ABSTRACT: Climate change causes warming of the oceans, and there is consensus that many marine ectotherms, including marine invertebrates and fishes, respond to the increase in temperature by showing latitudinal range shifts in their distribution. However, the effect of ocean warming on the bathymetric distribution of marine ectotherms remains largely theoretical, and few works evidence bathymetric

ABSTRACT: Eavesdropping, the detection of communication signals by unintended receivers, can be beneficial in predator-prey interactions, competition, and cooperation. The cosmopolitan killer whale Orcinus orca has diverged into several ecotypes which exhibit specialised diets and different vocal behaviours. These ecotypes have diverse ecological relationships with other marine mammal species, and

ABSTRACT: Cuvier’s beaked whales Ziphius cavirostris are wide-ranging, deep-diving cetaceans that are particularly sensitive to anthropogenic noise. Current stock assessments assume a single population in the western North Atlantic Ocean, but knowledge of the residency patterns and distribution of the species is currently lacking in the region. Here we describe the spatial ecology of 20 Cuvier’s beaked

ABSTRACT: The availability of anthropogenic food subsidies has promoted an increase in generalist opportunistic gull species, which currently breed and forage on predictable anthropogenic resources (e.g. landfills). Here we investigated whether marine resources are still important to urban-dwelling gulls. We studied 4 natural and 2 urban yellow-legged gull Larus michahellis colonies and compared (1)

ABSTRACT: Without insights into the threats affecting species across their distributions and throughout their annual cycles, effective conservation management cannot be applied. The Whenua Hou diving petrel Pelecanoides whenuahouensis (WHDP) is a Critically Endangered small seabird whose offshore habits and threats are poorly understood. We tracked WHDPs year-round in 2015/16, 2017/18, and 2018/19

ABSTRACT: As a consequence of climate change and open net-pen salmon farming, wild Atlantic salmon Salmo salar are increasingly likely to encounter elevated temperatures and parasite abundances during their early marine migration. Such stressors can compromise fitness by diminishing liver energy stores and impairing cardiac muscle. To assess whether temperature and infestation by salmon lice Lepeophtheirus

ABSTRACT: The Northwest Atlantic (NWA) population of porbeagles Lamna nasus is susceptible to capture in rod-and-reel fisheries and most individuals are discarded alive due to catch and size limits. To estimate post-release survival, pop-off satellite archival tags were attached to porbeagles captured with rod-and-reel. Fourteen tags were deployed, of which 13 transmitted. All sharks for which we had

ABSTRACT: While definitions of elasmobranch nurseries remain fluid within the literature, the identification and description of nursery habitats for batoids remain relatively scarce. The Atlantic chupare stingray Styracura schmardae, a large-bodied demersal ray that was recently described from The Bahamas, is considered Data Deficient by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Using

ABSTRACT: Ecosystem engineering is a ubiquitous process by which the biological activity of a species shapes habitat diversity and often creates local biodiversity hotspots. The honeycomb-worm Sabellaria alveolata, an intertidal ecosystem engineer, actively builds reefs across Europe by aggregating sand. Here, we used carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions measured on basal resources and bentho-demersal

ABSTRACT: Small-scale spatial variation in temperature is an important attribute of many habitats, as spatial thermal refugia may allow organisms to avoid some negative consequences of thermal extremes. Although the ecological importance of thermal refugia in intertidal habitats is well-known in summer, the relative availability, effectiveness, and ecological relevance of thermally benign microhabitats

ABSTRACT: Prey commonly encounter multiple predator species in interactions that vary in duration and frequency, yet these factors are rarely simultaneously considered in studies of non-consumptive effects. To consider these effects, we placed eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica in close proximity to crown conchs Melongena corona, blue crabs Callinectes sapidus, or both predators simultaneously in

ABSTRACT: Bottom-contact fisheries present risks to vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) such as deep-water coral and sponge communities. Managing these risks requires better knowledge about VME spatial distribution within fishing areas. In this paper, we develop predictive species distribution models for alcyonacean (Order Alcyonacea) corals at SGaan Kinghlas-Bowie Seamount (SK-B) in British Columbia

ABSTRACT: Kelps are highly productive macroalgae that form habitats along one-quarter of the worlds’ coastlines. Emerging evidence suggests that kelps have the potential to sequester carbon through the export of detritus to deep marine sinks, yet how much of this detrital carbon is remineralized through grazing and microbial decomposition before it reaches these sinks remains a critical knowledge gap

ABSTRACT: Diel vertical migration is a widespread behaviour amongst zooplankton, yet its effect on the rate at which individuals respire remains poorly understood. To address this, we investigated the effect of short-term temperature change on the respiration rate of Euphausia triacantha, a common component of the Southern Ocean zooplankton and a prominent vertical migrator. We found respiration to

ABSTRACT: Coastal marine ecosystems, which play a crucial role in the biogeochemical and ecological functioning of the Earth, are highly sensitive to the combined effects of climate and human activities. Because of their location, coastal ecosystems are directly influenced by human activities, but it remains challenging to assess the spatial and temporal scales at which climate influences coastal ecosystems

ABSTRACT: Significant shifts in the phenology of life-cycle events have been observed in diverse taxa throughout the global oceans. While the migration phenology of marine fish and invertebrates is expected to be sensitive to climate change, the complex nature of these patterns has made measurement difficult and studies rare. With continuous weekly observations spanning 7 decades in Narragansett Bay

ABSTRACT: Commerson’s dolphin Cephalorhynchus commersonii and Peale’s dolphin Lagenorhynchus australis live in sympatry along the southwestern South Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the existence of some degree of habitat partitioning to reduce their competition for resources. Both species are usually associated with coastal environments, but information on their trophic ecology is scarce. Here we explored

ABSTRACT: The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which includes El Niño and La Niña phases, affects oceanographic conditions and primary productivity of marine ecosystems at a global scale. During El Niño events, warm temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific decrease primary productivity, affecting the biology of many species including sea turtles. We aimed to determine the effect

ABSTRACT: Seamounts, pinnacles, and crests are abrupt seafloor features that modify physical processes and ecological patterns. Fishers often target these local bathymetric highs, which can have high catch-per-unit-effort. Increases in the abundance of target species has been qualitatively noted around these features and promontories, however, a quantitative evaluation of local highs as preferred habitat

ABSTRACT: Many temperate marine species cope with profound seasonal changes in temperature. One way in which these species have adapted to these conditions is by adopting life-history traits that employ seasonally dependent growth, maximising growth in the warmer summer period before experiencing a period of negligible growth and maintenance in the cooler winter period. This strategy is considered

ABSTRACT: Mature age structure has been recognized as an important determinant of fecundity in fish populations. More recently it has been demonstrated that in some species, older, larger females can produce faster-growing and more viable larvae than younger, smaller females. We investigated this effect in sea perch Helicolenus percoides and collected information on fecundity as well as notochord length

ABSTRACT: Sex-identification DNA markers are useful tools for sexing organisms that lack externally visible sexual dimorphism, and thus, they provide biological information for ecological and evolutionary studies. Tunas of the genus Thunnus (Scombridae), which comprises 8 species, lack sexual dimorphism of external morphology or coloration. In this study, we applied recently developed genotypic sex-identification

ABSTRACT: Understanding the life history strategy of species can clarify their functional role, and contribution to the productivity and resilience of an ecosystem. We use otolith microstructure analysis to study the life history of 2 widespread and abundant Caribbean reef fishes, genetically identified here as the glass goby Coryphopterus hyalinus and masked goby C. personatus. Our analysis reveals

ABSTRACT: Management of species with wide-ranging migrations is a complex issue, made more challenging when the species is both protected and poses a risk to humans. Understanding the oceanic conditions associated with shark habitat use can help develop mitigation strategies or warning systems that meet both conservation and human safety objectives. Using satellite tracks from 77 juvenile and sub-adult

ABSTRACT: Understanding diet flexibility is important for resource management as climate change alters ecological communities. However, food web complexity often limits our ability to predict how changes in prey communities may alter predator diets. Stomach content and stable isotope analyses are traditionally used to evaluate trophic interactions, but costs and logistical constraints can limit their

ABSTRACT: Cephalopods play a major role in marine ecosystems, yet very little is known about the dynamics of their habitat use and trophic ecology across the stages of their life cycle, particularly in the Southern Ocean. Here, we used stable isotope analyses of δ13C (a proxy for foraging habitat) and δ15N (a proxy for trophic position) to investigate the habitat use and trophic ecology of 10 squid

ABSTRACT: Tagging studies are often used to measure survival and growth in wild populations. However, issues such as low returns of tagged animals, tag loss, and handling mortality can affect the precision and accuracy of demographic estimates if not accounted for. We conducted a mark-recapture study to measure the survival and growth of juvenile and adult wavy turban snails Megastraea undosa. Our

ABSTRACT: Water masses are bodies of water with distinctive physical and biogeochemical properties. They impart vertical structure to the deep ocean, participate in circulation, and can be traced over great distances, potentially influencing the distributions of deep-sea fauna. The classic potential temperature-salinity (θ-s) diagram was used to investigate deep-sea sponge (demosponge genus Geodia)

ABSTRACT: Understanding how geomorphic landscape features affect physical habitat conditions is essential for predicting if such geomorphic landscape features may act as conduits facilitating invasive species expansion in coastal ecosystems. Although the effects of various abiotic and biotic factors on plant invasion in salt marshes have been well studied, little is known about the impact of tidal

ABSTRACT: Researchers now recognize that top-down as well as bottom-up forces regulate salt marsh primary production. However, how top-down forces vary with grazer density is still poorly resolved. To begin to address this void, we (1) surveyed grazing intensity in short-form Spartina alterniflora across Sapelo Island, Georgia (USA), and (2) removed varying densities of grazers from 13 sites over 2

ABSTRACT: In the north Atlantic, rocky intertidal shores with diverse macroalgal assemblages are common. Despite this, the effect of macroalgae on bird use of these habitats is not well understood. We used a single-season, single-species occupancy framework to investigate the influence of the macroalgal assemblage on 3 bird guilds and 2 single-species groups: shorebirds (waders), scavengers, divers

ABSTRACT: Environmental change and increasing levels of human activity are threats to marine mammals in the Arctic. Identifying marine mammal hotspots and areas of high species richness are essential to help guide management and conservation efforts. Herein, space use based on biotelemetric tracking devices deployed on 13 species (ringed seal Pusa hispida, bearded seal Erignathus barbatus, harbour

ABSTRACT: The eastern North Pacific gray whale Eschrichtius robustus experienced an unusual mortality event (UME) in 2019-2020, with 384 whales found dead along the Pacific coasts of Mexico, USA and Canada. A similar UME in 1999-2000 was speculated to have been caused by starvation, but body condition data were not available to test this hypothesis. Between 2017 and 2019, we used unmanned aerial vehicles

ABSTRACT: Seabirds often have wide distribution ranges and may travel relatively long distances to breeding grounds, often crossing jurisdictional boundaries. When engaged in foraging behaviour, seabirds are prone to interact with different fisheries and suffer incidental mortality. We assessed the spatial use of foraging Magellanic penguins Spheniscus magellanicus breeding at 3 colonies within the

ABSTRACT: Disentangling multilevel sources of variation is critical for understanding of diversity patterns in high-variability environments. We investigated the scale sensitivity of short-term environmental effects on the temporal beta diversity of fishes in 3 tropical coastal lagoons in Southeastern Brazil. Environmental effects were investigated at 3 hierarchical levels (local, zone, and lagoon)

ABSTRACT: The Peruvian anchoveta Engraulis ringens is one of the most important commercial fishes along the Humboldt Current. Previous studies have shown that egg quality (volume, protein and lipid content) and hatching rates decrease during the spawning season, from the rainy winter to late spring. In this study, we assessed whether changes in atmospheric condition that led to an intense drought over

ABSTRACT: Information on the movements of highly migratory species is important to understand their ecology, including habitat use, population connectivity, and stock structure, to implement appropriate management and conservation measures. The blue shark Prionace glauca (Carcharhinidae) is highly migratory, has a global distribution, and is ecologically and economically important as one of the most

ABSTRACT: Accelerated sea-level rise poses a significant threat to coastal habitats, such as salt marshes, which provide critical ecosystem services. Persistence of salt marshes with rising sea levels relies, in part, on vertical accretion. Ecogeomorphic models emphasize the role of plant production in vertical accretion via sediment trapping and belowground organic matter contribution. Thus, changes

ABSTRACT: Behavioral differences between males and females can lead to sex-biased dispersal (SBD), and tube-building amphipods are good model organisms to study this process. Depending on the species, males or females have a different affinity to their tubes, and one sex may be more mobile than the other. This distinct dispersal behavior and the scales at which it occurs are not fully understood. Here

ABSTRACT: Penaeid prawns (shrimp) are short-lived and fecund, with a complicated life cycle that includes offshore spawning followed by a coastal or estuarine postlarval and juvenile phase. Factors affecting survival during the early life-history stages, and during movement between these stages, will affect variability in recruitment to the nursery ground, the offshore subadult and adult population

ABSTRACT: Understanding the underlying ecological factors that affect the distribution patterns of organisms is vital for their conservation. Cephalopods such as giant warty squids Moroteuthopsis longimana are important in the diets of marine predators, including grey-headed albatrosses Thalassarche chrysostoma, yet our understanding of their habitat and trophic ecology remains limited. We investigated

ABSTRACT: Historically, gelatinous zooplankton have been considered important consumers or predators in marine food webs, but more recently they have also been recognized as important prey for many marine species. Here, we summarized data obtained from >100 Northeast Pacific fish predators based on extensive gut content analysis (~450000 stomachs examined) from broad-scale demersal trawl surveys ranging

ABSTRACT: Pelagia noctiluca is the most successful and well-studied jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea. This species tolerates a wide range of water temperatures and succeeds in low to medium food regimes, but factors driving its distribution and population dynamics remain poorly understood. Here we applied a multiscale analytical approach using survey data and a physical-biochemical coupled model

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions drive climate change and pose one of the major challenges of our century. The effects of increased CO2 in the form of ocean acidification (OA) on the communities of marine planktonic eukaryotes in tropical regions such as the Timor Sea are barely understood. Here, we show the effects of high CO2 (mean ± SD pCO2 = 1823 ± 161 μatm and pHT = 7.46

ABSTRACT: Marine diatoms and heterotrophic bacteria play a crucial role in the oceanic carbon cycle as they form aggregates that sink and transport biomass down in the water column. Polysaccharides are a major component of these aggregates and can bind heavy metal cations. Therefore, both organism groups might also be important for the vertical or micro-scale distribution of heavy metals in the ocean

ABSTRACT: Habitat conditions play a crucial role in food acquisition and the energetic and physiological performance of marine organisms during seasonal changes. However, across a wide distribution, populations of the same species might face physiological constraints driven by the oceanographic and climatological characteristics of their habitats. In the context of climate change, biochemical and metabolic

ABSTRACT: The deep sea (>500 m ocean depth) is the largest global habitat, characterized by cool temperatures, low ambient light, and food-poor conditions relative to shallower waters. Deep-sea teleosts generally grow more slowly than those inhabiting shallow water. However, this is a generalization, and even amongst deep-sea teleosts, there is a broad continuum of growth rates. The importance of potential

ABSTRACT: Knowing the biomass of prey consumed by a marine predator is a prerequisite for assessing the potential of the predator for competition with fisheries. Here, we estimated the biomass of Fuegian sprat Sprattus fueguensis consumed annually by a small subpopulation of humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae in the Magellan Strait feeding area. We used a velocity-dependent bioenergetic model that

ABSTRACT: Fisheries have impacted seabird populations worldwide, either via bycatch mortality or resource depletion. Understanding the overlap between seabird distributions and fisheries is an important element for bycatch risk assessment, though the drivers of variation in seabird-fishery overlap are not well understood for some seabird populations. Here, we quantified the spatial overlap between

ABSTRACT: Knowledge of sea turtle demographic rates is central to modeling their population dynamics, but few studies have quantitatively synthesized existing data globally. Here, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model to conduct a meta-analysis of published von Bertalanffy growth curve parameters (growth coefficient, K; asymptotic length, L∞) for chelonid sea turtles. We identified 34 studies for 5

ABSTRACT: We examined historical and contemporary trends for a suite of groundfish species in Puget Sound, Washington, USA, to ask how the groundfish community has responded following shifts in fishing regulations, climate, food web, and a growing human population in the surrounding watershed. We used contemporary data (1990-2017) from a standardized annual bottom trawl survey with historical logbook

ABSTRACT: An understanding of lifetime trophic changes and ontogenetic habitat shifts is essential to the preservation of marine fish species. We used carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values (δ13C and δ15N) recorded within the laminar structure of fish eye lenses, reflecting both diet and location over time, to compare the lifetime trends of 2 demersal mesopredators. Tilefish Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps

ABSTRACT: The global biogeography of polychaete worms has never been assessed previously. In the present study, we studied the world distribution patterns of polychaetes based on datasets obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System and our recently published checklist of Indonesian polychaete species. Polychaete biogeographic regions were visualized

ABSTRACT: Recent molecular ecological studies have focused on how the relationships between physical and ecological factors influence marine biogeography. Comparative phylogeography using closely related species is a powerful approach to evaluate the role of ecological traits in the genetic variation of marine organisms. In the present study, we compared ecological traits and genetic variation in 3

ABSTRACT: Reef restoration via direct outplanting of sexually propagated juvenile corals is a key strategy in preserving coral reef ecosystem function in the face of global and local stressors (e.g. ocean warming). To advance our capacity to scale and maximize the efficiency of restoration initiatives, we examined how abiotic conditions (i.e. larval rearing temperature, substrate condition, light intensity

ABSTRACT: Competition for limited space is an important driver of benthic community structure on coral reefs. Studies of coral-algae and coral-sponge interactions often show competitive dominance of algae and sponges over corals, but little is known about the outcomes when these groups compete in a multispecies context. Multispecies competition is increasingly common on Caribbean coral reefs as environmental

ABSTRACT: Multiple forms of environmental change and anthropogenic pressure co-occur in coastal marine ecosystems. These external forces affect ecosystem structure, functioning, and, eventually, services to humans. Studies that include more than 2 simultaneous stressors are still needed to understand potential interactions among multiple stressors. We evaluated single and interactive effects of density

ABSTRACT: Fjordic systems in temperate and Arctic regions often feature extensive kelp forests at their shallow coastal margins as well as extensive terrestrial forests. Detrital export from these shallow-water and terrestrial ecosystems is an important source of carbon for deep-sea communities in the form of kelp and wood falls. Benthic landers with experimental substrates (wood blocks and kelp parcels)

ABSTRACT: The forest-forming giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera and the communities it supports have been decreasing across their native ranges in many parts of the world. The sudden removal of giant kelp canopies by storms increases space and light for the colonization by understory macroalgae, such as Desmarestia herbacea, which can inhibit M. pyrifera recovery and alter local community composition

ABSTRACT: Polar regions are facing rapid temperature increase. In Arctic fjord systems, increased temperatures result in hyposalinity caused by the melting of sea ice and glaciers and freshwater run-off. Additionally, enhanced freshwater discharge and intrusion of nutrient-rich Atlantic water may result in nutrient input in summer. Combined, these factors might have a strong impact on primary producers