Top scientists call for permanent ban on high seas exploitation
Extractive activity in international waters - including fishing, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploitation - should be banned forever, according to top scientists.
The high seas, the vast international waters beyond national jurisdiction, remain largely unprotected and are increasingly threatened.
Writing in the journal Nature, Professor Callum Roberts and co-authors argue that stopping all extractive activity in international waters would prevent irreversible damage to marine biodiversity, the climate, and ocean equity.
This would also be a decisive step toward achieving the goal of protecting 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, as set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in 2022.
“Life in the high seas is vital to the ocean’s ability to store carbon and is too important to lose,” said lead author Professor Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Exeter and lead researcher with the Convex Seascape Survey. “This paper makes the case that we must stop extractive activities in the high seas permanently, to protect the climate, restore biodiversity and safeguard ocean function for future generations.”
The paper highlights four reasons for a ban:
- Climate stability: The high seas are Earth’s largest and most secure carbon sink. Protecting them is critical to preserving the biological and nutrient cycles that draw down and keep atmospheric CO₂ in check.
- Biodiversity and fisheries: Species such as tuna, sharks, marlin, squid and krill, which are currently targeted in high seas fishing, would have a chance to recover and spill over into national waters. This would support food security and fairer access to resources, particularly for lower income nations in the Global South.
- Oil and gas: There is no climate justification to exploit fossil fuels in the high seas, given existing reserves on land and in national waters, and rapid development in green energy generation.
- Deep-sea mining: The industry poses uncontrollable and irreversible risks to environment and climate, despite claims the minerals are essential for green technologies. Much larger, proven land-based mineral reserves exist that can be exploited with less risk, better governance and greater transparency.
“The high seas are a critical regulator of Earth’s climate system,” said Professor Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Protecting them is essential to preserving global stability and avoiding dangerous tipping points that threaten life on Earth.”
“This is not a fringe environmental demand,” added Mark Lynas, co-author and climate journalist. “Ending exploitation in the high seas is a scientifically grounded, economically sensible and morally urgent decision if we want to avert ecological collapse.”
While the UN High Seas Treaty, announced in June 2023, offers a pathway to greater protection, its implementation will take years. The authors argue that urgent action is needed now. A full and permanent ban on extractive use, they suggest, is both feasible and necessary, echoing the successful precedent set for Antarctica in the 1950s.
The article includes contributions from some of the world’s most influential scientists and thinkers, including:
- Sylvia Earle, pioneering oceanographer, National Geographic Explorer and Founder and Director of Mission Blue
- Johan Rockström, leading climate scientist and Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
- Daniel Pauly leading fisheries scientist and Founder and Director of Sea Around Us at the Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries, University of British Columbia
- Jessica Meeuwig is a global leader in open ocean ecosystems and Wen Family Chair in Conservation, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia Oceans Institute
- Rashid Sumaila, ocean economist and Killam Professor and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, The University of British Columbia
- Stuart Pimm, global leader in biodiversity science and Doris Duke Professor of Conservation at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University
- Mark Lynas, award-winning science writer and science advisor with the Climate Vulnerable Forum
- Andrew Forrest, mining executive, ocean scientist, philanthropist and advocate of green economic transition, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia; Fortescue, Perth, Western Australia, Australia; Minderoo Foundation, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- Ove Hoegh-Guldberg FAA, leading expert in climate change and the ocean and Professor Emeritus at the School of the Environment, University of Queensland
The article is grounded in the scientific foundations of the Convex Seascape Survey, a global research partnership between the University of Exeter, Blue Marine Foundation and Convex Group Limited. It is the most ambitious programme to date focused on understanding how seabed ecosystems contribute to carbon storage and how best to protect them.
Published in the journal Nature, the article is entitled: “Why we should protect the high seas from all extraction, forever.”
Journal
Nature
Article Title
Why we should protect the high seas from all extraction, forever
Article Publication Date
4-Jun-2025
Global Declaration endorsed to advance scientific ocean drilling
Global Declaration endorsed to advance scientific ocean drilling UNOC 2025 side event underscores the critical role of sub-seafloor research in Earth and ocean science
image:
Participants aof ECORD UNOC side event. Image: ECORD_ESSAC
view moreCredit: ECORD_ESSAC
This event, titled “Understanding the ocean below the seafloor: scientific ocean drilling – A global infrastructure linking the past and future of planet Earth”, was organized by the European Consortium for
Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), with support of the International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3) Bringing together over 100 participants, both online and in person, including national delegations, leading
scientists, and international stakeholders, the event reaffirmed the essential role of scientific ocean drilling in addressing global challenges such as climate change, geohazards, exploration of the deep biosphere, and the sustainable management of marine resources.
“Scientific ocean drilling is a unique tool that has enabled interdisciplinary research into the interlinked Earth system processes that influence the future of our planet,” said Angelo Camerlenghi, Chair of ECORD’s
Science Support and Advisory Committee (ESSAC) and chair of the event.
The newly adopted Declaration of Commitment celebrates over 60 years of international cooperation in ocean science, building on legacy initiatives such as the outstanding programs DSDP, ODP, and IODP
(1968–2024). Looking into the future, the declaration sets out a shared vision based on core principles: transparent access to data and samples, inclusive and collaborative participation, environmental
responsibility, and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The event was conceived as the beginning of a process of demonstration to the blue ocean scientific community and policy makers of the opportunities for future synergies with seabed and sub-seabed
observations and exploration on a global scale,” noted Gilbert Camoin, Director of the EMA, ECORD Managing Agency.
Keynotes and statements were delivered by representatives from France, the United States, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Norway, United Kingdom and global organizations including the World Ocean Council. Discussions focused on the scientific, technological, and policy implications of sub-seafloor exploration and its integration into ocean governance.
“The ECORD Council is deeply committed to the IODP3 programme and strongly supports the Declaration as a cornerstone for future ocean policy,” said Annalisa Iadanza, Vice Chair of the ECORD Council and co-chair of the event. “Scientific ocean drilling is vital to advancing ocean knowledge, supporting sustainable development, and guiding evidence-based decision-making toward the achievement of the UN SDGs.”
The event was endorsed by the UNESCO Ocean Decade, reinforcing the global commitment to fostering scientific knowledge and innovation to ensure a healthy and resilient ocean.
Declaration of Commitment to Scientific Ocean Drilling:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VWAjffUSl98y4WiXl2tLjUzuhU8HYiz/view?usp=sharing
Kelp forest collapse alters food web and energy dynamics in the Gulf of Maine
image:
Various fish species, including cunner and the pollock — the two dominant fish species identified in the study — swim off Cashes Ledge through some of the healthy kelp forest that remains in the Gulf of Maine (Credit: Brian Skerry).
view moreCredit: Brian Skerry
While kelp forests persist along northern Maine’s rocky coast, kelp abundance has declined by as much as 80% on the southern coast in recent decades. In its stead, carpet-like turf algae have moved in.
A team, led by scientists at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, are examining the broad consequences of this shift. Their recently published research in Science Advances shows that predator-prey interactions and the flow of energy are fundamentally different on turf-dominated reefs compared to the remaining kelp forests.
Using visual dive surveys and cutting-edge stable isotope methods, they found that dominant predatory fish species acquired the majority of their energy from kelp. Meanwhile, the same fish species on turf-dominated reefs have compensated for the loss of kelp by turning to phytoplankton for energy. The turf algae, while abundant, was not a significant source of energy.
The study is the first to quantify the importance of kelp-derived carbon to the food web in the Gulf of Maine, highlighting how kelp forest collapse is reshaping energy dynamics in this rapidly warming ecosystem. It’s also the first to trace the flow of carbon in this region using a novel amino acid-based stable isotope technique, which could prove useful for differentiating energy sources in farmed kelp environments and other ecosystems.
“People have studied the importance of kelp forests for habitat and food around the world, but we never knew that providing energy was such a critical function of kelp forests in the Gulf of Maine,” said the study’s lead author, Dara Yiu, a University of Maine PhD candidate based at Bigelow Laboratory. “So, when we lose kelp forests, it’s fundamentally changing the energy sources that are supporting the food web.”
As warming waters have devastated kelp forests along large swaths of the coast, turf algae have proliferated, providing few of the same ecosystem services as kelp. In terrestrial forest and coral reef environments, scientists have long understood how this sort of “state shift,” as this foundational habitat change is called, can alter food web dynamics. Yet, scientists are only beginning to unravel what it means in the Gulf of Maine.
“We have a better handle on how energy is produced and flows through food webs on tropical reefs. There are many knowledge gaps here in the Gulf,” said Doug Rasher, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory and senior author on the study. “A lot of the work we’re doing in kelp forests is foundational, in terms of revealing how this iconic ecosystem is changing, and how these changes reverberate to impact other animals.”
After several seasons of intensive dive surveys to assess the condition of kelp forests along the coast, the researchers used stable isotope methods to trace the flow of energy through the food web from primary producers like kelp up to predatory fish like pollock.
They first measured ratios of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in whole, or “bulk,” tissues of the two most widespread fish species, a popular method for understanding resource use and food web position. Comparing fish on kelp- versus turf-dominated reefs, they found that the food web was seemingly more complex in the remaining kelp forests, with the two fish species occupying larger ecological niches with less overlap in their diet.
These traditional measurements, however, are not effective for tracing carbon that comes from multiple, distinct sources. To that end, the team deployed an approach that looks at carbon isotope ratios in essential amino acids in fish muscle tissue. These molecules can’t be made or modified by animals as they move up the food web, so each retains a distinct “fingerprint” from the primary producer that created it — whether that’s kelp, red macroalgae, or phytoplankton floating in the water column.
Yiu worked with Emma Elliott Smith, a postdoctoral scientist at the University of New Mexico and co-author on the study, to undertake the analysis. The amino acid approach, Yiu said, is more labor intensive and time consuming than traditional bulk stable isotope methods, but it enabled them to determine how sources and flows of energy varied along the coast.
“By analyzing individual amino acids, we can zoom in on specific biomarkers to trace energy flow through an ecosystem with much more precision than traditional methods,” Elliott Smith said. “This approach gave us a much clearer picture of how energy is moving through kelp forests, and how kelp contribute energy to the food web in the Gulf of Maine, which we couldn’t get from bulk analysis alone.”
The analysis revealed that fish residing in kelp forests are deriving more than half of their essential amino acids from kelp. Without kelp, phytoplankton, not turf algae, provide the dominant source of energy to the system, confirming that this large-scale loss of a foundational species has removed a key source and pathway for energy to flow in the food web.
“In most parts of the ocean, especially areas like the Gulf of Maine where phytoplankton productivity is so high, the assumption is that phytoplankton support the food web. So, it was exciting to find that kelp forests here are so productive that fish and the nearshore food webs can rely on them instead,” Yiu said. “And where you don’t have robust kelp forests, it changes the underlying structure of the food web, the full consequences of which we still don’t know.”
These findings provide a springboard for future studies of the reef food web and its resilience to ongoing change, which Rasher and his team are continuing to explore. They plan to partner with Elliott Smith to apply these new methods next to Cashes Ledge, a seamount 90 miles off the coast of Maine. With its thriving kelp forests and abundant fish populations, Rasher said, it may provide a glimpse into what the Maine coast once looked like.
“While we found that kelp is a key source of energy for coastal reef fish, we still have much to learn about the impacts of kelp forest loss on commercially and ecologically important fish,” Rasher said. “Our study is just the tip of the iceberg, and shows there is much more research needed on food web resilience in the Gulf.”
This study was supported by the NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (Grant #OIA-1849227), the Louise H. & David S. Ingalls Foundation, and the Maine Sea Grant program funded by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lead author, Dara Yiu (left), and co-author Shane Farrell (right), prepare to dive near Ram Island as part of an extensive reef survey documenting kelp forest loss along the Maine coast (Credit: Rene Francolini).
Postdoctoral Researcher, and study co-author, Emma Elliott Smith poses in front of the instrument at the University of New Mexico that the researchers used to measure isotopic ratios of individual amino acids (Credit: Jeng Hann Chong).
Lead author, Dara Yiu (left), and senior author, Doug Rasher work in the lab at Bigelow Laboratory with samples collected on Maine reefs (Credit: Shane Farrell).
Journal
Science Advances
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Kelp forest loss and emergence of turf algae reshapes energy flow to predators in a rapidly warming ecosystem
Article Publication Date
6-Jun-2025
Hurricanes create powerful changes deep in the ocean, study reveals
University of California - Merced
With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico.
The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and deeply — up to thousands of meters — that nutrient-rich, cold water is brought to the surface.
The resulting phytoplankton blooms — visible in satellite imagery taken from space — are a feast for bacteria, zooplankton, small fish, and filter-feeding animals such as shellfish and baleen whales.
“When we got there, you could actually see and smell the difference in the ocean,” said Professor Michael Beman. “It was green from all the chlorophyll being produced. There were totally different organisms there, and they were going nuts in the wake of the storm.”
But all that mixing also stirs up low-oxygen zones deep in the water, bringing them much nearer the surface than usual, threatening organisms that need higher oxygen concentrations to survive.
Beman, a marine biologist, studies microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. One of his focuses is oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), large and globally significant areas with little to no oxygen. They are persistent layers in the water column that have low oxygen concentration due to biological, chemical and physical processes. OMZs occur naturally, in contrast to similar “dead zones” that pollution can produce.
OMZs are typically found at mid-depths and can significantly impact marine ecosystems as they are inhospitable to many organisms. Warming ocean waters are contributing to the expansion of OMZs.
In 2018, Beman and his lab went on a research expedition from Mazatlán, Mexico, to San Diego, to study OMZs with collaborators from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and several other institutions.
They knew turbulent weather was likely and closely watched as the second named storm of the year, Hurricane Bud, spun into their planned sampling region.
“We were very careful, and we had plans A, B, C and D in place,” he said. “The forecasting was extremely accurate, and we knew the storm rapidly intensified.”
Instead of going ashore, they traveled between research sites and behind islands while they waited for the storm to pass.
“There was some skill involved, but definitely some luck, too, and we ended up adding a sampling location right where the storm was at maximum power,” Beman said, “basically within a few kilometers of the former eye.”
Those samples are rarely, if ever, taken just after a hurricane has churned the water so powerfully. The data indicated the hurricane had dramatically changed oxygen concentrations.
“I've never seen measurements like that in those areas of the ocean, ever,” Beman said.
Since the trip, the researchers have been examining different aspects of the results, and a new paper in Science Advances, a journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, details their findings.
Beman collaborated on the expedition with Scripps geosciences Professor Lihini Aluwihare and two of her students, Margot White and Irina Koester.
“Margot noticed the subsurface changes from the hurricane when she was preparing her thesis chapters, especially the fact that the oxygen minimum zone had rapidly shoaled,” he said. “Irina searched her unique organic matter data to look for changes driven by the hurricane, which turned out to be very clear and dramatic.
“We've met many, many times to analyze the data and figure out what effects the hurricane had and why.”
The samples also included DNA and RNA, so the researchers could detect the signatures of the organisms that responded to the phytoplankton bloom. Beman said they saw many turtles, which was unusual because they were so far offshore.
“We were doing this at a time of year when there’s not a lot going on biologically in these areas of the ocean,” he said, “so these hurricane-generated blooms are like oases for ocean organisms. We detected a bacteria bloom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if larger organisms made use of the hurricanes. They might sense the storms coming and then migrate to areas the storm had just passed over.”
Their samples and data are so unique that Beman plans to keep working on them and hopes to collaborate with other scientists interested in the effects of hurricanes and hurricane forecasting.
“We are just scratching the surface of what these storms do, and it was a rough few days at sea,” he said. “I hope we continue to learn as much as we can about what actually happens during and after hurricanes.”
Journal
Science Advances
Article Title
Tropical cyclones drive oxygen minimum zone shoaling and simultaneously alter organic matter production
Article Publication Date
6-Jun-2025
Under the Pacific Ocean, ancient sediment reveals Earth’s history
Unearthing these sediments may pave way for advanced climate research
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Deep sea sediments contain treasure troves of information about marine ecosystems and past climate scenarios, yet remain understudied clues into Earth’s environmental future, according to researchers.
Take, for instance, the Pacific Ocean. The largest and deepest ocean basin on the planet, it is a vital wheel in many complex ecological systems, including the carbon cycle. But despite its vast influence, much of what scientists know about the Pacific stems from only a few continuous long sediment core records recovered over the last five decades, said Elizabeth Griffith, co-author of a new paper and a professor in earth sciences at The Ohio State University.
“It's easy to forget that two-thirds of our planet is covered with salty ocean water, especially when you don’t live near the coast,” said Griffith. “It’s also hard to realize just how much of it we haven’t explored yet.”
The commentary paper was recently published in the journal Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology.
In past decades, studying the physical environment of the deep ocean could be a challenging endeavor, partly due to how difficult and time-consuming it is to reach these dark and undiscovered depths. Fortunately, scientists today largely rely on scientific ocean drilling to collect important marine samples, a process that involves specialized ships that use cutting-edge technology to bore down and extract sediment cores from the ocean floor.
Depending on where sediment cores are collected, scientists are able to learn many novel things about Earth’s history and dynamics. For example, samples retrieved from places known as Pacific Highs, undersea shallow geological features that have the potential for well-preserved paleoceanographic records, have helped scientists answer key research questions about subjects like the evolution of life, past extinction events, Earth’s tectonic and volcanic history as well as slight changes in its orbit.
While only eight of these sites, found in the central and western North Pacific, have ever been explored using modern drilling technologies, discoveries made in these locations offer valuable insights into some of the most dynamic environmental shifts of the past 100 million years, said Griffith.
“When you’re extrapolating from such a huge time and spatial scale, you need more than one or two data points to get complete records and ground truth modeling,” she said.
Yet as global temperatures continue to rise and cores collected from these sites are depleted of material that might help reveal key events, new data is needed to continuously improve future climate models and transform our understanding of Earth’s complex life systems.
To better prioritize research questions best answered by future ocean drilling discoveries, the international scientific ocean drilling community held a workshop in October 2024 at The Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory.
Participants determined that in order for ocean discovery science to move forward, scientists will need to create both short- and long-term plans for recovering these sediments.
“One of the benefits of the ocean drilling community has always been that it’s a larger effort,” said Griffith. “There’s support for this idea that we’re answering big questions on a scale that you just can’t do in a single lab or just working with a small subset of people.”
Overall, researchers suggest that future reconstructions of Earth’s past environmental stages will require more data, as gaps in spatial and temporal data coverage hinder the community’s ability to test various hypotheses and validate model simulations of the Pacific Ocean’s behavior during different climate states. Notably, existing sediment core materials are too degraded to apply some new techniques to test these models.
The paper also notes that taking the time to dig deep into whatever long-buried secrets our ocean floors hold will also be beneficial in predicting what tomorrow’s climate future might entail, said Griffith. “Warm periods in Earth’s recent history might tell us something about future conditions on Earth and how life will respond to those changes,” she said.
Nevertheless, while drillship expeditions allow scientists to study some of Earth’s most challenging environments, they also require massive amounts of coordinated international collaboration. Ocean drilling science must expand on these opportunities to grow, but with the recent loss of a U.S. riserless drillship, next-generation scientists worry that losing access to vital data now could jeopardize the field.
“Working with legacy core material is a crucial part of my research, but it will never replicate the experience of sailing on a deep-sea scientific drilling expedition and fostering international collaboration at sea,” said Batoul Saad, co-author of the paper and a PhD student in earth sciences at Ohio State.
While private and public sector leaders work to preserve U.S. federal research funding, scientific experts suggest identifying new opportunities to expand international, collaborative science and help sustain ocean drilling science.
“As individuals, much of the work of supporting science involves just being curious about the planet that we live on and that sustains us,” said Griffith. “Once you become curious, realizing how much you impact your surroundings leads to better decisions and new scientific discoveries.”
The U.S. Science Support Program provided financial support for U.S. participants in the workshop, while Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling MagellanPlus Workshop Series Travel Grant, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and Australian and New Zealand International Scientific Drilling Consortium provided support for international participants. Thomas Westerhold of the University of Bremen in Germany was a co-author.
#
Contact: Elizabeth Griffith, Griffith.906@osu.edu
Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu
Journal
Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
Method of Research
Commentary/editorial
Article Title
Pacific Highs: A Treasure Trove of Past Warm Climate Archives
Article Publication Date
6-Jun-2025
Scientists discover 230 new giant viruses that shape ocean life and health
Study reveals new insights into giant viruses and their role in marine ecosystems
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
image:
A giant virus infection of the unicellular algae Florenciella. The giant viruses can be seen bursting out of the Florenciella cell with their hexagon-shaped capsids that enclose their genetic material.
view moreCredit: Grieg Steward, Ph.D. University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Miami, Fl. — Giant viruses play a role in the survival of single-celled marine organisms called protists. These include algae, amoeba, and flagellates, that form the base of ocean food webs. And since these protists form an important part of the food chain, these large DNA viruses are often responsible for various public health hazards, including harmful algal blooms.
A new study from scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science may help unravel the many types of viruses present in our waterways and oceans. This knowledge could help local leaders better prepare for when a harmful algal bloom may be impacting their coastline or if any other viruses are present in local bays, rivers or lakes.
Using high-performance computing methods, researchers identified 230 novel giant viruses in publicly available marine metagenomic datasets and characterized their functions.
Published in the journal Nature npj Viruses, their findings include the discovery of new giant virus genomes previously unknown in literature. Within these genomes, 530 new functional proteins were characterized, including nine proteins involved in photosynthesis. This indicates that these viruses may be able to manipulate their host and the photosynthesis process during infection.
“By better understanding the diversity and role of giant viruses in the ocean and how they interact with algae and other ocean microbes, we can predict and possibly manage harmful algal blooms, which are human health hazards in Florida as well as all over the world,” said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology. “Giant viruses are often the main cause of death for many phytoplankton, which serve as the base of the food web supporting ocean ecosystems and food sources. The novel functions found in giant viruses could have biotechnological potential, as some of these functions might represent novel enzymes.”
Until recently, giant viruses were largely undetected by scientific methods due to limitations in bioinformatic pipelines. The researchers created an innovative tool called BEREN (Bioinformatic tool for Eukaryotic virus Recovery from Environmental metageNomes), designed to identify giant virus genomes within extensive public DNA sequencing datasets.
“We discovered that giant viruses possess genes involved in cellular functions such as carbon metabolism and photosynthesis—traditionally found only in cellular organisms, said Benjamin Minch, the lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the Rosenstiel School. “This suggests that giant viruses play an outsized role in manipulating their host’s metabolism during infection and influencing marine biogeochemistry.”
The authors used the University of Miami’s Pegasus supercomputer at the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) to process and assemble large metagenomes—often exceeding a gigabase per library—enabling the reconstruction of hundreds of microbial community libraries.
“This study allowed us to create a framework to improve existing tools for detecting novel viruses that could aid in our ability to monitor pollution and pathogens in our waterways.” Minch added.
The research team downloaded DNA sequencing data from nine large global ocean sampling projects spanning from pole to pole. Using BEREN, they recovered giant virus genomes from the data. The genomes were then annotated using publicly available gene function databases to characterize the functions encoded by these viruses. These genomes were compared to all currently available giant virus representatives to identify novel functions.
The BEREN program used to facilitate this research fills a gap in the research field by providing an easy-to-use, one-stop tool for identifying and classifying giant viruses in sequencing datasets. BEREN is available for anyone to use and can be download at: https://gitlab.com/benminch1/BEREN
The study titled, “Expansion of the genomic and functional diversity of global ocean giant viruses,” was published on April 21, 2025 in the journal Nature npj Viruses. The authors are Benjamin Minch and Mohammad Moniruzzaman from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science.
About the University of Miami and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
The University of Miami is a private research university and academic health system with a distinct geographic capacity to connect institutions, individuals, and ideas across the hemisphere and around the world. The University’s vibrant academic community comprises 12 schools and colleges serving more than 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students in more than 180 majors and programs. Located within one of the most dynamic and multicultural cities in the world, the University is building new bridges across geographic, cultural, and intellectual borders, bringing a passion for scholarly excellence, a spirit of innovation, and a commitment to tackling the challenges facing our world. The University of Miami is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU).
Founded in 1943, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science is one of the world’s premier research institutions in the continental United States. The School’s basic and applied research programs seek to improve understanding and prediction of Earth’s geological, oceanic, and atmospheric systems by focusing on four key pillars:
*Saving lives through better forecasting of extreme weather and seismic events.
*Feeding the world by developing sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture programs.
*Unlocking ocean secrets through research on climate, weather, energy and medicine.
*Preserving marine species, including endangered sharks and other fish, as well as protecting and restoring threatened coral reefs. www.earth.miami.edu.
Journal
npj Viruses
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
Cells
Article Title
Expansion of the genomic and functional diversity of global ocean giant viruses
Low pH aggravates toxicity of polystyrene microplastics in crab Eriocheir sinensis
image:
Physiological responses of E. sinensis to acidification-microplastics co-exposure
view moreCredit: Yang Z, Liu J, Chen C, et al
The concurrent intensification of global warming, population growth, economic development, and urbanization has led to rising plastic waste generation and worsening ocean acidification. Under these compounded environmental pressures, plastics undergo accelerated degradation through multiple mechanisms including seawater erosion, UV radiation, and microbial activity, generating vast quantities of microplastics (MPs) <5 mm in size. Simultaneously, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations enhance seawater dissolution, driving persistent pH decline.
“The global surface seawater pH has already decreased by 0.1 units since pre-industrial times, representing a 30% increase in acidity,” shares Zhigang Yang, lead author of a new study published in Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology. “These dual stressors present unprecedented threats to aquatic ecosystems.”
Using Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) as a model organism, the research team employed a 21-day exposure experiment integrating enzyme activity assays, gut microbiota profiling, and hepatopancreas metabolomics to investigate individual and combined effects of low pH and polystyrene MPs.
The key findings include: (1) Combined low pH (6.5) and MPs exposure synergistically exacerbated oxidative damage and immune suppression; (2) While MPs alone primarily disrupted pyrimidine metabolism, co-exposure significantly impaired the TCA cycle and arginine biosynthesis while activating serotonin metabolism; (3) Gut microbiota maintained α-diversity but showed substantial COG functional alterations.
“Our results demonstrate how freshwater acidification amplifies MPs toxicity in crustaceans through immune-metabolic crosstalk,” says Yang. “They provide novel mechanistic perspectives for ecological risk assessment of multiple environmental stressors under climate change scenarios.”
The researchers encourage future research to incorporate more environmentally relevant MPs such as rubber and fibers to further enhance ecological relevance.
###
Contact the author: aqchen@shou.edu.cn (Aqin Chen a,b*), youjiwang2@gmail.com (Youji Wang a,b,c,**).
a Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Genetic Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China
b Centre for Research on Environmental Ecology and Fish Nutrition (CREEFN) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China
c International Research Center for Marine Biosciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Journal
Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Low pH aggravates the toxicity of polystyrene microplastics in crab Eriocheir sinensis: Evidence from metabolome and intestinal microflora
COI Statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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