Deep-sea cage culture altered microbial community composition in the sediments of the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass

A review: Marine aquaculture impacts marine microbial communities

Marine aquaculture is key for protein production but disrupts marine ecosystems by releasing excess feed and pharmaceuticals, thus affecting marine microbes. Though vital, its environmental impact often remains overlooked. This article delves into mariculture's effects on marine microbes, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and antibiotic-resistance genes in seawater and sediments. It highlights how different mariculture practices-open, pond, and cage culture-affect these microbial communities. Mariculture's release of nutrients, antibiotics, and heavy metals alters the microbial composition, diversity, and functions. Integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, a promising sustainable approach, is still developing and needs refinement. A deep understanding of mariculture's impact on microbial ecosystems is crucial to minimize pollution and foster sustainable practices, paving the way for the industry's sustainable advancement.

A risk-based approach to cumulative effects assessment for large marine ecosystems to support transboundary marine spatial planning: A case study of the yellow sea

Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) should be conducted at ecologically meaningful scales such as large marine ecosystems to halt further ocean degradation caused by anthropogenic pressures and facilitate ecosystem-based management such as transboundary marine spatial planning (MSP). However, few studies exist at large marine ecosystems scale, especially in the West Pacific seas, where countries have different MSP processes yet transboundary cooperation is paramount. Thus, a step-wise CEA would be informative to help bordering countries set a common goal. Building on the risk-based CEA framework, we decomposed CEA into risk identification and spatially-explicit risk analysis and applied it to the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (YSLME), aiming to understand the most influential cause-effect pathways and risk distribution pattern. The results showed that (1) seven human activities including port, mariculture, fishing, industry and urban development, shipping, energy, and coastal defence, and three pressures including physical loss of seabed, input of hazardous substances, nitrogen, and phosphorus enrichment were the leading causes of environmental problems in the YSLME; (2) benthic organisms, fishes, algae, tidal flats, seabirds, and marine mammals were the most vulnerable ecosystem components on which cumulative effects acted; (3) areas with relatively high risk mainly concentrated on nearshore zones, especially Shandong, Liaoning, and northern Jiangsu, while coastal bays of South Korea also witnessed high risk; (4) certain risks could be observed in the transboundary area, of which the causes were the pervasive fishing, shipping, and sinking of pollutants in this area due to the cyclonic circulation and fine-grained sediments. In future transboundary cooperation on MSP, risk criteria and evaluation of existing management measures should be incorporated to determine whether the identified risk has exceeded the acceptable level and identify the next step of cooperation. Our study presents an example of CEA at large marine ecosystems scale and provides a reference to other large marine ecosystems in the West Pacific and elsewhere.

Response of Intestinal Microbiota of Tiger Puffer (Takifugu rubripes) to the Fish Oil Finishing Strategy

The fish oil finishing (FOF) strategy, that is, re-feeding fish with fish oil (FO)-based diet after a certain period of feeding with alternative lipid source-based diets. On tiger puffer, the present study investigated the response of intestinal microbiota to FOF. Fish were fed four diets based on FO, soybean oil, palm oil and beef tallow as lipid sources, respectively, firstly for 50 days (growing-out period), and then fed the FO-based diet for 30 more days (FOF period). The results showed that dietary terrestrially sourced oils impaired the intestinal function in the growing-out period. However, the activities of amylase, trypsin and anti-oxidative enzymes (SOD, CAT, T-AOC), as well as gene expression of inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, TNF-α, TGF-β) and tight junction protein (Claudin4, Claudin7, Claudin18, JAM, ZO-1) in the intestine were significantly recovered by FOF. The 16S rDNA sequencing analysis showed that FOF improved the similarity of bacterial community among the groups. The MetaStat analysis confirmed that FOF regulated the abundance of butyric acid-producing bacteria (Lachnospiraceae, Eubacterium, Butyricicoccus, Clostridium and Roseburia) and bacteria related to digestion and absorption (Sphingomonas, Romboutsia and Brevibacillus). In conclusion, FOF can recover the intestine function. The intestinal microbiota probably participated in and played a key role in the recovery process.