Scientists have found a new way to detect subtle chemical signatures in seawater—revealing previously invisible details about the ocean’s chemistry from data continuously collected by thousands of autonomous robotic floats drifting across the seas.

A detailed atmospheric study in the Yangtze River Estuary has successfully distinguished the sources of harmful polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the air. Researchers led by Tian Lin from Shanghai Ocean University, in collaboration with scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fudan University, found that nearly one-third of these persistent pollutants originate from active combustion, while the majority comes from non-combustion sources, including historical industrial materials.

Kyoto, Japan -- Mangrove forests are natural wonders that protect coastal areas, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. They are able to dissipate wave energy and limit flooding, which can even mitigate tsunamis and coastal inundations during tropical cyclones. For this reason, mangroves are attracting attention as Nature-based Solutions, or NbS: natural infrastructure with the potential to enhance coastal resilience in an environmentally friendly way.

As climate change is altering ocean conditions and intensifying storms, many coastal communities face growing risks from flooding and extreme wave events; hence mangroves can serve to both mitigate disasters and help communities adapt to climate change. However, these forests remain underutilized in engineering applications due to a limited understanding of how they interact with hydrodynamic forces. Accurately modeling their complex root structures, known as prop-roots, while quantifying their wave attenuation effects has posed a particular challenge.

A collaborative team of researchers from Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute resolved to address this knowledge gap. "Japan has a long history of using pine trees for coastal defense, and we want to apply this knowledge to mangroves to develop smart, cost-effective disaster risk reduction," says first author Yu-Lin Tsai.

Researchers from the University of Maine, in partnership with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, analyzed more than two decades of fishery survey data from the Gulf of Maine to assess how environmental change is reshaping coastal marine ecosystems. The study identified an increase in bottom and surface water temperatures between 2010 and 2012 and used that shift to compare ecosystem conditions before and after the warming period. The researchers found that many species are moving deeper and farther northeast, while the community of dominant, fishery-relevant species has become less diverse. The work also evaluates how environmental change may influence the effectiveness of long-running fishery surveys and offers a framework for adapting monitoring methods used to guide science-based management of key marine resources.