To understand the pollution characteristics and potential sources of heavy metal(loid)s in the nearshore sediments of Qionghai, 93 surface sediment samples were collected from the region. The concentrations of 20 elements, including Fe, Mg, Ca, Ti, Mn, Ba, Cr, Sr, Ni, Cu, Zr, As, Hg, Se, Be, Co, Mo, Cd, Ga, and Pb, were measured. The extent of contamination and ecological risk posed by these heavy metals/metalloids were evalua...

Loss of physical and emotional health due to spinal cord injury (SCI) has been rapidly increasing worldwide. Effective evaluation of the severity of SCI is crucial to its prognosis. Herein, we constructed rat models of SCI with four different degrees of injury (sham group, light injury group, moderate injury group, and heavy injury group), using the surgical approach. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), plasma, and spinal cord were sam...

Summary Reef‐building corals are complex holobionts, harbouring diverse microorganisms that play essential roles in maintaining coral health. However, microbiome development in early life stages of corals remains poorly understood. Here, microbiomes of Acropora gemmifera were analysed during spawning and early developmental stages, and also under different seawater partial pressure of CO 2 ( p CO 2 ) conditions, using amplicon...

The functional basis for species sorting theory remains elusive, especially for microbial community assembly in deep‐sea environments. Using artificial surface‐based biofilm models, our recent work revealed taxonomic succession during biofilm development in a newly defined cold seep system, the Thuwal cold seeps II, which comprises a brine pool and the adjacent normal bottom water (NBW) to form a metacommunity via the potentia...

Summary The biology of biofilm in deep‐sea environments is barely being explored. Here, biofilms were developed at the brine pool (characterized by limited carbon sources) and the normal bottom water adjacent to T huwal cold seeps. Comparative metagenomics based on 50 Gb datasets identified polysaccharide degradation, nitrate reduction and proteolysis as enriched functional categories for brine biofilms. The genomes of two dom...