Biodiversity of Spongosorites coralliophaga (Stephens, 1915) on coral rubble at two contrasting cold-water coral reef settings

The authors would like to thank Bill Richardson (Master), the crew of the RRS James Cook, Will Handley and the Holland-I ROV team. We also thank all the specialists in taxonomy that provided important help with identification of species: Professor Paul Tyler (ophiuroids), Dr. Tammy Horton (amphipods), Dr. Graham Oliver (bivalves), Dr. Rob van Soest (sponges), Susan Chambers, Peter Garwood, Sue Hamilton, Raimundo Blanco Pérez (polychaetes). Also we would like to thank Val Johnston (University of Aberdeen) for her contribution to cruise preparations and John Polanski (University of Aberdeen) for his help onboard the RRS James Cook. Special thanks to Dr. Alexios P. Lolas (University of Thessaly, Greece) for all the artwork. Funding for the JC073 cruise was provided by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) UK Ocean Acidification (UKOA) research programme’s Benthic Consortium project (NE/H017305/1 to JMR). JMR acknowledges support from Heriot-Watt University’s Environment and Climate Change theme. GK was funded by a Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) Ph.D. scholarship.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Short-term processing of ice algal- and phytoplankton-derived carbon by Arctic benthic communities revealed through isotope labelling experiments

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High resolution mapping of sediment organic matter from acoustic reflectance data

Spatial mapping of the marine environment is challenging when the properties concerned are difficult to measure except by shore-based analysis of discrete samples of material, usually from sparsely distributed sites. This is the case for many seabed sediment properties. We developed an indirect approach to mapping the organic content of coastal sediments from hydro-acoustic reflectance data. The basis was that both organic matter and acoustic reflectance are related to sediment type and grain size composition. Hence there is a collateral relationship between organic matter content and reflectance properties which can be exploited to enable high resolution mapping. We surveyed an area of seabed off the east coast of Scotland using a vessel mounted single beam echosounder with RoxAnn signal processing. Organic carbon, nitrogen and phytoplankton pigment contents were then measured in material from grab and core samples collected at intervals over a year. Relationships between the organic components and hydroacoustic characteristics were derived by general additive models, and used to construct high resolution maps from the acoustic survey data. Our method is an advance on traditional interpolation techniques sparse spatial data, and represents a generic approach that could be applied to other properties

Occurrence of Priming in the Degradation of Lignocellulose in Marine Sediments

Funding: E.G. was funded by the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, grant reference HR09011). B.T. received funding from the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) Division. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript Data Availability: All dataset files are available from the figshare database. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1554752. Correction 21 Apr 2016: The PLOS ONE Staff (2016) Correction: Occurrence of Priming in the Degradation of Lignocellulose in Marine Sediments. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0154365. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154365 View correction at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154365Peer reviewedPublisher PD

No strong evidence of priming effects on the degradation of terrestrial plant detritus in estuarine sediments

EG was funded by the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland). MASTS was funded by the Scottish Funding Council (Grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. EG is currently funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) (grant number 1874) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT). This study was funded by the MASTS Marine Biogeochemistry Forum small grants scheme and their support is gratefully acknowledged.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Twenty Thousand Sterling Under the Sea: Estimating the value of protecting deep-sea biodiversity

The deep-sea includes over 90% of the world oceans and is thought to be one of the most diverse ecosystems in the World. It supplies society with valuable ecosystem services, including the provision of food, the regeneration of nutrients and the sequestration of carbon. Technological advancements in the second half of the 20th century made large-scale exploitation of mineral-, hydrocarbon- and fish resources possible. These economic activities, combined with climate change impacts, constitute a considerable threat to deep-sea biodiversity. Many governments, including that of the UK, have therefore decided to implement additional protected areas in their waters of national jurisdiction. To support the decision process and to improve our understanding for the acceptance of marine conservation plans across the general public, a choice experiment survey asked Scottish households for their willingness-to-pay for additional marine protected areas in the Scottish deep-sea. This study is one of the first to use valuation methodologies to investigate public preferences for the protection of deep-sea ecosystems. The experiment focused on the elicitation of economic values for two aspects of biodiversity: (i) the existence value for deep-sea species and (ii) the option-use value of deep-sea organisms as a source for future medicinal products

A System for Retrieval and Incubation of Benthic Sediment Cores at In Situ Ambient Pressure and Under Controlled or Manipulated Environmental Conditions

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Living benthic foraminiferal assemblages of a transect in the Rockall Trough (NE Atlantic)

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the captain and the crew of the RRS Discovery cruise DY051 for their work and ship time. Many thanks go to C. Baal for his support with the SEM. Funding Information: This study was undertaken with financial support from the NERC grant ( NE/I023465/1 ) to U. Witte.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Analysis of blood gases, serum fat and serum protein: a new approach to estimate survival chances of stranded Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) pups from the German North Sea

BACKGROUND: Facing numerous challenges, such as illness, storms or human disturbance, some harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) pups lose contact to their dams and are found abandoned along the North Sea coast. In Schleswig-Holstein, pups with the prospect of surviving rehabilitation are admitted to the Seal Center Friedrichskoog. Despite elaborate clinical health assessments on admission, including differential hematology, in 2010, 17% of 108 admitted pups did not survive the first 20 days. The death rate during the years 2006 and 2009 varied between 9 and 19%. To broaden the spectrum of variables which could be predictive for survival, blood gas and serum analyses were performed for 99 pups using venous blood. Variables included total CO(2), pH, partial CO(2), HCO(3)(–), base excess and anion gap as well as glucose, urea nitrogen, sodium, potassium and chloride. Moreover, total serum protein and fat (triglyceride) concentrations were measured for all pups on admission. RESULTS: Repeated measurements of 12 randomly selected individuals revealed a significant (p = 0.002) positive influence of time in rehabilitation on triglyceride concentrations. This trend probably shows the improvement of the pups’ nutritional status as a consequence of the shift from milk replacer formula to fish. No such positive influence was detected for total protein concentrations though. Hematologic values, including blood gases, were not predictive for survival. CONCLUSIONS: For the first time blood gas values are reported in this study for a large sample size (N = 99) of seal pups (regardless of their health status). The ranges and medians calculated from the data can serve as a stepping stone towards the establishment of reference values for neonate harbor seals. However, future investigations on the development of blood gases in harbor seals with different health conditions and ages over time are necessary to allow for a better understanding of acid–base regulation in harbor seals