🌊 New paper in @ambio-journal.bsky.social 🎣 Sediment organic carbon content is lower in intensely trawled areas, declining by 0.05 wt% per additional swept area ratio (1 yr-1 ). rdcu.be/fqQBA

I rather not sound like the opening of Captain Planet, but Earth isn't doing great. Example this time - plankton in the Northeast Atlantic (base of the marine food web), which aren't doing well across the entire region. 🧪🌊 Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X2600405X​

New eyes under the sea in Alonissos Marine Park. The University of the Aegean BioBoost+ team, led by Prof. @skatsanevakis.bsky.social , has installed an underwater camera system & buoy at the Alonissos site. #MPA #MarineBiodiversity #MarineMonitoring #UnderwaterCamera #AegeanSea #MarineScience

Very interesting presentations and fruitful discussions at the Thalassa Conference 2026 in Cyprus, hosted by CMMI. @skatsanevakis.bsky.social, my PhD supervisor, delivering the keynote presentation on Mediterranean biodiversity: status, threats, and challenges for effective conservation.

For those with interests in #complexity theory and systems ecology, I enjoyed this recent and very nice & clear interdisciplinary introduction to tipping point concepts, published recently: doi.org/10.1038/s444... #thresholds #resilience #social-ecological 🌐🧪🦑

🌊🦞 Better tools for ocean health assessment! 🪱🪸 @lornamckellar.bsky.social's new paper delivers a robust, scalable & pressure-independent way to estimate the probability of good ecosystem status across marine systems. besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 🧪

#ClimateChange is reshaping #seaweed ecosystems—from kelp forests to coral reefs—via warming, heatwaves, acidification & deoxygenation, driving range shifts, mortality & regime change. Major gaps remain across regions & stressor interactions. #Seaweeds #MarineEcology 👉 tinyurl.com/yxyfarmj

Another paper supported by #GuardIAS has just been published in Fish & Fisheries. The Dark Side of the Sunfish Family. #bioinvasions #InvasiveSpecies @teuneverts.bsky.social @thanasisnikolaou.bsky.social

Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates

Our project #GES4SEAS has made, with childrens in school, an amazing comic book, with several stories for #OceanLiteracy It is freely available in 15 languages! #MarineEcology #Research zenodo.org/records/1932...

Researcher position on marine #hydroacoustics. Work on passive acoustic datasets: extracting underwater #noise metrics, detecting #cetacean and other marine fauna sounds, and characterizing marine #soundscapes using acoustic and video data. Deadline: 21 March 👉 euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/416394

Open MSc-level researcher / scientific diver position for the LIFE #PINNACARE project. Focus: conservation and recovery of #Pinna nobilis in Greece through field monitoring, transplantations, larval collectors, repopulation, and more. Deadline: 12 March 👉 euraxess.ec.europa.eu/node/413319

Today is #WorldWildlifeDay2026 and it is a good day to launch our #GES4SEAS Tikta software to assess the cumulative effects at sea and its environmental status. Learn here in this video #MarineEcology #Research youtu.be/POx9iXz1ufo

A new study finds fish biomass drop 7.2% for every 0.1°C of ocean floor warming per decade. Every fraction of a degree matters. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#Biodiversity doesn’t follow borders — but #conservation policy still does. A new policy brief, inspired by Haubrock et al. (2026), calls for cross-border coordination, open ecological data, and stronger early warning to tackle #InvasiveSpecies. Supported by #GuardIAS #bioinvasions 🧪🌐🌍

🌊 #ECSA61 Special Session 32 How can we better prevent & manage marine biological invasions in estuarine and coastal waters? 📍 Brussels | 24–27 Aug 2026 🗓 Abstracts due: 6 Mar 2026 👉 www.estuarinecoastalconference.com/special-sess... #InvasiveSpecies #Biosecurity #GuardIAS #bioinvasions

Welcome to a new #mooc of #ges4seas project on #oceanoptimism, to be developed during next four weeks, on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. Come and help us to change the narrative about the ocean! We need some hope and good news!

You will learn about good practices and examples of recovery and good status of marine ecosystems around the world, You can share them with your friends, students or family! It is a good opportunity to change behaviour towards the #ocean #ges4seas #mooc #oceanoptimism

#Mediterranean seafloors are heating fast 🌊🔥. Our new study shows bottom marine #heatwaves will intensify, last longer, and threaten benthic species—often year-round by 2100. A growing #ClimateRisk for benthic #biodiversity. #ClimateChange 🌍🌐🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's my pleasure to annnounce a new @azti.bsky.social #GES4SEAS summer school: assessing cumulative effects from multiple #pressures at sea, a practical application, using our Tikta tool. There is a limited number of places, apply now! #Research #MarineEcology www.azti.es/en/events/su...

How do media communicate marine science? In addition to trusted scientific information, we need to provide hope in the future to society, with examples of good practices. Let's learn about these in this #mooc, starting on February 2️⃣. Stay tuned! #ges4seas #oceanoptimism

"Invasive alien species reduce the abundance of insects included in our study by 31%, and species richness by 26%, though these impacts are highly variable across taxa. Stronger negative impacts are found for invasive alien animals compared to invasive alien plants" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A new study has, for the first time, recorded & measured just how fast #microplastics move through the gut passage of a key #zooplankton species, revealing #copepods may be moving 100s of plastic particles per cubic metre of seawater down through the water column every day: pml.ac.uk/news/watch-n...

Marine functional #connectivity matters—from genes to energy flows. This synthesis clarifies concepts, unifies fragmented approaches, and proposes a global framework to better link science, #SpatialPlanning, and #policy in a changing ocean. doi.org/10.1002/brv.... #MarineEcology 🌐🌍🧪🌊

🦭 Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) spotted in Pegeia, Cyprus 🇨🇾 One of the world’s endangered seals, observed resting along the coast 🌊 #MonachusMonachus #MarineConservation #Cyprus

Just published: a global synthesis of the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural impacts of #BiologicalInvasions, led by P. Haubrock. A timely framework for science, management, and policy in the Anthropocene. 👉 doi.org/10.1002/brv.... 🧪🌐🌍 #bioinvasions #InvasiveSpecies

this is a good distinction, the management is based on the ecosystems, but actions and measures are taken on human activities and pressures or to revert impacts (e.g. restoration) #MarineEcology #Research

#ebm is a dynamic and cyclical process 🔄 A key idea here is adaptive management: we don’t just act once; we learn, and adjust. It starts with assessing and mapping the environmental status and the cumulative impacts of human activities on ecosystems 🌍This tells us where and what pressures are […]

📢New paper! Introducing GLOSSA, an open-source, user-friendly tool for marine species distribution modeling using Bayesian machine learning. 🔗https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210x.70167 @icmcsic.bsky.social  @cienciagob.bsky.social  @jmestret.bsky.social

So far in this #mooc we’ have explored some core principles of #ebm (Ecosystem-Based Management) 🌊but here’s something we haven’t yet talked about: 👉 EBM isn’t a one-off process. It’s cyclical and constantly evolving. How does this make the ends meet? Stay tuned to find out…

This is the moment we realised what we were looking at. During @nemo-tools.bsky.social ROV surveys to map gorgonian & coralligenous habitats, the seafloor suddenly turned into a landscape of circular nests, each guarded by a male. We weren’t searching for spawning grounds – we dropped onto one.

🐟🪸We’ve just published the first documented nesting aggregation of black seabream (Spondyliosoma cantharus) in the Mediterranean Sea. Author link (view-only): rdcu.be/eTtif @skatsanevakis.bsky.social @thanasisnikolaou.bsky.social #NEMOTOOLS #marinebiology #ROV #spawninggrounds #conservation

The University of the Aegean invites applications for a 2-year Researcher (MSc, #MarineEcology) post under the LIFE-PINNACARE project. Focus: Pinna nobilis #conservation in Greece + field work. 📅 Apply by 6 Jan 2026. 📧 More info: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/393307 — dive in! #Conservation #job 🌍🌐

As we can see so far in this #mooc, it is a balancing act ⚖️. #ebm seeks a sustainable balance, rather than letting one sector's goals (for instance, energy) undermine the health of the entire system (for instance, conservation goals and activities). 🌊🌊

🌍Interesting new study concluding "in the thousands of locations sampled in this meta-analysis, the mean #microplastic densities are high enough to expect fundamental biological processes, such as growth & reproduction of marine fauna to be significantly negatively impacted." doi.org/10.1007/s113...

🐢🦭🐦New @pnas.org study provides a quantitative risk assessment framework for mortality due to macroplastic ingestion in seabirds,marine mammals & sea turtles. 6 to 405 pieces of ingested #plastic (or volume of 0.044-39.89 cm3/cm length) lead to a 90% chance of mortality. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🔊🌊 Just out in Sensors: a low-cost (~50 €) #hydrophone toolkit for robust underwater #AcousticMonitoring. Built for researchers, educators and #CitizenScientists eager to explore marine #soundscapes. Hear the ocean differently. 🐳🛥️🐬📡 www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25... #MarineEcology 🌍🌐🧪

🔊🌊 Great moments with the Scouts this week! We introduced them to our ~50 € hydrophone, handed out units, and dove into citizen-science together. Nothing better than seeing young explorers record their first marine soundscapes. 🐬✨ #OceanScience #CitizenScience 🧪

So, is #ebm just a concept on paper? Not at all. 📜 It is already shaping how we manage European seas, through global conventions, directives, regional policies, and local implementation. Stay tuned for next week’s #mooc on how EBM spans marine sectors & the related challenges🚧

But what is the environmental status of European waters? Consult the following paper for an overview: 👇 conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Same area, but now with the pressure visible: longlines, ropes and other fishing gear litter entangling gorgonians and covering the seabed. Chronic ghost fishing and structural damage that we urgently need to address. #marinelitter #ghostfishing #MPA #conservation @thanasisnikolaou.bsky.social

Clip from the Tokmakia plateau (NE Lesvos): a mesophotic coralligenous reef with dense red gorgonians and complex bioconstructions. This is the kind of “animal forest” habitat our work focuses on documenting and conserving. #coralligenous #gorgonians #oceans @skatsanevakis.bsky.social

🪸New paper out on mesophotic coralligenous reefs in the NE Aegean. We used side-scan sonar + ROV surveys to map gorgonian assemblages and quantify the impact of marine litter in a Natura 2000 site. Open access: www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13... #marinebiology #Mediterranean #Natura2000 #NEMOTools

Is #Ecosystem-Based Management just another buzzword scientists use? 🌊👩‍🔬 Or is it something society already works with? Spoiler: #ebm is not imaginary, it’s embedded in the way we manage our seas through laws, directives, & policies across all scales. ⚖️#GES4SEAS #mooc

What have we learnt this week❓❓ To summarise #EBM means understanding how much the ecosystem can endure, how much we can pull on different strings, where we need to be careful, and where we need to strengthen the web. 🕸️🕸️ Ecosystem knowledge is […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

If the #ocean is like a spider web🕸️, then our human activities are like pulling on the different strings which puts pressure on the structure as a whole. Therefore we need to understand the bigger picture to ensure ecosystems can recover and function […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

The #ocean provides for all of us, but that is not the end of the story. We are part of the ecosystem and we need to respect that. The fish 🐟 we eat, the corals 🪸 that protect our coast, with our actions we influence them, harm them and in doing so can harm ourselves.

By managing all human activities together, we can find smarter, more effective ways to protect and restore our oceans. 🌊 This ensures the sea can keep providing all the things we rely on: the food we eat, the air we breathe, and places for recreation, for […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

On #WorldScienceDay 🌊 meet Tikta, #GES4SEAS project software to assess risks and impacts from cumulative pressures and map the environmental status of sea. Name is inspired by Tiktaalik a Greenland word as it can be used for both marine and terrestrial assessments. 👉 www.ges4seas.eu #MarineEcology

When the ocean heats up, urchin love life cools down. New Hakai-linked study shows that even modest, non-lethal warming can suppress purple sea urchin reproduction — a twist that could temporarily help kelp forests recover. But both kelp and urchins feel the heat. 🔗 tinyurl.com/2s46j5v8