Seaweed cultivation has been proposed as an active biogeochemical intervention to elevate seawater pH and create localized refugia from ocean acidification. To date, most studies have relied on autonomous sensors to contrast seawater pH inside and outside of seaweed cultivation plots. These studies provide important temporal observations but lack information about the spatial capacity for seaweed cultivation to provide pH refu...

Water flow is a key driver of fish behavior and metabolism, which can consequently alter fish distribution and community structure in coral reefs. Previous studies of fish behavior have predominantly addressed uniform flows, overlooking turbulence despite its potentially complex effects. Here, we investigated effects of small-scale turbulence with unidirectional flows on feeding by two types of zooplanktivorous reef fish: free...

Observing air-sea interactions on a global scale is essential for improving Earth system forecasts. Yet these exchanges are challenging to quantify for a range of reasons, including extreme conditions, vast and remote under-sampled locations, requirements for a multitude of co-located variables, and the high variability of fluxes in space and time. Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) present a novel solution for measuring these c...

Subtropical and tropical islands are undergoing rapid urbanization as the human population expands globally. Urbanization disrupts coastal ecosystems through several pathways—including the replacement of natural habitats with concrete structures that increase runoff pollution—but it remains difficult to isolate and characterize specific impacts of urbanization on marine ecosystems. The historical gradient in urbanization on th...

Transparent exopolymer particles (TEP), a major component of coral mucus, are responsible for particle aggregation. These particles contribute substantially to the carbon cycle in coral reefs, and serve as an energy source for bacteria and other microorganisms. Water flows and induced turbulent mixing control material exchange between the coral canopy and the surrounding water, which is critical for coral health. However, how...

Marine particle dynamics and carbon export, involving extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) like transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) and Coomassie Brilliant Blue‐stained particles (CSP), are poorly understood. Although TEP adhesive properties may enhance carbon export by facilitating aggregate formation, their low density can also enhance particle suspension. Factors influencing TEP regulation of particle dynamics remain...

Coral larval dispersal establishes connectivity between reefs, but larval fluxes vary over timescales from daily to multidecadal due to oceanographic variability. Using a 2‐km‐resolution ocean model, we simulate daily spawning events from 1993 to 2019 and assess the potential connectivity between all reefs in the tropical southwest Indian Ocean. Although there is a significant seasonal cycle in potential connectivity, day‐to‐d...

Coral bleaching has recently been occurring extensively across the world’s oceans, primarily because of high water temperatures. Mesophotic corals that inhabit depths of approximately 30–150 m are expected to survive bleaching events and reseed shallow water corals afterward. In Okinawa, Japan, mesophotic coral ecosystems have been reported to serve as a refuge for preserving the genotypic diversity of bleaching-sensitive cora...

Organic nanoparticles are abundant in marine environments and constitute important nutrient sources for bacteria. Bacteria have evolved cell surfaces over 3.8 billion years to efficiently utilize food particles, and they contribute to material cycling in the world's oceans. Nanoscale roughness of bacterial cell surfaces reflects outer membrane structures and extracellular polymers that potentially affect cell–particle interact...

In deep‐sea hydrothermal vent environments, metal‐enriched fluids and sediments abound, making these habitats ideal to study metal resistance in prokaryotes. In this investigation, we employed transcriptomics and shotgun proteomics with scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive x‐ray spectroscopy (STEM‐EDX) to better understand mechanisms of tolerance for cadmium (Cd) and copper (Cu) at stress‐inducing co...

Aim Due to their spatial isolation, oceanic islands are natural systems to study evolutionary divergence. The Ogasawara Islands belong to the most isolated archipelagos on Earth and are well‐known for their high terrestrial endemicity; however, less is known about the marine realm. Here, we analyse the degree of oceanographic isolation of the archipelago based on genetic data of a reef‐building coral and a biophysical dispersa...

Studies of mangrove population connectivity have focused primarily on global to regional scales and have suggested potential for long-distance connectivity, with archipelagos serving as stepping stones for trans-oceanic dispersal. However, the contribution of propagule dispersal to connectivity is still largely unknown, especially at local-scale. Identifying fine-scale propagule dispersal patterns unique to individual island s...

Contemporary advances in microfluidic and molecular techniques have enabled coral studies to shift from reef and colony scales to polyp- and molecular-level investigations. Polyp bail-out provides an alternative approach to acquire solitary polyps for studies at finer scales. Although induction of polyp bail-out has been reported in several studies, polyp health after bail-out has not been investigated. In this study, we monit...

Polyp bail-out is a stress response exhibited by some pocilloporid corals, with mechanisms and consequences distinct from those of bleaching. Although induction of polyp bail-out has been demonstrated in the laboratory, molecular mechanisms underlying this response have rarely been discussed. We conducted genetic analyses of Pocillopora acuta during initiation of hyperosmosis-induced polyp bail-out, using both transcriptomic a...

Acantharians (supergroup Rhizaria) can be important contributors to surface primary production and to carbon flux to the deep sea, but are often underestimated because their delicate structures are destroyed by plankton nets or dissolved by chemical fixatives. As they are also uncultured, relatively little is known about acantharian biology, especially regarding their life cycles. Here, we take a paired approach, bringing toge...

Summary Climate change scenarios predict tropical cyclones will increase in both frequency and intensity, which will escalate the amount of terrestrial run‐off and mechanical disruption affecting coastal ecosystems. Bacteria are key contributors to ecosystem functioning, but relatively little is known about how they respond to extreme storm events, particularly in nearshore subtropical regions. In this study, we combine field...

Climate change manifestation in the ocean, through warming, oxygen loss, increasing acidification, and changing particulate organic carbon flux (one metric of altered food supply), is projected to affect most deep‐ocean ecosystems concomitantly with increasing direct human disturbance. Climate drivers will alter deep‐sea biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, and may interact with disturbance from resource extraction...