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Despite the current high level of safety and the efforts to make passenger ships resilient to most fire and flooding scenarios, there are still gaps and challenges in the marine emergency response and ship evacuation processes. Those challenges arise from the fact that both processes are complex, multi-variable problems that rely on parameters involving not only people and technology but also procedural and managerial issues. SafePASS Project, funded under EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, is set to radically redefine the evacuation processes by introducing new equipment, expanding the capabilities of legacy systems on-board, proposing new Life-Saving Appliances and ship layouts, and challenging the current international regulations, hence reducing the uncertainty, and increasing the efficiency in all the stages of ship evacuation and abandonment process.

Triple threat processes and/or other forcings can lead to changes in the ocean happening fast and abruptly. These changes, referred to as “tipping points”, are critical thresholds in a marine system that, when exceeded, can lead to a significant change in the state of the system, which often can be irreversible. This leaflet has been prepared with the financial support of Norges forskningsråd (Research Council of Norway) (309382) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820989 (project COMFORT, Our common future ocean in the Earth system – quantifying coupled cycles of carbon, oxygen, and nutrients for determining and achieving safe operating spaces with respect to tipping points). The work reflects only the author’s/authors’ view; the European Commission and their executive agency are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information the work contains.

Microplastics are substrates for microbial activity and can influence biomass production. This has potentially important implications at the sea-surface microlayer, the marine boundary layer that controls gas exchange with the atmosphere and where biologically produced organic compounds can accumulate. In the present study, we used large scale mesocosms (filled with 3 m3 of seawater) to simulate future ocean scenarios. We explored microbial organic matter dynamics in the sea-surface microlayer in the presence and absence of microplastic contamination of the underlying water. Our study shows that microplastics increased both biomass production and enrichment of particulate carbohydrates and proteins in the sea-surface microlayer. Importantly, this resulted in a 3% reduction in the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the underlying water. This reduction suggests direct and indirect impacts of microplastic pollution on the marine uptake of CO2, by modifying the biogenic composition of the sea’s boundary layer with the atmosphere.

Knowledge gaps pertaining to the remediation of freshwater lakes impacted by oil spills have persisted despite recent record highs for oil production and transportation across vulnerable regions in North America. The multiyear Freshwater Oil Spill Remediation Study (FOReSt), conducted at the IISD-Experimental Lakes Area in Canada, is focusing on the efficacy of minimally invasive methods for remediating oil spills in freshwater boreal lakes. In this thesis, the impacts and remediation of diluted bitumen (dilbit) and conventional heavy crude oil (CHV) spills were investigated (year 1), as were a variety of different remediation methods for spills of dilbit on different shoreline substrates (year 2). Two common small-bodied fish, fathead minnows (Promephales promelas) and finescale dace (Chrosomus neogaeus), were used to assess exposure to petrogenic polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) in model enclosed shoreline ecosystems impacted by spills and remediated using minimally invasive techniques. Short-term exposure to PACs, the most toxicologically relevant compounds in oil, was assessed in fish using biliary metabolite concentrations. In year one, finescale dace and fathead minnows residing in oil treated enclosures each had biliary pyrene metabolite concentrations that were positively correlated with pyrene concentrations in the water of the enclosures. Three months after the initial spills, fish in the enclosure receiving dilbit were significantly more exposed to PACs than fish in reference enclosures that did not receive oil. In year two, both finescale dace and fathead minnows residing in oil-treated exposures, regardless of shoreline substrate, showed increased exposure to PACs compared to fish in reference enclosures and the pristine lake environment two and a half months after the spills. No significant differences in exposure were observed among the remediation treatments. Biliary PAC metabolite concentrations were positively predicted by parent PAC concentrations in periphyton. PACs in periphyton two and a half months after oil introduction were positively correlated with PACs in the enclosures one week after spills, suggesting fish also had increased exposure to periphyton-bound alkyl-PACs. This thesis validates the use of small-bodied fish in assessing PAC exposure following freshwater oil spills and demonstrates the difficulties in estimating exposure using environmental concentrations in natural systems.

Fish represents one of the most important dietary sources of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are known to be associated with various health benefits. This study aimed to systematically review existing meta-analyses of observational studies exploring the association between fish intake and various health outcomes. A systematic search of electronic databases was conducted to retrieve a total of 63 studies. Evidence was deemed as possible for the association between higher fish intake and decreased risk of the acute coronary syndrome, liver cancer, and depression, and limited for other outcomes (including age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, heart failure, all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality, total and ischaemic stroke) due to heterogeneity between results and potential otherwise inexplicable confounding factors. In conclusion, results from epidemiological studies support the mechanistic effects associated with omega-3 fatty acids from high fish consumption, but evidence needs to be further corroborated with more reliable results.

Understanding and quantifying ES flows is essential for the sustainable management of social-ecological systems, as it directly captures the human-nature interactions within the system and not solely its individual elements. Especially in degrading marine systems, most ES assessments focus solely on either biophysical or socio-economic elements of these social-ecological systems, failing to directly capture the human-nature interactions. This systematic literature review aims to capture the state of the art of ES flow studies to improve the knowledge base on marine ES flows while highlighting knowledge gaps and discussing future research pathways. Within the review we extract information on: i) the ES flow definitions, classification systems, and indicators; ii) the scales of assessment and methods used to assess marine ES flows; and iii) the types of assessment outputs. 82% of the reviewed ES flow assessment methods were spatially explicit. 63% of the studies assess marine ES flows locally. Across-scale ES flows are rarely taken into account. We detect a broad range of conceptualizations within marine ES flow literature. We thus propose an updated definition for ES flows in which they are defined as a spectrum within the social-ecological system, within which different ES flow indicators are placed depending on the relative contributions of biophysical or socio-economic attributes. Based on the extracted information and detected literature gaps, we propose a set of four criteria that should be the minimum required information when referring to ES flows: i) the relative contributions of biophysical and socio-economic attributes present in ES flow indicators; ii) identification of the supplying and receiving systems; iii) the direction and branches of flows; and iv) the spatial and temporal scales across which ES flows occur.

The environment during early life history strongly impacts phenotypic development in all organisms, which further influences developmental trajectory and ecological fitness later in life. Depending on the developmental stage and magnitude of change in the environment, phenotypes may become irreversible and thus have a long-lasting effect later in life. This thesis was designed to better understand how changes in the environment may influence plasticity and variation of metabolic phenotypes of Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) within the first year of life. Broadly speaking, the thesis tested two hypotheses that 1) all measured phenotypes would be plastic; and 2) durations of environmental effects on phenotypic development would be correlated with distinct developmental windows. Studies were developed to examine 1) short-term effects of temperature or diet on metabolic phenotypes such as metabolic rate, energy density, fatty acid profiles, and growth (Chapters 2 and 3) and 2) longer-term effects of temperature or diet during early life on these metabolic phenotypes (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). The first experimental chapter (Chapter 2) examined ontogenetic development of metabolic rate and demonstrated that dietary shifts between Artemia to bloodworm resulted in cessation of growth with elevated routine metabolic rate. Chapter 3 examined how fatty acid profiles and plasma cortisol concentration were influenced by environmental temperature and showed that decreasing temperature led to increases in mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids in both phospholipids and triglycerides, and food deprivation resulted in lack of difference between baseline and peak cortisol concentrations. Chapter 4 examined how temperature during early life influenced plasticity of growth and showed that temperature post-dietary transition resulted in a transient effect on growth and energy metabolism without long-term effects post-winter. Chapter 5 examined how temperature during early life could influence growth and fatty acid metabolism when fish were exposed to colder temperatures later in life and demonstrated that elevated temperatures resulted in a longer-term effect on growth but lack of transcriptional responses of desaturating fatty acids when exposed to a cold temperature (3.5°C) later in life. The final experimental chapter, Chapter 6 examined longer-term effects of diet at the onset of exogenous feeding on metabolism and growth and demonstrated that an enriched diet resulted in prolonged effects on growth, digestive enzyme activity and survival prior to a simulated overwintering. This doctoral thesis research revealed that all measured metabolic phenotypes were plastic, but subtle changes in temperature and diet during early life history resulted in transient or prolonged effects on growth and metabolism in age-0 lake sturgeon. Results will aid our understanding of cohort and population dynamics as well as contribute to the development of conservation strategies for lake sturgeon, a species at risk or endangered across its natural range.

In the framework of the R/V J. Rioja (Spanish Institute of Oceanography, IEO-CSIC) routine field and monitoring operations on the Cantabrian Sea waters (southern Bay of Biscay), a continuous thermosalinometer (TSG, SeaBird 21) was installed in 2002 as an IEO contribution to the Ferrybox EU-funded project (2002-2005, EC-FP5-EESD nºEVK2-2002-00144). This research vessel has sampled the area in the framework of the IEO monitoring program RADIALES (monthly sampling, https://www.seriestemporales-ieo.net/). Data was routinely sent to the IEO datacenter and underway data are available from 15th October 2002 to 25th October 2012. During this period, the vessel performed more than 120 monthly sampling cruises with underway TSG data, recording more than 492 000 temperature and salinity lines. A recent revision, standardization and quality control/quality assessment of the dataset have been performed in the framework of SeaDataCloud project (H2020 INFRARAIA-1-2016-2017, n730960). This includes re-checking the clock, position, vessel speed, and recorded temperature and salinity values, as well as vocabularies that facilitate the accesibility of them. The whole dataset is provided with updated quality flags (QF) that improve their reusability. Monthly datafiles and the QF follow the seadatanet.org standards, as in formats as in vocabularies, in the pursuit of the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles for sharing. At the moment, these data are freely distributed using OGC standard services (WMS, WFS, etc.) through institutional Thredds (http://centolo.co.ieo.es:8080/thredds/catalog/rv/Rioja/catalog.html) and Geoserver (http://centolo.co.ieo.es:8080/geoserver/web/) which facilitates the user's queries, automation of routines (e. g. model validation), and the development and implementation of web services and applications.