David Maxwell Paterson

Fluorescence is known to occur on varying surfaces across crustacea but is only cited in sporadic reports, despite being a potentially important visual signal and changing with development and within moult cycles. Here, we present the occurrence of fluorescence in some common Northeast Atlantic crustaceans and highlight differences by age and sex, to bring attention to this potentially important facet of their biology. Fluorescence was present on dactyli tips across most species, and setae on the ventral side of edible crabs and lobsters (with greater occurrence in females) and over the whole body in spider and hermit crabs.

Climate change is driving increases in mean air and water temperatures as well as increasing temperature variation and extremes. Intertidal organisms are routinely exposed to rapid and wide fluctuations in both water and air temperatures, with the most extreme heating occurring during mid-day low tides when heat spikes are most intense. In summer heat spikes can be major determinants of behaviour, physiology and survival, leading to differences in ecosystem function. Sediment temperatures can be altered by biota (e.g. sediment burrows) that modify sediment topography, resulting in differences in functioning and responses compared to non-bioturbated areas. This study investigated the impact of the burrowing crab Austrohelice crassa (Decapoda: Varunidae) on estuarine sediment temperatures and CO2 fluxes under ambient conditions and when exposed to in situ experimental heating via open top chambers. Temperature intensification was detected down to 10 cm sediment depth and burrow density mediated temperatures at all heights, including the air above them in treatment plots. CO2 fluxes were also influenced by both heating and burrow density. This study provides evidence of the mediating effect of burrows on temperatures, and the potential for these sediment features to drive differences in local environmental conditions and functioning from plain areas under current and warming scenarios.

Fluorescence is known to occur in varying surfaces across crustacea but only cited in sporadic reports despite being a potentially important visual signal and changing with development and within moult cycles. Here, we present the occurrence of fluorescence in some common Northeast Atlantic crustaceans and highlight differences by age and sex to bring attention to this potentially important facet of their biology.

Motivation: Here, we make available a second version of the BioTIME database, which compiles records of abundance estimates for species in sample events of ecological assemblages through time. The updated version expands version 1.0 of the database by doubling the number of studies and includes substantial additional curation to the taxonomic accuracy of the records, as well as the metadata. Moreover, we now provide an R package (BioTIMEr) to facilitate use of the database.Main Types of Variables Included: The database is composed of one main data table containing the abundance records and 11 metadata tables. The data are organised in a hierarchy of scales where 11,989,233 records are nested in 1,603,067 sample events, from 553,253 sampling locations, which are nested in 708 studies. A study is defined as a sampling methodology applied to an assemblage for a minimum of 2 years.Spatial Location and Grain: Sampling locations in BioTIME are distributed across the planet, including marine, terrestrial and freshwater realms. Spatial grain size and extent vary across studies depending on sampling methodology. We recommend gridding of sampling locations into areas of consistent size.Time Period and Grain: The earliest time series in BioTIME start in 1874, and the most recent records are from 2023. Temporal grain and duration vary across studies. We recommend doing sample‐level rarefaction to ensure consistent sampling effort through time before calculating any diversity metric.Major Taxa and Level of Measurement: The database includes any eukaryotic taxa, with a combined total of 56,400 taxa.Software Format: csv and. SQL.

Rising global temperatures are often identified as the key driver impacting ecosystems and the services they provide by affecting biodiversity structure and function. A disproportionate amount of our understanding of biodiversity and function is from short‐term experimental studies and static values of biodiversity indices, lacking the ability to monitor long‐term trends and capture community dynamics. Here, we analyse a biennial dataset spanning 32 years of macroinvertebrate benthic communities and their functional response to increasing temperatures. We monitored changes in species' thermal affinities to examine warming‐related shifts by selecting their mid‐point global temperature distribution range and linking them to species' traits. We employed a novel weighted metric using Biological Trait Analysis (BTA) to gain better insights into the ecological potential of each species by incorporating species abundance and body size and selecting a subset of traits that represent five ecosystem functions: bioturbation activity, sediment stability, nutrient recycling and higher and lower trophic production. Using biodiversity indices (richness, Simpson's diversity and vulnerability) and functional indices (richness, Rao's Q and redundancy), the community structure showed no significant change over time with a narrow range of variation. However, we show shifts in species composition with warming and increases in the abundance of individuals, which altered ecosystem functioning positively and/or non‐linearly. Yet, when higher taxonomic groupings than species were excluded from the analysis, there was only a weak increase in the measured change in community‐weighted average thermal affinities, suggesting changes in ecosystem functions over time occur independently of temperature increase‐related shifts in community composition. Other environmental factors driving species composition and abundance may be more important in these subtidal macrobenthic communities. This challenges the prevailing emphasis on temperature as the primary driver of ecological response to climate change and emphasises the necessity for a comprehensive understanding of the temporal dynamics of complex systems.

Offshore oil and gas platforms (OGP) have been installed worldwide and initially with limited consideration given to the nature of their positive or negative long-term interactions with the natural marine habitats. However, as OGP reach the end of their useful life, with many being decommissioned and removed, it is timely to review the growing evidence of the association of marine biota with OGP to provide a summary and synthesis for policy makers and to give insight to decisions in increasingly crowded marine spatial plans. In the last decade, there has been rapid increase in studies concerning the ecological role of OGP. This research reveals strong contextual difference between platforms in different geographical regions, but all OGP add to local biodiversity particularly where hard substrata are introduced to areas dominated by depositional (mud and sand) habitats. This includes the attraction and increased productivity of fish, sessile invertebrates, and algae while also affecting change in the benthic habitats beneath platforms. There also evidence of the OGP changing local hydrodynamics conditions with effects on phytoplankton and local scour. In terms of the biota associated with OGP, water depth is a major driver of community type across systems. This study emphasises that while knowledge of OGP communities and species has improved, there are still significant knowledge gaps that may prevent the most environmentally beneficial decisions being made around decommissioning. There are few studies following the effect of decommissioning (topping, toppling, or removal) on the ecology of the systems as they change with time (longitudinal research) for the decommissioning event. There is also a need for more studies comparing the biodiversity and functionality of OGP system to artificial and natural reefs and habitats to better understand the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning scenarios. Finally, commercial data is often unavailable and even when available, surveys are often conducted using varied methodology that prevents comparative analysis. By imposing/agreeing standards and sharing data around the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning strategies, improve policy guidance concerning OGP planning, and management might emerge.

There is an urgent need to address coastal dynamics as a fundamental interaction between physical and biological processes, particularly when trying to predict future biological–physical linkages under anticipated changes in environmental forcing. More integrated modelling, support for observational networks and the use of management interventions as controlled experimental exercises should now be vigorously pursued.