Marine biology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is expected to alter ocean ecology, and to potentially impact the ecosystem services provided to humankind. Here, the authors address how rapidly multiple factors that affect marine ecosystems are likely to develop in the future ocean and the remedial effects climate mitigation might have.

    • Stephanie A. Henson
    • , Claudie Beaulieu
    •  & Jorge L. Sarmiento

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral-associated microbes could enhance the capacity of their host organism to respond to environmental change. Ziegler and colleagues use a reciprocal transplant experiment to show that microbiomes of heat-tolerant corals are more resilient to change than those of heat-sensitive corals.

    • Maren Ziegler
    • , Francois O. Seneca
    •  & Christian R. Voolstra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine plankton are the basis of the oceanic food chain. Here, Chivers and colleagues use ocean-basin wide plankton population data over six decades to show huge differences in the response of different plankton groups to climate change with major implications for the marine ecosystem and fisheries.

    • William J. Chivers
    • , Anthony W. Walne
    •  & Graeme C. Hays

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Giant kelp is sometimes considered the ‘canary in the coal mine’ of coastal ecosystems. However, Reedet al. demonstrate that kelp did not decline during recent ocean warming in California, questioning whether this species is an appropriate indicator for ecosystem responses to future climate change.

    • Daniel Reed
    • , Libe Washburn
    •  & Shannon Harrer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corals may vary in their ability to regulate reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can influence coral health. Diaz and colleagues conductin vivomeasurements of the ROS superoxide at the surface of corals and find substantial species-level variation in superoxide regulation that is independent of bleaching status.

    • Julia M. Diaz
    • , Colleen M. Hansel
    •  & Liping Xun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Over 5,000 km of open ocean separate central and eastern Pacific coral reefs. Here, the authors combine a biophysical dispersal model with genetic data to show that eastern Pacific coral populations have been isolated from western sources of larval recruitment since the 1997-98 El Niño-induced bleaching event.

    • S. Wood
    • , I. B. Baums
    •  & E. J. Hendy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coral reefs are productive ecosystems due to high levels of nutrient recycling in which fishes play a critical role. This study shows fishing can reduce the amount of nutrients supplied and stored by fishes to coral reefs by nearly half, even when the number of fish species present is largely unchanged.

    • Jacob E. Allgeier
    • , Abel Valdivia
    •  & Craig A. Layman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cause of a 20% decline in sea floor calcareous foraminifera species during the Mid-Pleistocene remains enigmatic. Here, the authors present new geochemical evidence, from the Tasman Sea that supports a change in phytoplankton food source as the primary driver.

    • Sev Kender
    • , Erin L. McClymont
    •  & Henry Elderfield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large oil spills have negative effects on marine ecosystems, but the effects of chronic smallscale spills are less well understood. Here, Brussaard et al. detect high bioavailability and toxicity of small-scale crude oil spills within 24 hours after release, which are associated with localised declines in marine plankton.

    • Corina P. D. Brussaard
    • , Louis Peperzak
    •  & Jan Roelof van der Meer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extinction of the ichthyosaurs had previously been attributed to increasing competition or to the loss of their main prey. Here, Fischer et al.analyse phylogenetic and ecological patterns of ichthyosaur diversification and extinction, and find that the decline of the group is more likely due to climatic volatility.

    • Valentin Fischer
    • , Nathalie Bardet
    •  & Matt Friedman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long-term response of marine cyanobacteria to increased anthropogenic CO2 are not known. Here, Hutchins et al. show that Trichodesmium exposed to long-term selection at elevated CO2display irreversible increases in nitrogen fixation and growth rates, even after returning to present day conditions.

    • David A. Hutchins
    • , Nathan G. Walworth
    •  & Fei-Xue Fu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Human pressure on the ocean is thought to be increasing globally, yet the magnitude and patterns of these changes are largely unknown. Here, the authors produce a global map of change in cumulative human pressures over the past 5 years, and show that ∼66% of the ocean has experienced elevated human impact.

    • Benjamin S. Halpern
    • , Melanie Frazier
    •  & Shaun Walbridge

  • Article |

    An underlying assumption of palaeoceanographic proxies is that they are representative of the water properties directly above their site of deposition. Here, the authors combine high-resolution particle tracking simulations and sedimentary proxy data to challenge this assumption.

    • Erik van Sebille
    • , Paolo Scussolini
    •  & Rainer Zahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arctic sea ice has been in rapid decline in recent decades, yet the impact on biogeochemical cycling is unknown due to insufficient sampling. Watanabe et al.combine year-long mooring observations with numerical models to show that an eddy-induced biological pump would be enhanced by sea ice retreat.

    • Eiji Watanabe
    • , Jonaotaro Onodera
    •  & Michio J. Kishi

  • Article |

    Storm water runoff and wastewater effluent are discharged into oceans, but the full ecological effects of these discharges are unknown. Here, the authors examine the population structure of a marine organism, the bat star, and show that these discharges alter the genetic structure and larval dispersal of this species.

    • Jonathan B. Puritz
    •  & Robert J. Toonen

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