introduced errors drive differences in predicted species ranges. In particular, we find that IUCN maps greatly overpredict coral presence into unsuitably deep waters, and we show that some AquaMaps computer-generated default maps (only 5.7% of which have been reviewed by experts) can produce odd discontinuities at the extremes of a species’ predicted range. We illustrate the scientific and management implications of these tradeoffs by repeating a global analysis of gaps in coverage of marine protected areas, and find significantly different results depending on how the two datasets are used. By highlighting tradeoffs between the two datasets, we hope to encourage increased collaboration between taxa experts and large scale species distribution modeling efforts to further improve these foundational datasets, helping to better inform science and policy recommendations around understanding, managing, and protecting marine biodiversity.

From Darwin to the Census of Marine Life: Marine Biology as Big Science

2013-01-14T14:00:00Z

by Niki Vermeulen

With the development of the Human Genome Project, a heated debate emerged on biology becoming ‘big science’. However, biology already has a long tradition of collaboration, as natural historians were part of the first collective scientific efforts: exploring the variety of life on earth. Such mappings of life still continue today, and if field biology is gradually becoming an important subject of studies into big science, research into life in the world's oceans is not taken into account yet. This paper therefore explores marine biology as big science, presenting the historical development of marine research towards the international ‘Census of Marine Life’ (CoML) making an inventory of life in the world's oceans. Discussing various aspects of collaboration – including size, internationalisation, research practice, technological developments, application, and public communication – I will ask if CoML still resembles traditional collaborations to collect life. While showing both continuity and change, I will argue that marine biology is a form of natural history: a specific way of working together in biology that has transformed substantially in interaction with recent developments in the life sciences and society. As a result, the paper does not only give an overview of transformations towards large scale research in marine biology, but also shines a new light on big biology, suggesting new ways to deepen the understanding of collaboration in the life sciences by distinguishing between different ‘collective ways of knowing’.

Science Priorities for Seamounts: Research Links to Conservation and Management

2012-01-18T14:00:00Z

by Malcolm R. Clark, Thomas A. Schlacher, Ashley A. Rowden, Karen I. Stocks, Mireille Consalvey

Seamounts shape the topography of all ocean basins and can be hotspots of biological activity in the deep sea. The Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CenSeam) was a field program that examined seamounts as part of the global Census of Marine Life (CoML) initiative from 2005 to 2010. CenSeam progressed seamount science by collating historical data, collecting new data, undertaking regional and global analyses of seamount biodiversity, mapping species and habitat distributions, challenging established paradigms of seamount ecology, developing new hypotheses, and documenting the impacts of human activities on seamounts. However, because of the large number of seamounts globally, much about the structure, function and connectivity of seamount ecosystems remains unexplored and unknown. Continual, and potentially increasing, threats to seamount resources from fishing and seabed mining are creating a pressing demand for research to inform conservation and management strategies. To meet this need, intensive science effort in the following areas will be needed: 1) Improved physical and biological data; of particular importance is information on seamount location, physical characteristics (e.g. habitat heterogeneity and complexity), more complete and intensive biodiversity inventories, and increased understanding of seamount connectivity and faunal dispersal; 2) New human impact data; these shall encompass better studies on the effects of human activities on seamount ecosystems, as well as monitoring long-term changes in seamount assemblages following impacts (e.g. recovery); 3) Global data repositories; there is a pressing need for more comprehensive fisheries catch and effort data, especially on the high seas, and compilation or maintenance of geological and biodiversity databases that underpin regional and global analyses; 4) Application of support tools in a data-poor environment; conservation and management will have to increasingly rely on predictive modelling techniques, critical evaluation of environmental surrogates as faunal “proxies”, and ecological risk assessment.

Performance Optimization of Marine Science and Numerical Modeling on HPC Cluster

2017-01-03T14:00:00Z

by Dongdong Yang, Hailong Yang, Luming Wang, Yucong Zhou, Zhiyuan Zhang, Rui Wang, Yi Liu

Marine science and numerical modeling (MASNUM) is widely used in forecasting ocean wave movement, through simulating the variation tendency of the ocean wave. Although efforts have been devoted to improve the performance of MASNUM from various aspects by existing work, there is still large space unexplored for further performance improvement. In this paper, we aim at improving the performance of propagation solver and data access during the simulation, in addition to the efficiency of output I/O and load balance. Our optimizations include several effective techniques such as the algorithm redesign, load distribution optimization, parallel I/O and data access optimization. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves higher performance compared to the state-of-the-art work, about 3.5x speedup without degrading the prediction accuracy. In addition, the parameter sensitivity analysis shows our optimizations are effective under various topography resolutions and output frequencies.

Stirring the strategic direction of scuba diving marine Citizen Science: A survey of active and potential participants

2018-08-16T14:00:00Z

by Serena Lucrezi, Martina Milanese, Marco Palma, Carlo Cerrano

Citizen Science (CS) strengthens the relationship between society and science through education and engagement, with win-win benefits. Marine Citizen Science (MCS) is increasingly popular, thanks to society’s growing interest in marine environments and marine issues. Scuba diving significantly increases the potential of MCS, thanks to the skills and behavioural properties of people who participate in the sport. To be able to exploit this potential, however, MCS needs to face challenges related to CS, to scuba diving activities and to the broader scuba diving industry. In particular, engagement and recruitment of potential volunteers, as well as retention of active participants, represent key milestones. In order to reach these milestones, information is required on current participation levels of scuba divers in MCS, as well as the motivations behind participation, and the opinions held by potential participants in MCS. This study explored different case studies and methods of data collection to provide an overview of actual and potential participation in MCS by the scuba diving community. The results show that scuba divers, whether active or potential marine citizen scientists, are well disposed towards MCS. Some barriers, however, prevent the full participation of scuba divers as marine citizen scientists. Certain barriers extend beyond the control of both divers and MCS projects, while others, such as limited access to MCS projects and poor feedback after participation, can and should be addressed. The recommendations of this research provide strategic direction to MCS, so that the broad scuba diving community can be successfully integrated into MCS. These recommendations acknowledge the important role played by stakeholders in the scuba diving industry, as well as professional intermediaries and hired experts.

Global change ecology: Science to heal a damaged planet

2023-12-11T14:00:00Z

by Andrew J. Tanentzap, Olesya Kolmakova

Humanity has drastically altered the biophysical systems that sustain life on Earth. We summarize progress and chart future directions in the emerging field of global change ecology, which studies interactions between organisms and their changing environment. Addressing problems like climate change and food security required the advent of a new global-scale science. This Perspective reflects on the past 20 years of research in the field of global change ecology and looks at where the next 20 years might take us.

Seaweeds for carbon dioxide removal (CDR)–Getting the science right

2024-03-01T14:00:00Z

by Max Troell, Catriona Hurd, Thierry Chopin, Barry A. Costa-Pierce, Mark J. Costello

Assessment of the biological quality of port areas: A case study on the three harbours of La Rochelle: The marina, the fishing harbour and the seaport

2018-06-25T14:00:00Z

by Marine Breitwieser, Emmanuel Dubillot, Marine Barbarin, Carine Churlaud, Valérie Huet, Frédéric Muttin, Hélène Thomas

This work was designed to investigate biological impacts at 3 dates (day 0, day 7 and day 21) on black scallops (Mimachlamys varia) in the three ports areas of La Rochelle town in winter 2017. In order to assess the biological effects on the wild population of black scallops, bivalves were place in four different locations: in the three ports (semi-closed areas), and in a marshland uncontaminated site (closed area). Biomarkers of effects (heavy metals) and exposure (oxidative stress and immunological effects) were assessed in the digestive glands of specimens in order to compare two techniques of sampling: “pool” technique and “inter-subject” technique. Our findings reported in the both techniques show significant modulation of GST (detoxification), SOD (antioxidant response) and MDA (lipid peroxidation) in bivalves exposed to a specific contamination in each port. Laccase-type enzyme also highlighted an important aspect in terms of biomarker response of the immune function at the 7^th day of exposition. Overall, our study demonstrated that the “pool” technique using the same quality indicator M. varia could be used to obtain reliable results at lower costs. In contrast, in fundamental context, the “inter-subject” technique could bring more precise results to light. However, it requires burdensome and costly handling.

Strength in numbers: Collaborative science for new experimental model systems

2018-07-02T14:00:00Z

by Ross F. Waller, Phillip A. Cleves, Maria Rubio-Brotons, April Woods, Sara J. Bender, Virginia Edgcomb, Eric R. Gann, Adam C. Jones, Leonid Teytelman, Peter von Dassow, Steven W. Wilhelm, Jackie L. Collier

Our current understanding of biology is heavily based on a small number of genetically tractable model organisms. Most eukaryotic phyla lack such experimental models, and this limits our ability to explore the molecular mechanisms that ultimately define their biology, ecology, and diversity. In particular, marine protists suffer from a paucity of model organisms despite playing critical roles in global nutrient cycles, food webs, and climate. To address this deficit, an initiative was launched in 2015 to foster the development of ecologically and taxonomically diverse marine protist genetic models. The development of new models faces many barriers, some technical and others institutional, and this often discourages the risky, long-term effort that may be required. To lower these barriers and tackle the complexity of this effort, a highly collaborative community-based approach was taken. Herein, we describe this approach, the advances achieved, and the lessons learned by participants in this novel community-based model for research.

On the impact of Citizen Science-derived data quality on deep learning based classification in marine images

2019-06-12T14:00:00Z

by Daniel Langenkämper, Erik Simon-Lledó, Brett Hosking, Daniel O. B. Jones, Tim W. Nattkemper

The evaluation of large amounts of digital image data is of growing importance for biology, including for the exploration and monitoring of marine habitats. However, only a tiny percentage of the image data collected is evaluated by marine biologists who manually interpret and annotate the image contents, which can be slow and laborious. In order to overcome the bottleneck in image annotation, two strategies are increasingly proposed: “citizen science” and “machine learning”. In this study, we investigated how the combination of citizen science, to detect objects, and machine learning, to classify megafauna, could be used to automate annotation of underwater images. For this purpose, multiple large data sets of citizen science annotations with different degrees of common errors and inaccuracies observed in citizen science data were simulated by modifying “gold standard” annotations done by an experienced marine biologist. The parameters of the simulation were determined on the basis of two citizen science experiments. It allowed us to analyze the relationship between the outcome of a citizen science study and the quality of the classifications of a deep learning megafauna classifier. The results show great potential for combining citizen science with machine learning, provided that the participants are informed precisely about the annotation protocol. Inaccuracies in the position of the annotation had the most substantial influence on the classification accuracy, whereas the size of the marking and false positive detections had a smaller influence.

A Citizen Science Approach: A Detailed Ecological Assessment of Subtropical Reefs at Point Lookout, Australia

2016-10-05T14:00:00Z

by Chris Roelfsema, Ruth Thurstan, Maria Beger, Christine Dudgeon, Jennifer Loder, Eva Kovacs, Michele Gallo, Jason Flower, K-le Gomez Cabrera, Juan Ortiz, Alexandra Lea, Diana Kleine

Subtropical reefs provide an important habitat for flora and fauna, and proper monitoring is required for conservation. Monitoring these exposed and submerged reefs is challenging and available resources are limited. Citizen science is increasing in momentum, as an applied research tool and in the variety of monitoring approaches adopted. This paper aims to demonstrate an ecological assessment and mapping approach that incorporates both top-down (volunteer marine scientists) and bottom-up (divers/community) engagement aspects of citizen science, applied at a subtropical reef at Point Lookout, Southeast Queensland, Australia. Marine scientists trained fifty citizen scientists in survey techniques that included mapping of habitat features, recording of substrate, fish and invertebrate composition, and quantifying impacts (e.g., occurrence of substrate damage, presence of litter). In 2014 these volunteers conducted four seasonal surveys along semi-permanent transects, at five sites, across three reefs. The project presented is a model on how citizen science can be conducted in a marine environment through collaboration of volunteer researchers, non-researchers and local marine authorities. Significant differences in coral and algal cover were observed among the three sites, while fluctuations in algal cover were also observed seasonally. Differences in fish assemblages were apparent among sites and seasons, with subtropical fish groups observed more commonly in colder seasons. The least physical damage occurred in the most exposed sites (Flat Rock) within the highly protected marine park zones. The broad range of data collected through this top-down/bottom-up approach to citizen science exemplifies the projects’ value and application for identifying ecosystem trends or patterns. The results of the project support natural resource and marine park management, providing a valuable contribution to existing scientific knowledge and the conservation of local reefs.

Time to publish? Turnaround times, acceptance rates, and impact factors of journals in fisheries science

2021-09-23T14:00:00Z

by Brendan J. Runde

Selecting a target journal is a universal decision faced by authors of scientific papers. Components of the decision, including expected turnaround time, journal acceptance rate, and journal impact factor, vary in terms of accessibility. In this study, I collated recent turnaround times and impact factors for 82 journals that publish papers in the field of fisheries sciences. In addition, I gathered acceptance rates for the same journals when possible. Findings indicated clear among-journal differences in turnaround time, with median times-to-publication ranging from 79 to 323 days. There was no clear correlation between turnaround time and acceptance rate nor between turnaround time and impact factor; however, acceptance rate and impact factor were negatively correlated. I found no field-wide differences in turnaround time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, though some individual journals took significantly longer or significantly shorter to publish during the pandemic. Depending on their priorities, authors choosing a target journal should use the results of this study as guidance toward a more informed decision.

Getting the full picture: Assessing the complementarity of citizen science and agency monitoring data

2017-12-06T14:00:00Z

by Jeneen Hadj-Hammou, Steven Loiselle, Daniel Ophof, Ian Thornhill

While the role of citizen science in engaging the public and providing large-scale datasets has been demonstrated, the nature of and potential for this science to supplement environmental monitoring efforts by government agencies has not yet been fully explored. To this end, the present study investigates the complementarity of a citizen science programme to agency monitoring of water quality. The Environment Agency (EA) is the governmental public body responsible for, among other duties, managing and monitoring water quality and water resources in England. FreshWater Watch (FWW) is a global citizen science project that supports community monitoring of freshwater quality. FWW and EA data were assessed for their spatio-temporal complementarity by comparing the geographical and seasonal coverage of nitrate (N-NO₃) sampling across the River Thames catchment by the respective campaigns between spring 2013 and winter 2015. The analysis reveals that FWW citizen science-collected data complements EA data by filling in both gaps in the spatial and temporal coverage as well as gaps in waterbody type and size. In addition, partial spatio-temporal overlap in sampling efforts by the two actors is discovered, but EA sampling is found to be more consistent than FWW sampling. Statistical analyses indicate that regardless of broader geographical overlap in sampling effort, FWW sampling sites are associated with a lower stream order and water bodies of smaller surface areas than EA sampling sites. FWW also samples more still-water body sites than the EA. As a possible result of such differences in sampling tendencies, nitrate concentrations, a measure of water quality, are lower for FWW sites than EA sites. These findings strongly indicate that citizen science has clear potential to complement agency monitoring efforts by generating information on freshwater ecosystems that would otherwise be under reported.