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Abstract The Kerguelen Islands are part of the French Southern Territories, located at the limit of the Indian and Southern oceans. They are highly impacted by climate change, and coastal marine areas are particularly at risk. Assessing the responses of species and populations to environmental change is challenging in such areas for which ecological modelling can constitute a helpful approach. In the present work, a DEB-IBM model (Dynamic Energy Budget – Individual-Based Model) was generated to simulate and predict population dynamics in an endemic and common benthic species of shallow marine habitats of the Kerguelen Islands, the sea urchin Abatus cordatus. The model relies on a dynamic energy budget model (DEB) developed at the individual level. Upscaled to an individual-based population model (IBM), it then enables to model population dynamics through time as a result of individual physiological responses to environmental variations. The model was successfully built for a reference site to simulate the response of populations to variations in food resources and temperature. Then, it was implemented to model population dynamics at other sites and for the different IPCC climate change scenarios RCP 2.6 and 8.5. Under present-day conditions, models predict a more determinant effect of food resources on population densities, and on juvenile densities in particular, relative to temperature. In contrast, simulations predict a sharp decline in population densities under conditions of IPCC scenarios RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5 with a determinant effect of water warming leading to the extinction of most vulnerable populations after a 30-year simulation time due to high mortality levels associated with peaks of high temperatures. Such a dynamic model is here applied for the first time to a Southern Ocean benthic and brooding species and offers interesting prospects for Antarctic and sub-Antarctic biodiversity research. It could constitute a useful tool to support conservation studies in these remote regions where access and bio-monitoring represent challenging issues.

Ocean surface warming is resulting in an expansion of stratified, low-nutrient environments, a process referred to as ocean desertification [1]. A challenge for assessing the impact of these changes is the lack of robust baseline information on the biological communities that carry out marine photosynthesis. Phytoplankton perform half of global biological CO2 uptake, fuel marine food chains, and include diverse eukaryotic algae that have photosynthetic organelles (plastids) acquired through multiple evolutionary events [1-3]. While amassing data from ocean ecosystems for the Baselines Initiative (6,177 near full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences and 9.4 million high-quality 16S V1-V2 amplicons) we identified two deep-branching plastid lineages based on 16S rRNA gene data. The two lineages have global distributions, but do not correspond to known phytoplankton. How the newly discovered phytoplankton lineages contribute to food chains and vertical carbon export to the deep sea remains unknown, but their prevalence in expanding, low nutrient surface waters suggests they will have a role in future oceans.

Microplastics are small (<5 mm) plastic particles of varying shapes and polymer types that are now widespread global contaminants of marine and freshwater ecosystems. Various estimates suggest that several trillions of microplastic particles are present in our global oceanic system, and that these are readily ingested by a wide range of marine and freshwater species across feeding modes and ecological niches. Here, we present some of the key and pressing issues associated with these globally important contaminants from a microbiological perspective. We discuss the potential mechanisms of pathogen attachment to plastic surfaces. We then describe the ability of pathogens (both human and animal) to form biofilms on microplastics, as well as dispersal of these bacteria, which might lead to their uptake into aquatic species ingesting microplastic particles. Finally, we discuss the role of a changing oceanic system on the potential of microplastic-associated pathogens to cause various disease outcomes using numerous case studies. We set out some key and imperative research questions regarding this globally important issue and present a methodological framework to study how and why plastic-associated pathogens should be addressed.

Seagrass meadows have a disproportionally high organic carbon (Corg) storage potential within their sediments and thus can play a role in climate change mitigation via their conservation and restoration. However, high spatial heterogeneity is observed in Corg, with wide differences seen globally, regionally, and even locally (within a seagrass meadow). Consequently, it is difficult to determine their contributions to the national remaining carbon dioxide (CO2) budget without introducing a large degree of uncertainty. To address this spatial heterogeneity, we sampled 20 locations across the German Baltic Sea to quantify Corgstocks and sources inZostera marinaseagrass-vegetated and adjacent unvegetated sediments. To predict and integrate the Corginventory in space, we measured the physical (seawater depth, sediment grain size, current velocity at the seafloor, anthropogenic inputs) and biological (seagrass complexity) environment to determine regional and local drivers of Corgvariation. Here we show that seagrass meadows in Germany constitute a significant Corgstock, storing on average 1,920 g C/m2, three times greater than meadows from other parts of the Baltic Sea, and three-fold richer than adjacent unvegetated sediments. Stocks were highly heterogenous; they differed widely between (by 22-fold) and even within (by 1.5 to 31-fold) sites. Regionally, Corgwas controlled by seagrass complexity, fine sediment fraction, and seawater depth. Autochthonous material contributed to 12% of the total Corgin seagrass-vegetated sediments and the remaining 88% originated from allochthonous sources (phytoplankton and macroalgae). However, relics of terrestrial peatland material, deposited approximately 6,000 years BP during the last deglaciation, was an unexpected and significant source of Corg. Collectively, German seagrasses in the Baltic Sea are preventing 2.01 Mt of future CO2emissions. Because Corgis dependent on high seagrass complexity, the richness of this pool may be contingent on seagrass habitat health. Disturbance of this Corgstock could act as a source of CO2emissions. However, the high spatial heterogeneity warrant site-specific investigations to obtain accurate estimates of blue carbon, and a need to consider millennial timescale deposits of Corgbeneath seagrass meadows in Germany and potentially other parts of the southwestern Baltic Sea.

Autotrophy is largely resource-limited in the modern ocean. Paleo evidence indicates this was not necessarily the case in warmer climates, and modern observations as well as standard metabolic theory suggest continued ocean warming could shift global ecology towards heterotrophy, thereby reducing autotrophic nutrient limitation. Such a shift would entail strong nutrient recycling in the upper ocean and high rates of net primary production (NPP), yet low carbon export to the deep ocean and sediments. We demonstrate transition towards such a state in the early 22nd century as a response to business-as-usual representative concentration pathway forcing (RCP8.5) in an intermediate complexity Earth system model in three configurations; with and without an explicit calcifier phytoplankton class and calcite ballast model. In all models nutrient regeneration in the near-surface becomes an increasingly important driver of primary production. The near-linear relationship between changes in NPP and global sea surface temperature (SST) found over the 21st century becomes exponential above a 2–4 ${\;}^{\circ }{\rm{C}}$ global mean SST change. This transition to a more heterotrophic ocean agrees roughly with metabolic theory.

Despite large uncertainties in the fertilization efficiency, natural iron fertilization studies and some of the purposeful iron enrichment studies have demonstrated that Southern Ocean iron fertilization can lead to a significant export of carbon from the sea surface to the ocean interior. From an economic perspective the potential of ocean iron fertilization (OIF) is far from negligible in relation to other abatement options. Comparing the range of cost estimates to the range of estimates for forestation projects they are in the same order of magnitude, but OIF could provide more carbon credits even if high discount rates are used to account for potential leakage and non-permanence. However, the uncertainty about undesired adverse effects of purposeful iron fertilization on marine ecosystems and biogeochemistry has led to attempts to ban commercial and, to some extent, scientific experiments aimed at a better understanding of the processes involved, effectively precluding further consideration of this mitigation option. As regards the perspective of public international law, the pertinent agreements dealing with the protection of the marine environment indicate that OIF is to be considered as lawful if and to the extent to which it represents legitimate scientific research. In this respect, the precautionary principle can be used to balance the risks arising out of scientific OIF activities for the marine environment with the potential advantages relevant to the objectives of the climate change regime. As scientific OIF experiments involve only comparatively small negative impacts within a limited marine area, further scientific research must be permitted to explore the carbon sequestration potential of OIF in order to either reject this concept or integrate it into the flexible mechanisms contained in the Kyoto Protocol.

Sea-ice diatoms are known to accumulate in large aggregates in and under sea ice and in melt ponds. There is recent evidence from the Arctic that such aggregates can contribute substantially to particle export when sinking from the ice. The role and regulation of microbial aggregation in the highly seasonal, nutrient- and light-limited Arctic sea-ice ecosystem is not well understood. To elucidate the mechanisms controlling the formation and export of algal aggregates from sea ice, we investigated samples taken in late summer 2011 and 2012, during two cruises to the Eurasian Basin of the Central Arctic Ocean. Spherical aggregates densely packed with pennate diatoms, as well as filamentous aggregates formed by Melosira arctica showed sign of different stages of degradation and physiological stoichiometries, with carbon to chlorophyll a ratios ranging from 110 to 66700, and carbon to nitrogen molar ratios of 8-35 and 9-40, respectively. Sub-ice algal aggregate densities ranged between 1 and 17 aggregates m(-2), maintaining an estimated net primary production of 0.4-40 mg C m(-2) d(-1), and accounted for 3-80% of total phototrophic biomass and up to 94% of local net primary production. A potential factor controlling the buoyancy of the aggregates was light intensity, regulating photosynthetic oxygen production and the amount of gas bubbles trapped within the mucous matrix, even at low ambient nutrient concentrations. Our data-set was used to evaluate the distribution and importance of Arctic algal aggregates as carbon source for pelagic and benthic communities.