Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Marine Biology
Ocean warming and acidification alter larval development and swimming behavior in the Atlantic sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus
Published: 2026-09-10
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Ocean warming (OW) and ocean acidification (OA) are expected to have wide-ranging consequences for populations in marine systems caused by organism-level responses at a range of life history stages, including early larval stages. The Atlantic sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus, is an economically important bivalve species that may be vulnerable to ocean change, but larval responses remain [...]
The Vulnerability Spiral: Compound Climate Risk Across Five Islands
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Hydrology, International and Area Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resource Economics, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Sustainability
sea level rise stacked on top of degrading natural coastal defenses. That assumption is rarely tested againstindependent, multi temporal evidence, and rarely broken down by ecosystem type, so I tested it directly,across 5 islands spanning 3 ocean basins (Maldives, Lakshadweep, [...]
Manufactured vulnerability in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta: engineered drivers and coastal displacement in south-west Bangladesh
Published: 2026-08-29
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Displacement from the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta in south-west Bangladesh is usually attributed to sea-level rise, cyclones and salinity. The evidence assembled here points to a jointly produced process, in which hazards act together with engineered landscape change, governance arrangements and the interval households spend unable to return. Peer-reviewed and grey literature for Khulna, [...]
phytoclassShiny: a Guided Workflow for Phytoplankton Pigment Chemotaxonomy
Published: 2026-08-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Marine Biology
Estimating phytoplankton community structure using diagnostic pigment biomarkers relies on chemotaxonomic tools like CHEMTAX and the mathematical improvements of the phytoclass R package. However, phytoclass requires programming experience that limits its accessibility to non-coders. We present phytoclassShiny, a free, open-source, offline R Shiny application that guides users through a linear, [...]
Marine Heatwaves Disrupt Phytoplankton Communities Through Trait-dependent Selection
Published: 2026-05-24
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Marine Biology
Phytoplankton communities, key regulators of marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle, are susceptible to sea surface temperature variability, such as marine heatwaves (MHWs). However, their trait-dependent responses and the resulting compositional shifts during MHWs remain poorly understood. Here, using an advanced global ocean–biogeochemical model that resolves 310 phytoplankton trait [...]
A snag for nutrient fertilization: decoupled production and export
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Interest in nutrient fertilization waned after inconclusive field experiments, but has resurged. Collating Southern Ocean \textit{in-situ} observations and available fertilization simulations, we find phytoplankton primary production and organic carbon export are uncorrelated in the largest high-nutrient-low-chlorophyll (HNLC) region, while model estimates cast doubt on realistic deployments [...]
Assessing the medium-term risk to reef damage and rubble generation for the Great Barrier Reef
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Oceanography, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coral reef systems live in multi-hazard environments and are exposed to a wide range of disturbance events that operate at different spatial and temporal scales. We identify seven drivers derived from hazards that have and can result in reef damage in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR): waves, winds, bottom current velocity, coral bleaching, crown-of-thorns seastar outbreaks, ship groundings, and [...]
Hybrid Physics–AI Ecosystem Simulations Improve Biogeochemical Predictions in Temperate Shelf Seas
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biochemistry, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Marine Biology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Biogeochemical models form a core part of marine forecasting and climate projections, yet they suffer from persistent biases in predicting key ecosystem variables, creating challenges across regional and global scales. To address this, we developed an AI-augmented three-dimensional hybrid framework that integrates machine-learning corrections directly into a process-based model’s productivity [...]
Diel Dynamics of Zooplankton Fecal Pellet Flux Revealed by Integrated Optical Observations and Modeling
Published: 2026-01-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography
The contribution of sinking fecal pellets to the biological carbon pump depends on pellet properties, producer abundance, and the depth and timing of pellet production, which can be modulated by diel vertical migration. We examined diel variability in zooplankton fecal pellet flux in the subarctic Northeast Pacific using two image-based tools: the Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP5) and [...]
Coral reef commitments are largely absent from national biodiversity and climate frameworks
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oceanography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sustainability
Global agreements under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) call for integrated action on biodiversity loss and climate change. Yet national implementation remains poorly understood, even for ecosystems highly vulnerable to warming, such as tropical coral reefs. Bleaching-level heat stress has affected over 85% of global reefs [...]
Coastal Wetland Restoration and Greenhouse Gas Pathways: A Global Meta-Analysis
Published: 2025-11-14
Subjects: Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Coastal wetland restoration is widely promoted as a tool for climate change mitigation, but its effect on the carbon cycle is not well constrained. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of peer-reviewed field studies that directly contrasted restored with altered sites, covering carbon stocks and greenhouse gas fluxes across mangroves, saltmarshes, seagrass meadows, brackish [...]
Pressure-driven microbial and viral dynamics on individual sinking particles: implications for carbon cycling
Published: 2025-11-12
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Marine Biology, Oceanography
The ocean’s biological carbon pump (BCP) regulates atmospheric CO2 by exporting organic carbon from the surface to the deep ocean. This process mainly depends on microbial communities associated with sinking particles which produce, degrade and transform organic matter. While many factors impact the efficiency of the BCP, here, we focus on particle heterogeneity and hydrostatic pressure, i.e. the [...]
Nature’s role in national security
Published: 2025-10-31
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy
The ability of a nation to protect its citizens, institutions, and interests from domestic and foreign threats is one of the foundational responsibilities of any government. However, the ability of sovereign nations to ensure national security for their citizens and institutions has been increasingly challenged by various forms of anthropogenic global change. While the link between climate change [...]
Redefining Uncertainty: A Complete Bayesian Workflow for Ocean Color Remote Sensing
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Marine Biology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences
Traditional satellite ocean color algorithms for chlorophyll-a and inherent optical property retrieval rely on deterministic regression models that typically produce single-point predictions without explicit uncertainty quantification. The absence of uncertainty awareness undermines in-situ/model match-ups, reduces predictive reliability, and ultimately erodes user confidence. In the present [...]
The Grand Challenges of WPI-AIMEC: Executive Summary
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Biodiversity, Biology, Climate, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Marine Biology, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Remote Sensing, Sustainability
The ocean has a heat capacity 1,000 times greater than that of the atmosphere and stores 50 times more carbon comparatively, thus, constituting a major sink of anthropogenically released greenhouse gases. Warming effects of human activities on the climate system are now undeniably shown to impact marine life and ecosystems, both directly via warming of the ocean and/or indirectly altering ocean [...]