Suchergebnisse

11 páginas, 3 tablas, 6 figuras ; There has been growing interest in quantifying the capacity of seagrass ecosystems to act as carbon sinks as a natural way of offsetting anthropogenic carbon emissions to the atmosphere. However, most of the efforts have focused on the particulate organic carbon (POC) stocks and accumulation rates and ignored the particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) fraction, despite important carbonate pools associated with calcifying organisms inhabiting the meadows, such as epiphytes and benthic invertebrates, and despite the relevance that carbonate precipitation and dissolution processes have in the global carbon cycle. This study offers the first assessment of the global PIC stocks in seagrass sediments using a synthesis of published and unpublished data on sediment carbonate concentration from 403 vegetated and 34 adjacent un-vegetated sites. PIC stocks in the top 1m of sediment ranged between 3 and 1660MgPIC ha1, with an average of 654 24MgPIC ha1, exceeding those of POC reported in previous studies by about a factor of 5. Sedimentary carbonate stocks varied across seagrass communities, with meadows dominated by Halodule, Thalassia or Cymodocea supporting the highest PIC stocks, and tended to decrease polewards at a rate of 8 2MgPIC ha1 per degree of latitude (general linear model, GLM; p < 0:0003). Using PIC concentrations and estimates of sediment accretion in seagrass meadows, the mean PIC accumulation rate in seagrass sediments is found to be 126.3 31.05 g PICm2 yr1. Based on the global extent of seagrass meadows (177 000 to 600 000 km2), these ecosystems globally store between 11 and 39 Pg of PIC in the top metre of sediment and accumulate between 22 and 75 Tg PIC yr1, representing a significant contribution to the carbonate dynamics of coastal areas. Despite the fact that these high rates of carbonate accumulation imply CO2 emissions from precipitation, seagrass meadows are still strong CO2 sinks as demonstrated by the comparison of carbon (PIC and POC) stocks between vegetated and adjacent un-vegetated sediments. ; This study was funded by the EU FP7 project Opera (contract no. 308393), the project EstresX funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (contract no. CTM2012-32603), the CSIRO Marine and Coastal Carbon Biogeochemistry Cluster and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency within the Danish Cooperation for Environment in the Arctic (DANCEA). I. Mazarrasa was supported by a PhD scholarship of the Government of the Balearic Islands (Spain) and The European Social Founding (ESF), and N. Marbà was partially supported by a Gledden visiting fellowship of The Institute of Advanced Studies UWA ; Peer reviewed

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental challenges and has received commensurate widespread attention. Although it is a top priority for policymakers and scientists alike, the knowledge required to guide decisions, implement mitigation actions, and assess their outcomes remains inadequate. We argue that an integrated, global monitoring system for plastic pollution is needed to provide comprehensive, harmonized data for environmental, societal, and economic assessments. The initial focus on marine ecosystems has been expanded here to include atmospheric transport and terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. An earth-system-level plastic observation system is proposed as a hub for collecting and assessing the scale and impacts of plastic pollution across a wide array of particle sizes and ecosystems including air, land, water, and biota and to monitor progress toward ameliorating this problem. The proposed observation system strives to integrate new information and to identify pollution hotspots (i.e., production facilities, cities, roads, ports, etc.) and expands monitoring from marine environments to encompass all ecosystem types. Eventually, such a system will deliver knowledge to support public policy and corporate contributions to the relevant United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ; M.S.B. acknowledges funding from the Norway Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (Institute of Marine Research Ocean Health Strategic Initiative Project Number 15494). P.W.S and M.M. from IAEA are grateful for the support provided to the Environment Laboratories by the Government of the Principality of Monaco. M.C.R. acknowledges funding from an ERC Advanced Grant (694368), from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; projects BIBS and μPlastic), and from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. S.W. is funded by the Medical Research Council, UK (MRC; MR/R026521/1). A.J. acknowledges support from a MA Seaport Economic Council grant. M.W. acknowledges funding from the Norwegian Research Council (301157) and the North Atlantic Microplastic Centre (NAMC). Y.S.O. acknowledges the support of the Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science and Technology Development (project no. PJ01475801), RDA, and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (NRF-2021R1A2C2011734) in Korea.

[Aim] Temperature is fundamental to the physiological and ecological performance of marine organisms, but its role in modulating the magnitude of ecological impacts by exotic species remains unresolved. Here, we examine the relationship between thermal regimes in the range of origin of marine exotic species and sites of measured impact, after human-induced introduction. We compare this relationship with the magnitude of impact exerted by exotic species on native ecosystems. ; [Location] Global. ; [Time period] 1977–2017 (meta-analysis). ; [Major taxa studied] Marine exotic species. ; [Methods] Quantitative impacts of exotic species in marine ecosystems were obtained from a global database. The native range of origin of exotic species was used to estimate the realized thermal niche for each species and compared with the latitude and climatic conditions in recipient sites of recorded impact of exotic species. The difference in median temperatures between recipient sites and the thermal range of origin (i.e., thermal midpoint anomaly) was compared with the magnitude of effect sizes by exotic species on native species, communities and ecosystems. ; [Results] Recorded impacts occurred predominantly within the thermal niche of origin of exotic species, albeit with a tendency toward higher latitudes and slightly cooler conditions. The severity of impacts by exotic species on abundance of native taxa displayed a hump-shaped relationship with temperature. Peak impacts were recorded in recipient sites that were 2.2°C cooler than the thermal midpoint of the range of origin of exotic species, and impacts decreased in magnitude toward higher and lower thermal anomalies. ; [Main conclusions] Our findings highlight how temperature and climatic context influence ecological impacts by exotic species in marine ecosystems and the implications for existing and novel species interactions under climate change. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant/Award Number: 659246; Australian Research Council, Grant/Award Number: DE200100900 and CE140100020; Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number: CGL2015-71809-P; Fundación BBVA; Independent Research Fund Denmark, Grant/Award Number: 8021-00222B. ; Peer reviewed

13 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, supplemental material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00494/full#supplementary-material ; Ocean acidification and warming are two main consequences of climate change that can directly affect biological and ecosystem processes in marine habitats. The Arctic Ocean is the region of the world experiencing climate change at the steepest rate compared with other latitudes. Since marine planktonic microorganisms play a key role in the biogeochemical cycles in the ocean it is crucial to simultaneously evaluate the effect of warming and increasing CO2 on marine microbial communities. In 20 L experimental microcosms filled with water from a high-Arctic fjord (Svalbard), we examined changes in phototrophic and heterotrophic microbial abundances and processes [bacterial production (BP) and mortality], and viral activity (lytic and lysogenic) in relation to warming and elevated CO2. The summer microbial plankton community living at 1.4°C in situ temperature, was exposed to increased CO2 concentrations (135–2,318 μatm) in three controlled temperature treatments (1, 6, and 10°C) at the UNIS installations in Longyearbyen (Svalbard), in summer 2010. Results showed that chlorophyll a concentration decreased at increasing temperatures, while BP significantly increased with pCO2 at 6 and 10°C. Lytic viral production was not affected by changes in pCO2 and temperature, while lysogeny increased significantly at increasing levels of pCO2, especially at 10°C (R2 = 0.858, p = 0.02). Moreover, protistan grazing rates showed a positive interaction between pCO2 and temperature. The averaged percentage of bacteria grazed per day was higher (19.56 ± 2.77% d-1) than the averaged percentage of lysed bacteria by virus (7.18 ± 1.50% d-1) for all treatments. Furthermore, the relationship among microbial abundances and processes showed that BP was significantly related to phototrophic pico/nanoflagellate abundance in the 1°C and the 6°C treatments, and BP triggered viral activity, mainly lysogeny at 6 and 10°C, while bacterial mortality rates was significantly related to bacterial abundances at 6°C. Consequently, our experimental results suggested that future increases in water temperature and pCO2 in Arctic waters will produce a decrease of phytoplankton biomass, enhancement of BP and changes in the carbon fluxes within the microbial food web. All these heterotrophic processes will contribute to weakening the CO2 sink capacity of the Arctic plankton community ; This study was funded by the project Arctic Tipping Points (ATP, contract #226248) in the FP7 program of the European Union. EL was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ; Peer Reviewed

Villarino, Ernesto . et al.-- 13 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables, supplementary material https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02535-8 ; Global patterns of planktonic diversity are mainly determined by the dispersal of propagules with ocean currents. However, the role that abundance and body size play in determining spatial patterns of diversity remains unclear. Here we analyse spatial community structure - β-diversity - for several planktonic and nektonic organisms from prokaryotes to small mesopelagic fishes collected during the Malaspina 2010 Expedition. β-diversity was compared to surface ocean transit times derived from a global circulation model, revealing a significant negative relationship that is stronger than environmental differences. Estimated dispersal scales for different groups show a negative correlation with body size, where less abundant large-bodied communities have significantly shorter dispersal scales and larger species spatial turnover rates than more abundant small-bodied plankton. Our results confirm that the dispersal scale of planktonic and micro-nektonic organisms is determined by local abundance, which scales with body size, ultimately setting global spatial patterns of diversity ; This research was funded by the project Malaspina 2010 Circumnavigation Expedition (Consolider-Ingenio 2010, CSD2008-00077) and cofounded by the Basque Government (Department Deputy of Agriculture, Fishing and Food Policy). [.] E.V. was supported by a PhD Scholarship granted by the Iñaki Goenaga−Technology Centres Foundation ; Peer Reviewed

The subtropical ocean gyres are recognized as great marine accummulation zones of floating plastic debris; however, the possibility of plastic accumulation at polar latitudes has been overlooked because of the lack of nearby pollution sources. In the present study, the Arctic Ocean was extensively sampled for floating plastic debris from the Tara Oceans circumpolar expedition. Although plastic debris was scarce or absent in most of the Arctic waters, it reached high concentrations (hundreds of thousands of pieces per square kilometer) in the northernmost and easternmost areas of the Greenland and Barents seas. The fragmentation and typology of the plastic suggested an abundant presence of aged debris that originated from distant sources. This hypothesis was corroborated by the relatively high ratios of marine surface plastic to local pollution sources. Surface circulation models and field data showed that the poleward branch of the Thermohaline Circulation transfers floating debris from the North Atlantic to the Greenland and Barents seas, which would be a dead end for this plastic conveyor belt. Given the limited surface transport of the plastic that accumulated here and the mechanisms acting for the downward transport, the seafloor beneath this Arctic sector is hypothesized as an important sink of plastic debris. ; Tara Oceans particularly acknowledges the commitment of the following sponsors: the CNRS (in particular Groupement de Recherche GDR3280), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Genoscope/CEA, French Government "Investissements d'Avenir" programs OCEANOMICS (ANR-11-BTBR-0008) and FRANCE GENOMIQUE (ANR-10-INBS-09-08), Agence Nationale de la Recherche, and European Union FP7 (Micro B3 no. 287589). We appreciate the support and commitment of agnès b. and E. Bourgois, Veolia Environment Foundation, Region Bretagne, Lorient Agglomeration, World Courier, Illumina, Eléctricité de France Foundation, Fondation pour la recherche sur la biodiversité, Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation, Tara Foundation, its schooner, and its teams. We are also grateful to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for supporting the expedition and to the countries that granted sampling permissions. Tara Oceans would not exist without continuous support from 23 institutes (http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/en/m/science/les-labos-impliques/). This article is contribution number 52 of Tara Oceans. This study is funded by Tara Oceans and the Malaspina 2010 Expedition project (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, CSD2008-00077) and has received additional support from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology through baseline funding to X.I. and C.M.D., Campus de Excelencia Internacional del Mar (CEIMAR), and PLASTREND (BBVA Foundation) and MIDaS (CTM2016-77106-R, AEI/FEDER/UE) projects. ; Peer reviewed

Este artículo contiene 15 páginas, 6 figuras, 1 tabla. ; Seagrass meadows rank among the most significant organic carbon (Corg) sinks on earth. We examined the variability in seagrass soil Corg stocks and composition across Australia and identified the main drivers of variability, applying a spatially hierarchical approach that incorporates bioregions and geomorphic settings. Top 30 cm soil Corg stocks were similar across bioregions and geomorphic settings (min-max: 20–26 Mg Corg ha−1), but meadows formed by large species (i.e., Amphibolis spp. and Posidonia spp.) showed higher stocks (24–29 Mg Corg ha−1) than those formed by smaller species (e.g., Halodule, Halophila, Ruppia, Zostera, Cymodocea, and Syringodium; 12–21 Mg Corg ha−1). In temperate coastal meadows dominated by large species, soil Corg stocks mainly derived from seagrass Corg (72 ± 2%), while allochthonous Corg dominated soil Corg stocks in meadows formed by small species in temperate and tropical estuarine meadows (64 ± 5%). In temperate coastal meadows, soil Corg stocks were enhanced by low hydrodynamic exposure associated with high mud and seagrass Corg contents. In temperate estuarine meadows, soil Corg stocks were enhanced by high contributions of seagrass Corg, low to moderate solar radiation, and low human pressure. In tropical estuarine meadows formed by small species, large soil Corg stocks were mainly associated with low hydrodynamic energy, low rainfall, and high solar radiation. These results showcase that bioregion and geomorphic setting are not necessarily good predictors of soil Corg stocks and that site-specific estimates based on local environmental factors are needed for Blue Carbon projects and greenhouse gases accounting purposes. ; This study was delivered as part of the Pilot Projects program of the Land Restoration Fund, supported by the Queensland Government, Deakin University, The University of Queensland, James Cook University, CSIRO, HSBC, Qantas, Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, NQ Dry Tropics, Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Greencollar. We are thankful for the funding provided by Deakin University (to PIM and MDPC), Qantas (to PIM and MDPC) and HSBC (to PIM and MDPC). MR, PY, PIM were supported through ARC Linkage grant LP160100492, and PIM and CEL were supported through ARC Linkage grant LP160100242. NJW is funded through Australian Government National Environment Science Program (Tropical Water Quality Hub). MFA was funded through an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship, Queensland Government. CS was funded by ECU Higher Degree by Research Scholarship ; Peer reviewed

pages, 7 figures, 1 table, supporting information.-- https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15454.-- DNA sequences and associated metadata: European Nucleotide Database (ENA) under accession numbers ERP109198 and ERS2539749–ERS2539903. The environmental metadata, and the complete non-rarefied OTU and taxonomic tables used in this study are provided as Supporting Information (Tables S1, S2, S3 and S4).-- This is a contribution of Grup Consolidat de Recerca of the Catalan Government 2014SGR/1179 ; Deep ocean microbial communities rely on the organic carbon produced in the sunlit ocean, yet it remains unknown whether surface processes determine the assembly and function of bathypelagic prokaryotes to a larger extent than deep‐sea physico‐chemical conditions. Here, we explored whether variations in surface phytoplankton assemblages across Atlantic, Pacific and Indian ocean stations can explain structural changes in bathypelagic (ca. 4000 m) free‐living and particle‐attached prokaryotic communities (characterized through 16S rRNA gene sequencing), as well as in prokaryotic activity and dissolved organic matter (DOM) quality. We show that the spatial structuring of prokaryotic communities in the bathypelagic strongly followed variations in the abundances of surface dinoflagellates and ciliates, as well as gradients in surface primary productivity, but were less influenced by bathypelagic physico‐chemical conditions. Amino acid‐like DOM components in the bathypelagic reflected variations of those components in surface waters, and seemed to control bathypelagic prokaryotic activity. The imprint of surface conditions was more evident in bathypelagic than in shallower mesopelagic (200‐1000 m) communities, suggesting a direct connectivity through fast‐sinking particles that escapes mesopelagic transformations. Finally, we identified a pool of endemic deep‐sea prokaryotic taxa (including potential chemoautotrophic groups) that appear less connected to surface processes than those bathypelagic taxa with a widespread vertical distribution. Our results suggest that surface planktonic communities shape the spatial structure of the bathypelagic microbiome to a larger extent than the local physico‐chemical environment, likely through determining the nature of the sinking particles and the associated prokaryotes reaching bathypelagic waters ; This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through the Consolider-Ingenio program (Malaspina 2010 Expedition, ref. CSD2008-00077), with contributions from grant CTM2015-70340R, CTM2015-65720-R, CTM2015-69936-P, RTI2018-101025-B-I00, Modeling Nature Scientific Unit (UCE.PP2017.03), CTM2015-69392-C3-2-R (co-financed with FEDER funds) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). [.] CRG was supported by a Juan de la Cierva fellowship and the GRAMMI project (IJCI-2015-23505 and RTI2018717 099740-J-I00, MICINN, Spain). MSE was supported by a Viera y Clavijo contract funded by the ACIISI and the ULPGC. MM was supported by CONICYT (FONDAP IDEAL15150003 and FONDECYT-POSTDOCTORADO 3190369).

16 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-020-01884-7 ; Isolation of marine microorganisms is fundamental to gather information about their physiology, ecology and genomic content. To date, most of the bacterial isolation efforts have focused on the photic ocean leaving the deep ocean less explored. We have created a marine culture collection of heterotrophic bacteria (MARINHET) using a standard marine medium comprising a total of 1561 bacterial strains, and covering a variety of oceanographic regions from different seasons and years, from 2009 to 2015. Specifically, our marine collection contains isolates from both photic (817) and aphotic layers (744), including the mesopelagic (362) and the bathypelagic (382), from the North Western Mediterranean Sea, the North and South Atlantic Ocean, the Indian, the Pacific, and the Arctic Oceans. We described the taxonomy, the phylogenetic diversity and the biogeography of a fraction of the marine culturable microorganisms to enhance our knowledge about which heterotrophic marine isolates are recurrently retrieved across oceans and along different depths ; Projects Arctic Tipping Points (ATP, contract #226248), in the FP7 program of the European Union, and DOREMI (CTM2012–34294), from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, allowed the collection of samples from the Arctic and NW Mediterranean Sea, respectively. Research, including laboratory experiments and analyses, was mainly funded by grant BIOSENSOMICS "Convocatoria 2015 de ayudas Fundación BBVA a investigadores y creadores culturales" and, MAGGY, Plan Nacional I + D + I 2017 (CTM2017–87736-R), awarded to S.G.A. Analyses were also possible thank to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) through baseline funding to C.M.D. and a subaward agreement OSR-2014-CC-1973-02 between KAUST and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Additional funding for analyses and interpretation of the data was provided by projects REMEI (ref. CTM2015–70340-R) and MIAU-S3 (ref. RTI2018-101025-B-I00) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

AbstractThe biological pump transports organic carbon produced by photosynthesis to the meso- and bathypelagic zones, the latter removing carbon from exchanging with the atmosphere over centennial time scales. Organisms living in both zones are supported by a passive flux of particles, and carbon transported to the deep-sea through vertical zooplankton migrations. Here we report globally-coherent positive relationships between zooplankton biomass in the epi-, meso-, and bathypelagic layers and average net primary production (NPP). We do so based on a global assessment of available deep-sea zooplankton biomass data and large-scale estimates of average NPP. The relationships obtained imply that increased NPP leads to enhanced transference of organic carbon to the deep ocean. Estimated remineralization from respiration rates by deep-sea zooplankton requires a minimum supply of 0.44 Pg C y$^{−1}$ transported into the bathypelagic ocean, comparable to the passive carbon sequestration. We suggest that the global coupling between NPP and bathypelagic zooplankton biomass must be also supported by an active transport mechanism associated to vertical zooplankton migration. ; This study was funded by projects Malaspina (CSD2008-00077), Bathypelagic (CTM2016-78853-R) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and to projects SUMMER (Grant Agreement 817806) and TRIATLAS (Grant Agreement 817578) from the European Union (Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme). We acknowledge J.C. Garijo for his contribution to the Malaspina zooplankton analysis and A. Santana Del Pino for his advice in statistical procedures. Thanks are also due to all those who contributed to the cruise and sampling during the Malaspina 2010 Expedition, especially the crew of R.V. "Hespérides" and the UTM technical staff.

8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19875-7.-- Data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available at PANGAEA (http://www.pangaea.de). The zooplankton biomass from the Malaspina cruise is available in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.922974, the deep-sea zooplankton biomass reviewed is available in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.923149, the reviewed carbon flux and respiration are available in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.923832, the acoustic backscatter is available in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.922619, and the stable isotope data in https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.919314 ; The biological pump transports organic carbon produced by photosynthesis to the meso- and bathypelagic zones, the latter removing carbon from exchanging with the atmosphere over centennial time scales. Organisms living in both zones are supported by a passive flux of particles, and carbon transported to the deep-sea through vertical zooplankton migrations. Here we report globally-coherent positive relationships between zooplankton biomass in the epi-, meso-, and bathypelagic layers and average net primary production (NPP). We do so based on a global assessment of available deep-sea zooplankton biomass data and large-scale estimates of average NPP. The relationships obtained imply that increased NPP leads to enhanced transference of organic carbon to the deep ocean. Estimated remineralization from respiration rates by deep-sea zooplankton requires a minimum supply of 0.44 Pg C y−1 transported into the bathypelagic ocean, comparable to the passive carbon sequestration. We suggest that the global coupling between NPP and bathypelagic zooplankton biomass must be also supported by an active transport mechanism associated to vertical zooplankton migration ; This study was funded by projects Malaspina (CSD2008-00077), Bathypelagic (CTM2016-78853-R) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and to projects SUMMER (Grant Agreement 817806) and TRIATLAS (Grant Agreement 817578) from the European Union (Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme) ; Peer reviewed

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is founded on reef-building corals. Corals build their exoskeleton with aragonite, but ocean acidification is lowering the aragonite saturation state of seawater (Ωa). The downscaling of ocean acidification projections from global to GBR scales requires the set of regional drivers controlling Ωa to be resolved. Here we use a regional coupled circulation–biogeochemical model and observations to estimate the Ωa experienced by the 3,581 reefs of the GBR, and to apportion the contributions of the hydrological cycle, regional hydrodynamics and metabolism on Ωa variability. We find more detail, and a greater range (1.43), than previously compiled coarse maps of Ωa of the region (0.4), or in observations (1.0). Most of the variability in Ωa is due to processes upstream of the reef in question. As a result, future decline in Ωa is likely to be steeper on the GBR than currently projected by the IPCC assessment report. ; This study was undertaken with the support of CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, and through resources made available through the eReefs project, the CSIRO Marine and Coastal Carbon Biogeochemistry Cluster, and the Australian Climate Change Science Program. The observations at Yongala were sourced as part of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)—IMOS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Super Science Initiative. We thank Sven Uthicke for making his observations publically available, Professorss Tom Trull and Sabina Belli for their constructive comments on the manuscript, Miles Furnas who willingly shared his knowledge of the region and provided observations and three anonymous reviewers.

AbstractOne of the biggest challenges in molecular biology is bridging the gap between the known and the unknown coding sequence space. This challenge is especially extreme in microbial systems, where between 40% and 60% of the predicted genes are of unknown function. Discarding this uncharacterized fraction should not be an option anymore. Here, we present a conceptual framework and a computational workflow that bridges this gap and provides a powerful strategy to contextualize the investigations of genes of unknown function. Our approach partitions the coding sequence space removing the known-unknown dichotomy, unifies genomic and metagenomic data and provides a framework to expand those investigations across environments and organisms. By analyzing 415,971,742 genes predicted from 1,749 metagenomes and 28,941 bacterial and archaeal genomes we showcase our approach and its application in ecological, evolutionary and biotechnological investigations. As a result, we put into perspective the extent of the unknown fraction, its diversity, and its relevance in genomic and environmental contexts. By identifying a target gene of unknown function for antibiotic resistance, we demonstrate how a contextualized unknown coding sequence space enables the generation of hypotheses that can be used to augment experimental data. ; The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by Barcelona Supercomputing Center (RES-AECT-2014-2-0085), the BMBF795 funded de.NBI Cloud within the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (de.NBI) (031A537B, 031A533A, 031A538A, 031A533B, 031A535A, 031A537C, 031A534A, 031A532B), the University of Oxford Advanced Research Computing (http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22558) and the MARBITS bioinformatics core at ICM-CSIC. CV was supported by the Max Planck Society. AFG received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program Blue Growth: Unlocking the potential of Seas and Oceans under grant agreement no. 634486 (project acronym INMARE). AM was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/M011755/1, BB/R015228/1] and RDF by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory core funds. EOC was supported by project INTERACTOMA RTI2018-101205-B-I00 from the Spanish Agency of Science MICIU/AEI. SGA and PS received additional funding by the project MAGGY (CTM2017-87736-R) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The Malaspina 2010 Expedition was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through the Consolider-Ingenio program (ref. CSD2008-00077). The authors thank Johannes Söding and Alex Bateman for helpful discussions.

The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5–2∘C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.

The Paris Agreement target of limiting global surface warming to 1.5-2°C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100 will still heavily impact the ocean. While ambitious mitigation and adaptation are both needed, the ocean provides major opportunities for action to reduce climate change globally and its impacts on vital ecosystems and ecosystem services. A comprehensive and systematic assessment of 13 global- and local-scale, ocean-based measures was performed to help steer the development and implementation of technologies and actions toward a sustainable outcome. We show that (1) all measures have tradeoffs and multiple criteria must be used for a comprehensive assessment of their potential, (2) greatest benefit is derived by combining global and local solutions, some of which could be implemented or scaled-up immediately, (3) some measures are too uncertain to be recommended yet, (4) political consistency must be achieved through effective cross-scale governance mechanisms, (5) scientific effort must focus on effectiveness, co-benefits, disbenefits, and costs of poorly tested as well as new and emerging measures.