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Persistent eutrophication and hypoxia in the coastal ocean
- Minhan Dai, Yangyang Zhao, Fei Chai, Mingru Chen, Nengwang Chen, Yimin Chen, Danyang Cheng, Jianping Gan, Dabo Guan, Yuanyuan Hong, Jialu Huang, Yanting Lee, Kenneth Mei Yee Leung, Phaik Eem Lim, Senjie Lin, Xin Lin, Xin Liu, Zhiqiang Liu, Ya-Wei Luo, Feifei Meng, Chalermrat Sangmanee, Yuan Shen, Khanittha Uthaipan, Wan Izatul Asma Wan Talaat, Xianhui Sean Wan, Cong Wang, Dazhi Wang, Guizhi Wang, Shanlin Wang, Yanmin Wang, Yuntao Wang, Zhe Wang, Zhixuan Wang, Yanping Xu, Jin-Yu Terence Yang, Yan Yang, Moriaki Yasuhara, Dan Yu, Jianmin Yu, Liuqian Yu, Zengkai Zhang, Zhouling Zhang
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- Journal:
- Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures / Volume 1 / 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 23 February 2023, e19
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- Article
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Coastal eutrophication and hypoxia remain a persistent environmental crisis despite the great efforts to reduce nutrient loading and mitigate associated environmental damages. Symptoms of this crisis have appeared to spread rapidly, reaching developing countries in Asia with emergences in Southern America and Africa. The pace of changes and the underlying drivers remain not so clear. To address the gap, we review the up-to-date status and mechanisms of eutrophication and hypoxia in global coastal oceans, upon which we examine the trajectories of changes over the 40 years or longer in six model coastal systems with varying socio-economic development statuses and different levels and histories of eutrophication. Although these coastal systems share common features of eutrophication, site-specific characteristics are also substantial, depending on the regional environmental setting and level of social-economic development along with policy implementation and management. Nevertheless, ecosystem recovery generally needs greater reduction in pressures compared to that initiated degradation and becomes less feasible to achieve past norms with a longer time anthropogenic pressures on the ecosystems. While the qualitative causality between drivers and consequences is well established, quantitative attribution of these drivers to eutrophication and hypoxia remains difficult especially when we consider the social economic drivers because the changes in coastal ecosystems are subject to multiple influences and the cause–effect relationship is often non-linear. Such relationships are further complicated by climate changes that have been accelerating over the past few decades. The knowledge gaps that limit our quantitative and mechanistic understanding of the human-coastal ocean nexus are identified, which is essential for science-based policy making. Recognizing lessons from past management practices, we advocate for a better, more efficient indexing system of coastal eutrophication and an advanced regional earth system modeling framework with optimal modules of human dimensions to facilitate the development and evaluation of effective policy and restoration actions.
A community-based approach to identifying defence of microalgae against protozoan grazing
- Zheng Wang, Guangjian Xu, Lu Zhao, Yangyang Gao, Abdullah Al Mamun, Henglong Xu
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- Journal:
- Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom / Volume 98 / Issue 4 / June 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 03 March 2017, pp. 665-672
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It has increasingly been recognized that defence of microalgae against predator grazing is a passive response to increase algal population density by excreting chemicals with a change in physical properties. As common biological pollutants in the cultivation of the microalgae, the community-based method was used to identify the ability of two microalgae, Chlorella sp. and Nannochloropsis oceanica, to defend against protozoan grazing. Mature protozoan samples with 14-day age were collected, using microscopy glass slides, in coastal waters of the Yellow Sea, northern China. For both microalgae, a gradient of concentrations was designed as 100 (control), 104, 105, 106 and 107 cell ml−1, respectively. Results showed that both test algal species represented strong defence effects on protozoan grazing, especially at high density levels. Species richness, abundance and taxonomic distinctness of the protozoan assemblages showed a sharp decrease at high concentration level (107 cell ml−1) of both algae. A significant variation in protozoan community structures was found to be driven by the gradient of the algal concentrations. The paired taxonomic distinctness indices of the protozoan communities showed an increasing trend of departure from the expected taxonomic pattern with increase of algal concentrations. Based on the results, we suggest that the community-based bioassay might be used as a feasible tool for identifying defence against protozoan grazing of microalgae.