It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Test pesticides for possible role in Parkinson’s disease
There is increasing evidence that pesticides play a role in the development of Parkinson’s disease. But these substances are not sufficiently tested for their possible role in this disease. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, among others, propose a step-by-step testing approach that should guarantee the safety of pesticides.
Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing brain disorder in the world. It is clear that environmental factors, such as air pollution and exposure to heavy metals, play an important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease. In addition, there is increasing evidence that pesticides are involved, but these substances are not adequately tested for their possible role in Parkinson’s disease. Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Radboud university medical center and the RIVM want to change this. They present a systematic testing approach for pesticides that minimizes animal suffering as much as possible.
Four test phases
The researchers propose that both existing and new pesticides go through four testing phases. Firstly, database research must show whether there are indications that a substance could cause damage to brain cells. If so, laboratory research, in which the effects of the pesticide on brain cells, should be performed. If researchers find indications of undesirable properties in those experiments too, they must test the substances in animal species that bear little resemblance to humans, such as worms or flies. The final step involves exposing mice and rats to the pesticide.
Brain researcher Judith Homberg from Radboudumc explains this step-by-step approach: ‘This way, we test the pesticides very thoroughly, without needing a large number of laboratory animals. Unfortunately, research on rats and mice is necessary to definitively determine the safety of a substance. Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed based on behavioral changes and these animals exhibit behavior that is relevant to this disease. We can also expose these laboratory animals to pesticides for a long period of time and in a similar way to humans. For example, by adding these substances to drinking water or to the air that they inhale.’
Clear plan
Neurologist and co-author Bas Bloem (Radboudumc) emphasizes the importance of the tests: ‘We are still largely in the dark about the safety of these substances. The current admission criteria for pesticides provide insufficient insight into the risk of Parkinson’s and other brain diseases. We now propose a clear plan of action to properly assess safety.
The researchers are now entering into discussions with industry and regulatory authorities. Ling Shan Ph.D. (researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in the group of Dick Swaab) says: ‘This test is just a first step to systematically and effectively screen pesticides. The aim is to subsequently implement this as a routine screening for other toxic substances in the environment. The next step is to conduct the experiments, in which we have to collaborate with national partners, such as universities and the RIVM.’
INTEGRATION OF BLAST FURNACE, COKE OVEN, AND RECYCLING OF PROCESS GASES AND PROCESS HEAT REDUCES CO2 EMISSION OF STEEL PRODUCTION. (GRAPHICS: SMS GROUP)
Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the SMS group have developed a new process to reduce CO2 emission of worldwide steel production by several hundred million tons per year. It is based on modernizing blast furnace technology with moderate investments and has already been demonstrated successfully in a pilot plant. The researchers report in Energy Advances. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3YA00227F)
About eight percent of worldwide CO2 emissions are produced by steel industry. “This must be changed quickly,” says Professor Olaf Deutschmann from KIT’s Institute for Chemical Technology and Polymer Chemistry (ITCP). He admits that new hydrogen technologies may open up a climate-neutral perspective in the long term. But it will take several years until a sufficient amount of green hydrogen will be available worldwide and new plants will start operation. “We are running out of time in this climate crisis and we have to take countermeasures now.” A new process developed by Deutschmann’s research team in cooperation with the SMS group, Paul Wurth Entwicklungen, and KIT’s startup omegadot has now proved to be effective also in conventional plants. “The potential is very high. We expect that backfitting existing blast furnaces with moderate investments will reduce worldwide direct CO2 emissions by two to four percent,” Deutschmann says.
New Process Reduces Emissions and Saves Energy
The new process departs from iron. This raw material is contained in oxidized form in ores and extracted by means of reduction, i.e. the removal of oxygen, with coke in a blast furnace. Coke does not only produce the energy required for melting, but also serves as a reducing agent in the chemical reaction. “For this special purpose, coke is produced from fossil coal in a highly energy-consuming process,” says Philipp Blanck from ITCP, who cooperated closely with the SMS group at the pilot plant that was part of the steelworks. “In our process, we recycle CO2 from the furnace gas using coke oven gas. This yields a synthesis gas with a large hydrogen fraction that can be used as a coke substitute in the blast furnace.
For backfitting an existing plant, the Cowper heaters must be modified. Then, methane and CO2 from the coke oven gas and CO2 from the blast furnace gas are converted into synthesis gas, a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This process, so-called dry reforming, requires a high temperature that is mainly taken from the process heat of the blast furnace. The synthesis gas is then blown into the blast furnace to support iron oxide reduction there. “Per ton of steel produced, significant amounts of coke can be saved. Specific CO2 emissions are reduced by up to twelve percent,” Blanck says.
Successful Demonstration in Cooperation with Industry Partners
The process was demonstrated and validated at Dillinger Hüttenwerke, Saarland, in cooperation with omegadot software & consulting GmbH, a startup of KIT. omegadot has developed a software for the precise simulation and visualization of the process and for supporting scale-up to an industrial plant.
The pilot plant in Dillingen is operated by the SMS group together with Dillinger Hüttenwerke and Saarstahl. Operation is aimed at producing steel with reduced CO2 emissions. “Integration of the new process in the steelworks is the first step in the transformation of steel industry,” says Gilles Kass from the Research Section of SMS group, co-author of the publication.
Original Publication Philipp Blanck, Gilles Kass, Klaus Peter Kinzel, Olaf Deutschmann: Dry reforming of steelworks off-gases in a pilot plant integrated into a steel mill: influence of operating parameters; Energy Advances, 2023. DOI: 10.1039/d3ya00227f
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
Pilot plant to demonstrate the new process for iron extraction in Saarland. (Photo: SMS group)
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF ORGANISMIC AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
IMAGE:
ENROLLMENT IN ARTHROPODS IS AN IMPORTANT DEFENSIVE STRATEGY THAT PROVIDES PROTECTION AGAINST PREDATION. A – C, ENROLLED CERAURUS FROM THE WALCOTT-RUST QUARRY. D – F, ENROLLED FLEXICALYMENE FROM THE WALCOTT-RUST QUARRY. G – I, ENROLLED ISOPOD. J – L, ENROLLED GLOMERID MILLIPEDE.
They’d been in the collections of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) since the 1870s when they were first discovered. Nestled in among the largest collection of trilobites, the unique fossils rested in drawers until 145 years later when Sarah Losso, PhD candidate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) at Harvard, began combing through the collection of trilobites as part of her dissertation.
“I started my PhD going through all of these thin sections of trilobites, imaging them, and trying to figure what we can actually see,” Losso said. “And then I came across something we never see in trilobite fossils.”
In a new study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, lead author Losso describes the unusual three-dimensional trilobite fossils prepared as thin sections showing the 3D soft tissues during enrollment. The study reveals the soft undersides of enrolled trilobites and the evolutionary mechanism that allows arthropods to enroll their bodies for protection from predators and adverse environmental conditions.
Trilobites are early arthropods from the Paleozoic Era. They were numerous and super diverse until they were wiped out in the End Permian mass extinction. Trilobites are named for their three-lobed body, which is covered by a durable exoskeleton enriched in calcite that is easily preserved; making trilobites an iconic part of the Paleozoic fossil record. Their segmented bodies have numerous limb pairs that include a walking leg and a gill for respiration. Unlike their durable exoskeleton, their undersides, including the legs, are much softer so are rarely fossilized unless the perfect conditions are met. Trilobites have no close relatives, despite their resemblance to horseshoe crabs. However, horseshoe crabs can serve as a useful comparison because of their similar lifestyle.
The challenges associated with fossilizing soft tissues make the trilobites Losso studied even more special. The fossils are from the Mohawkian Stage of the Ordovician Period (462-451 million years ago). They were discovered in the Walcott-Rust Quarry located in upstate New York near Trenton Falls; a region originally inhabited by the Iroquois tribe. The quarry is named in part after the scientist Charles D. Walcott, who discovered the enrolled trilobites there in his youth, before going on to famously discover the Burgess Shale while Director of the Smithsonian Institution.
The fossils, which Walcott sold to the MCZ and the Smithsonian in the 1870s, were trapped in a sediment slurry that quickly moved downslope and entombed the trilobites, leading to the preservation of delicate tissues before decay destroyed them. They are unusual in that the soft tissues, such as legs and antennae, are preserved in 3D. Walcott studied the fossils by cutting them into sections of paper-thin slices of rock and attaching them to glass slides using balsam sap. Though doing the best with what was available at the time, Walcott’s method of preparation makes the fossils difficult to study, because 3D structures are being seen as a 2D plane.
“These were the first known complete trilobite appendages,” said Losso, “before their discovery in the late 1800s, scientists knew of the walking leg, but not what the gill branches looked like.” Because of the environmental disturbance, the trilobites enrolled to protect their more delicate appendages. Sediment then surrounded the legs of the partially enrolled trilobites, creating a mold of the external shape even while the tissues decayed.
Enrollment occurs in many different organisms. It is a defense strategy for animals with hard exoskeletons and softer tissues on their underside. We see enrollment in modern animals including pill bugs (isopods), pill millipedes (millipedes), and even armadillos. By enrolling their bodies, these animals can protect their vulnerable soft tissues with their hard exoskeletons from predators. In modern terrestrial arthropods, it can also protect against desiccation and loss of moisture.
While the mechanics of trilobite enrollment are well studied, these observations have only been made by examining their exoskeletons due to a lack of enrolled fossils with soft tissue preservation. Of the 20,000 species of trilobites, fewer than 40 have soft tissue preservation. And of those 40, most only preserve parts of a leg or antenna. Only a dozen species have known complete appendages, yet most of those are preserved as highly compressed, flat fossils, as is seen in the Burgess Shale from British Columbia.
“These fossils give us the first clear view of the three-dimensional organization of trilobite soft tissues, as well as the first molds of trilobites in different stages of enrollment, which allowed us to actually see how they moved their appendages and other structures in order to enroll,” Losso said.
Trilobites and other arthropods have rows of dorsal exoskeletal plates on their back and undersides. The plates on the back, called tergites, are reinforced and much larger than the plates on the undersides. The sternites are a row of rigid plates along the underside and are softer and more prone to decay, so are rarely seen in the fossil record. The Walcott-Rust fossils, however, had preserved ventral structures including the sternites and limbs.
Though on the softer side, the sternites are too long and rigid for the animal to enroll if they cannot flex or articulate. To get around this, the sternites actually slide past each other in a dipping motion, similar to window blinds, which allows their body to scrunch up into a ball. Trilobite legs have also adapted to allow for this movement by evolving into a wedge shape that can fit together like pizza slices inside the enrolled ball.
“Because the part of the leg that attaches to the body is rarely seen, and certainly not in 3D, people frequently represented it as oval or squarish in cross-section,” Losso said, “but oval or square legs would not allow for the flexibility needed for full enrollment.”
Losso compared the Walcott-Rust fossils to CT scans of modern arthropods of millipedes, isopods, and horseshoe crabs, which were also housed in the MCZ collections. Losso found that modern arthropods used the same movement of sternites as we see in trilobites to enroll their bodies. Trilobites have been found throughout the Paleozoic Era. The adaptation to enroll allowed them to thrive, and they evolved structures to aid in enrollment such as the correct proportions and number of segments in the ventral to keep the body enrolled and wedge-shaped legs.
“The fossils have been known for a long time, but no one had put it together that we could study the ventral adaptations for enrollment using these really great fossils,” Losso said. “These fossils allowed us to compare trilobites with modern arthropods and see that there is really only one way to accomplish enrollment given the arthropod body plan. It’s a great example of convergent evolution amongst all these different lineages, and across a huge swath of time because we’re seeing this in the Ordovician and today. It’s an important strategy for survival that thrives today.”
“Sarah’s work has greatly improved our understanding of a key behavioral strategy that made trilobites incredibly successful for over 200 million years, and also brings new attention to the historical collections of Walcott-Rust fossils at the MCZ that went unstudied over 100 years,” said senior author Javier Ortega-Hernández, Assistant Professor in OEB and Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the MCZ. “The new data on the three-dimensional morphology of trilobites during enrollment will allow us to accurately model this complex strategy for the first time, and represent a beautiful example of convergent evolution in action across distantly related species.”
Sternites are the rigid ventral plates. In order for trilobites, isopods and millipedes to enroll, these plates must dip below each other to allow flexure of the body. A – C, Thin sections of Ceraurus from the Walcott-Rust Quarry. E – F, Tomographic slice of terrestrial isopod.
The limbs of trilobites were wedge-shaped in cross-section, which allowed for enrolment of the body as they fit snuggly together.
The Walcott-Rust Quarry near Trenton Falls in New York state.
CREDIT
Sarah R. Losso
JOURNAL
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
CREDIT: MARCO VECCHIATO, CNR - CA' FOSCARI UNIVERSITY OF VENICE
VENICE - Traces of sunscreen agents were found at the North Pole, on the glaciers of the Svalbard archipelago. They were mainly deposited in winter, when night falls over the Arctic. A study conducted by researchers from Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Institute of Polar Sciences - National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISP), in collaboration with the University Center in Svalbard (UNIS) measured their concentration and investigated their origin. The results are published in the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment.
The aim of the work was to present the first overview of the environmental presence of personal care products in the Arctic, providing data on their spatial and seasonal distribution in the snowpack. Thanks to an Arctic Field Grant project funded by the Research Council of Norway, in collaboration with CNR-ISP and the Italian research station ‘Dirigibile Italia’ in Ny Ålesund, between April and May 2021 samplings were conducted on five glaciers located across the Brøggerhalvøya peninsula. The variety of sites, selected near human settlements and in more remote locations, made it possible to study the presence and behaviour of emerging contaminants, which are still-in-use compounds, but under scrutiny for their potential harmfulness towards the environment. Results revealed the presence at the highest latitudes of various commonly used compounds, such as fragrance materials and UV filters.
'Many of the contaminants we have analysed, such as Benzophenone-3, Octocrylene, Ethylhexyl Methoxycinnamate and Ethylhexyl Salicylate had never been identified in Arctic snow before,' says Marianna D'Amico, a PhD student in Polar Sciences at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and first author of the study.
"The results show that the presence of emerging contaminants in remote areas can be attributed to the role of long-range atmospheric transport," explains Marco Vecchiato, researcher in Analytical Chemistry at Ca' Foscari and co-author of the paper. "In fact, the highest concentrations were found in winter deposition. At the end of winter, contaminated air masses from Eurasia reach the Arctic more easily.”
"The most noticeable example concerns certain UV filters normally used as ingredients in sun creams. The highest winter concentrations of these contaminants can only be traced back to the continental regions inhabited at lower latitudes: in Svalbard, during the Arctic night, the sun does not rise and sunscreens are not used,” Vecchiato continues.
The distribution of some of these contaminants varies with altitude. Most of the compounds have higher concentrations at lower altitudes, except for Octocrylene and Benzophenone-3. These two UV filters, commonly used in sunscreens, are more abundant on glacier tops where they must have travelled from lower latitudes transported by atmospheric circulation.
These data will be useful for monitoring programs in the area and for the protection of the local ecosystem. Adverse effects caused by the selected contaminants on aquatic organisms have already been detected, such as alteration in endocrine and hormonal system functions. Some of these compounds are subject to regulations in several Pacific islands, and they are under investigation by the European Union.
For the Arctic environmental protection, it will be fundamental to quantify the re-emission of contaminants of emerging concern into the environment during snowmelt. "It will be crucial to understand how these contaminants are transported and deposited in polar areas, especially in relation to variations in local seasonal conditions," concludes Andrea Spolaor, a researcher at CNR-ISP. "Such conditions are rapidly changing in response to climate change, which occurs four times faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world."
Older tree plantations can be more attractive to animals who are looking for a new home than younger plantations, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. In the tropics, older plantations also welcome a greater variety of different plants and animals – though sadly, Christmas tree plantations do not become more biodiverse over time.
Across the world, people are planting more trees. This can be for wood, fuel, food – or even carbon offsetting. The problem is that tree plantations are often less biodiverse than the habitat they replace.
Sophie Tudge, who led the study at Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability, said:
“We found older plantations were generally more biodiverse than younger ones – and this was true even for oil palm plantations. Sometimes, you even find new species arriving in plantations that weren’t in the area before.
“Yet make no mistake – original habitats are generally much more biodiverse than artificial plantations.”
There are currently 223 million hectares of tree plantations globally. To study biodiversity within plantations, the researchers took a recent global map of which year these were planted. They compared that map with a database measuring how many species and individuals lived where.
The researchers hope that their analysis will help tree planters be more mindful of biodiversity, promoting UN Sustainable Development Goal 15 – Life on Land.
Dr Zoe Harris, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability, said:
“The world is planting trees like never before – but our study urges caution. Whilst plantations are important for providing products and services, there is a clear limit to the conservation value of plantations. Yet, taking into account an area’s natural history and reducing the intensity of management can help encourage biodiversity. Therefore, we hope our findings can help achieve responsible planting that protects nature as far as possible.”
Older tree plantations can be more attractive to animals who are looking for a new home than younger plantations, according to a new study from the University of Surrey. In the tropics, older plantations also welcome a greater variety of different plants and animals – though sadly, Christmas tree plantations do not become more biodiverse over time.
Across the world, people are planting more trees. This can be for wood, fuel, food – or even carbon offsetting. The problem is that tree plantations are often less biodiverse than the habitat they replace.
Sophie Tudge, who led the study at Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability, said:
“We found older plantations were generally more biodiverse than younger ones – and this was true even for oil palm plantations. Sometimes, you even find new species arriving in plantations that weren’t in the area before.
“Yet make no mistake – original habitats are generally much more biodiverse than artificial plantations.”
There are currently 223 million hectares of tree plantations globally. To study biodiversity within plantations, the researchers took a recent global map of which year these were planted. They compared that map with a database measuring how many species and individuals lived where.
The researchers hope that their analysis will help tree planters be more mindful of biodiversity, promoting UN Sustainable Development Goal 15 – Life on Land.
Dr Zoe Harris, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability, said:
“The world is planting trees like never before – but our study urges caution. Whilst plantations are important for providing products and services, there is a clear limit to the conservation value of plantations. Yet, taking into account an area’s natural history and reducing the intensity of management can help encourage biodiversity. Therefore, we hope our findings can help achieve responsible planting that protects nature as far as possible.”
WITH THIS ECHO SOUNDER (NORBIT MULTIBEAM ECHO SOUNDER) OPTIMIZED FOR SHALLOW WATER, GEOSCIENTIST DR JENS SCHNEIDER VON DEIMLING AND THE RESEARCH TEAM EXAMINED THE SEAFLOOR DOWN TO CENTIMETERS. THE DETECTION OF THE PITS HAS ONLY THEREFORE BECOME POSSIBLE IN RECENT YEARS.
The North Sea seafloor is dotted with thousands of crater-like depressions in the sediment known as pockmarks. There are probably millions of them around the world ocean. They are formed by fluid discharge such as the greenhouse gas methane or groundwater, according to common scientific understanding. The majority of these pockmarks still puzzle researchers today, as many cannot be explained by fluid seepage. "Our results show for the first time that these depressions occur in direct connection with the habitat and behavior of porpoises and sand eels and are not formed by rising fluids", says Dr Jens Schneider von Deimling, lead author of the current study and geoscientist at Kiel University. "Our high-resolution data provide a new interpretation for the formation of tens of thousands of pits on the North Sea seafloor, and we predict that the underlying mechanisms occur globally, but have been overseen until now", Schneider von Deimling adds. For the study, Schneider von Deimling and researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation (TiHo) as well as the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) examined the seafloor in the North Sea off Heligoland down to centimeters. They also included the behavior of vertebrates such as porpoises in their analyses.
Vertebrates leave pits in the seabed of the North Sea
Most of the depressions in the seafloor in the German Bight, the team suspects, are created by porpoises and other animals in search of food, and then scoured out by bottom currents. The sand eel, a small eel-like fish that spends most of the year buried in shallow sediments, plays a key role in this process. Sand eels are not only popular with the fishing industry, but are also consumed in large quantities by porpoises. "From analyses of the stomach contents of stranded porpoises, we know that sand eels are an important food source for the North Sea population", says Dr Anita Gilles of the TiHo-Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW), who has long studied the biology of marine mammals. In their study, the researchers showed that the marine mammals leave pits in the seafloor when they hunt for buried sand eels. Although these pits resemble the familiar pockmarks, they are much shallower.
Advanced multibeam echosounder technology provides information on pit condition
The detection of the pits has only become possible in recent years with the help of modern multibeam echosounder technology, which is taught and practiced intensively at Kiel University. "The formation mechanism of these pits, as we call them, probably also explains the existence of numerous crater-like depressions on the seafloor worldwide, which have been misinterpreted as the result of methane gas leaks", says geoscientist Schneider von Deimling. In the North Sea, the researchers identified 42458 of these enigmatically shaped, shallow pits with an average depth of just eleven centimeters, which differ in their morphology from the more conical craters of the pockmarks.
Schneider von Deimling works in the Kiel Marine Geophysics and Hydroacoustics working group at the Institute of Geosciences and the Kiel Marine Science (KMS) priority research area at Kiel University, and is vice chairman of the German Hydrographic Society (DHyG). As an expert in seafloor mapping, methane gas seepage and seafloor pockmarks, he never believed that the depressions in the German Bight were caused by rising fluids. "We had to come up with an alternative hypothesis for the formation. This allowed us to predict where potential porpoise feeding sites are, and that is exactly where we found the pits - always close to sandeel habitats. Our extensive and multidisciplinary data analysis now provides a conclusive explanation for our harbor porpoise pits hypothesis.”
An interdisciplinary approach leads to the harbor porpoise pits hypothesis
The key to the new findings was an interdisciplinary approach that brought together geological studies, geophysical sonar measurements, vertebrate behavior and feeding biology, satellite evaluation, and oceanographic analysis. By precisely analyzing millions of echosoundings collected by German research vessels, the researchers were able to locate the unusual pits. "Using special echosounding methods, we can now measure the seafloor with centimeter precision and thus find the shallow pits. We can also look into the seafloor and see, for example, whether there is free methane gas", explains AWI researcher Dr Jasper Hoffmann.
Analyzing the data, collected by research vessels over thousands of nautical miles, was a mammoth task. "With modern methods, such structures can be automatically detected and characterized in acoustic data sets and automatically analyzed in large data sets", says Dr. Jacob Geersen, co-author of the study.
From the North Sea into the world: results with far-reaching effects
The research team currently believes that the initial feeding pits serve as a nucleus for scouring and eventually develop into larger pits. This finding also has global implications. The scouring of sediments by vertebrates in the ocean could modulate the seafloor on a global scale and influence benthic ecosystems. In the study area alone, pits cover nine percent of the seafloor. Initial volume estimates indicate that 773369 tons of sediment have been deposited over an area of 1581 km². This is roughly equivalent to the weight of half a million cars. "Our results have far-reaching implications from a geological and biological perspective. They can help to assess the ecological risks associated with the expansion of renewable energies in the offshore sector and thus improve marine environmental protection", concludes Schneider von Deimling.
The research results were produced, among others, within the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM) pilot mission "Exclusion of mobile, ground-touching fisheries in protected areas of the German Exclusive Economic Zone of the North Sea and Baltic Sea" (funding reference 03F0847A) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), within the BMBF framework program "Research for Sustainable Development - FONA3" as well as within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie funding KARST of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (project number 101027303).
Original publication: Schneider von Deimling, J., Hoffmann, J., Geersen, J., Koschinski, S., Lohrberg, A., Gilles, A., Belkin, I., Böttner, C., Papenmeier, S., Krastel, S.: Millions of seafloor pits, not pockmarks, induced by vertebrates in the North Sea. Commun Earth Environ (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-023-01102-y
About Kiel Marine Science (KMS): Kiel Marine Science (KMS), the Center for interdisciplinary marine science at Kiel University, is devoted to excellent and responsible ocean research at the interface between humans and the ocean. The researchers combine their expertise from various natural and social science disciplines to investigate the risks and opportunities that the sea provides for humans. The success of Kiel Marine Science is based on close interdisciplinary cooperation in research and teaching between researchers from seven faculties at Kiel University. Together with actors from outside the scientific community, they work globally and transdisciplinarily on solutions for sustainable use and protection of the ocean.
Scientific Contact: Dr Jens Schneider von Deimling Marine Geophysics and Hydroacoustics Institute of Geosciences Kiel University E-mail: jens.schneider@ifg.uni-kiel.de Telephone: +49/431/880-5792
Press Contact: Friederike Balzereit Public Outreach / Science Communication Kiel Marine Science (KMS) Kiel University E-mail: fbalzereit@uv.uni-kiel.de Telephone: +49/431/880-3032
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