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Guidance on potential exclusion of certain WFD priority substances from MSFD monitoring beyond coastal and territorial waters: a pragmatic and qualitative approach for the open sea
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According to Commission Decision (EU) 2017/848 under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), EU Member States (MS) shall consider, in their Descriptor 8 primary criterion (D8C1) assessments, the WFD Priority Substances (PS) and River Basin Specific Pollutants (RBSP) within coastal and territorial waters and also beyond territorial waters if these still may give rise to pollution effects. Some WFD PS might not be relevant for the marine environment in the open sea and, consequently, might be excluded from MSFD monitoring beyond the territorial waters. MS have expressed the need for a framework for the deselection of WFD PS from monitoring under the MSFD, in order to save resources. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), collaborating within the MSFD Expert Network on Contaminants, has developed a pragmatic approach to identify the WFD PS that can be excluded from MSFD monitoring in the open sea beyond territorial waters without reducing protection of European Seas. This should preempt the need for individual MS to provide rationales for such exclusions, support comparable monitoring and assessments across national boundaries, and enable MS to focus their monitoring efforts on other (including emerging) substances that require attention.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Local and landscape effects on ant functional and taxonomic compositions across green spaces of a tropical metropolis
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Urbanization is one of the main processes driving environmental transformation, altering the structure and functioning of biological communities across multiple spatial scales. In this study, we evaluated the effects of local and landscape variables on the taxonomic and functional composition of ants in different types of urban green spaces in the city of Salvador, Brazil. A total of 62 sampling points were surveyed across forest fragments, squares, streets medians, and vacant lots, using specific methods for both ground-dwelling and arboreal strata. We recorded 93 ant species distributed among 20 functional groups. Our results indicated that, at the local scale, leaf litter depth was the primary explanatory factor for both taxonomic and functional richness, as well as for functional composition. At the landscape scale, human population density and vegetation cover surrounding the sampling points influenced the distribution of species and functional groups, revealing contrasting patterns between specialist and generalist species. While arboreal, hypogeic, and fungivorous ants were more dependent on structurally complex and conserved habitats, epigeic, omnivorous, and some predatory species were favored in more simplified and heterogeneous environments. These findings highlight that biodiversity conservation in urban areas depends on integrated strategies across multiple scales, encompassing management practices that ensure local structural complexity alongside planning that promotes habitat heterogeneity at the landscape level. Overall, the study demonstrates that the arrangement and quality of urban green spaces play a central role in maintaining both taxonomic and functional diversity of ant communities in tropical cities.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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The BiogeochemicAl Model for Hypoxic and Benthic Influenced areas: BAMHBI v1.0
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This paper describes the ocean BiogeochemicAl Model for Hypoxic and Benthic Influenced areas (BAMHBI). BAMHBI is a moderate complexity marine biogeochemical model that describes the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon and oxygen through the marine foodweb. It involves 22 state variables, extends from bacteria up to mesozooplankton and includes three phytoplankton functional types (PFTs), two zooplankton size-classes, a microbial loop with several classes of detritic materials. Five optional modules are available allowing to extend the model with the explicit modelling of Chlorophyll a (Chl a) in each PFT, benthic degradation, gelatinous dynamics, particles aggregation and the carbonate system. BAMHBI describes the degradation of organic matter according to oxygenation conditions using an approach similar to that used in the sediment to simulate early diagenesis. The model is particularly appropriate for modelling low oxygen environments and the generation of sulfidic waters. An optional benthic module solves the degradation of sedimentary organic matter and the benthic-pelagic fluxes of solutes using an efficient formulation based on meta-modelling. This paper describes in details model formulations, implementation and coupling with the physics. BAMHBI's code is written in Fortran and can be coupled with many hydrodynamical models. Two case studies of application of BAMHBI in the Black Sea are described. One describes the application of BAMHBI to simulate the biogeochemical dynamics of the northwestern shelf during the eutrophication period. In particular, the ability of BAMHBI to simulate the oxygen dynamics at seasonal and interannual scales is assessed with a focus on the simulation of bottom hypoxia. We highlight the results of the benthic modelling module and its ability to represent benthic-pelagic fluxes. The second case study compares the BAMHBI simulated Chl a, oxygen and nitrate dynamics in the deep sea with respect to biogeochemical Argo.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Amplified warming and marine heatwaves in the North Sea under a warming climate and their impacts
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The northeast Atlantic and adjacent regions, such as the North Sea, are among the fastest-warming areas in the world. However, the role of climate change and internal variability in marine heatwaves (MHWs) in this region remains poorly understood. This study aims to quantify the relevant changes in sea surface temperature (SST) and MHWs in the North Sea, as well as to identify the leading patterns of interannual MHW variability over more than 4 decades (1982–2024). Our results indicated a new regime shift in the annual mean SST in the North Sea since 2013. Therefore, we examined the relationships between MHW trends and long-term sea surface warming trends to quantify the role of climate change in the intensification of MHWs. We found that the increase in MHWs is related to the significant decadal change in SST over the North Sea and we have revealed that large-scale climate modes, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the East Atlantic Pattern, play a crucial role in this decadal change in SST. In particular, the SST trend has doubled in the post-2013 period (0.8 °C per decade), compared with the pre-2013 period (0.4 °C per decade), leading to longer and more frequent MHWs. The SST, MHW frequency, and MHW days increased significantly by 0.38 °C per decade, 1.04 events per decade, and 17.27 d per decade, respectively, over the entire study period. After removing the long-term sea surface warming trend before MHW detection, all MHW features exhibited insignificant trends, indicating that the long-term SST trend is the primary driver of the observed long-term MHW trend in the North Sea region, thereby confirming the crucial role of mean SST changes in MHWs in this region. Furthermore, we found that 80 % of the observed trend in MHW frequency is attributed to long-term warming, while the rest is attributed to internal variability. The SST record in May 2024, manifest by the longest (27 d) and most intense (2.2 °C) MHW event, is attributed to an anomalous anticyclonic atmospheric circulation over the Baltic Sea and southern Norway, which enhanced solar radiation over the North Sea. Finally, we also investigated how the chlorophyll a concentration responded to the MHW, revealing a decrease in the deep and cold-water regions of the northern North Sea and an increase in the shallow and warm-water areas of the southern North Sea.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025
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Genomic history of early dogs in Europe
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The earliest morphologically identifiable dogs are from Europe and date to at least 14,000 years ago1–5, although early remains are also found in other regions. The origin of early dogs in Europe, and their relationships to other dogs, has remained elusive in the absence of genome-wide data. Similarly, although dogs were the only domestic animal to predate agriculture, little is known about how the arrival of Neolithic farmers from Southwest Asia affected the dogs living with European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Here we analysed 216 canid remains, including 181 from Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe. We developed a genome-wide capture approach that enriched endogenous DNA by 10–100-fold and could distinguish dog from wolf ancestry for 141 of 216 remains. The oldest dog data that we recovered are from a 14,200-year-old dog from the Kesslerloch site in Switzerland, and we find that it shares ancestry with later worldwide dogs—inconsistent with the hypothesis that European Upper Palaeolithic dogs derived wholly from a separate domestication process. The Kesslerloch dog already displays more affinity to Mesolithic, Neolithic and present-day European dogs than to Asian dogs, demonstrating that dog genetic diversification had started well before 14,200 years ago. We find a Neolithic influx of Southwest Asian ancestry into Europe, but this seems to have been of smaller magnitude than in humans, suggesting that Mesolithic dogs contributed substantially to Neolithic, and, ultimately, probably also modern, European dogs.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Developing Essential Biodiversity Variables for the Southern Ocean: From data gaps to valuable insights
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The Southern Ocean is central to global heat and carbon cycling, connecting all the major ocean basins and regulating Earth’s climate system, and hence providing ecosystem services of global significance. However, its ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change and localized human-induced pressures, such as (biological) resource extraction, pollution, ship traffic, and tourism. Effective conservation and management require systematic and reliable monitoring frameworks. The Essential Variables concept offers a robust approach to integrate fragmented data, to standardize data collection, and to generate policy-relevant data products enabling informed responses to rapid environmental change. This paper synthesizes the key outcomes of a workshop held in Hobart, Australia, alongside the Southern Ocean Observing System Symposium, in 2023. To advance the adoption, development, and operationalization of Essential Variables tailored to the Southern Ocean, researchers with diverse expertise came together to assess current data gaps in ocean observations and to establish monitoring priorities for marine ecosystems. The workshop provided a dedicated forum to identify key Southern Ocean-specific candidate variables, address methodological challenges, and design pathways for developing a systematic, open, and adaptable framework suited to the region’s unique ecological and environmental conditions. In this paper, we propose Essential Biodiversity Variables that are tailored to the Southern Ocean and are intended to monitor changes in sea ice, planktonic, benthic, and top predator systems. The adoption of Essential Biodiversity Variables specific to the Southern Ocean can enhance our capacity to track biodiversity trends, assess ecosystem health, and inform policy by transforming fragmented data into a cohesive, policy-relevant framework. However, the success of these efforts is only possible by securing sustained funding and enhancing interoperability and collaborations across research groups.This paper as well as the Hobart 2023 workshop are activities endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026 OA
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SOOSmap: Your gateway to Antarctic data discovery
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The Southern Ocean is central to global ocean mixing and climate regulation via its disproportionate uptake of human-induced heat and carbon dioxide, yet the underlying processes are still poorly understood. Coordinated and sustained effort in observation and modelling of Southern Ocean processes in the past, present and future is therefore critical for understanding and mitigating the changes underway. Free and equitable access to Southern Ocean data is a fundamental prerequisite to meeting this objective. Here, we present a tool for discovery of, and access to, existing Southern Ocean data—SOOSmap, Version 2 (soosmap.aq). SOOSmap is a gateway to physical, biogeochemical and biological open-access data, free for anyone to use, from ocean science experts to classroom students. SOOSmap was developed in a collaboration of the Southern Ocean Observing System and the European Marine Observations and Data Network Physics project, with the aim to provide an easy to use one-stop-shop for Southern Ocean data held in repositories around the world. In this article, we illustrate the different methods of data access within SOOSmap, describe SOOSmap in the context of other polar data resources and initiatives, demonstrate how SOOSmap can be put into practice by a variety of stakeholders, and instruct users on how they can get involved in the SOOS community and contribute new data to SOOSmap, which is fundamental for this tool to continue to be useful for informing policy and decision-making about changes occurring in the Southern Ocean.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025
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Scaling up ocean conservation through recognition of key biodiversity areas in the Southern Ocean from multispecies tracking data
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Biodiversity is critical for maintaining ecosystem function but is threatened by increasing anthropogenic pressures. In the Southern Ocean, a highly biologically productive region containing many endemic species, proactive management is urgently needed to mitigate increasing pressures from fishing, climate change, and tourism. Site-based conservation is one important tool for managing the negative impacts of human activities on ecosystems. The Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) Standard is a standardized framework used to define sites vital for the persistence of global biodiversity based on criteria and quantitative thresholds. We used tracking data from 14 species of Antarctic and subantarctic seabirds and pinnipeds from the publicly available Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) data set to define KBAs for a diverse suite of marine predators. We used track2kba, an R package that supports identification of KBAs from telemetry data through identification of highly used habitat areas and estimates of local abundance within sites. We compared abundance estimates at each site with thresholds for KBA criteria A1, B1, and D1 (related to globally threatened species, individual geographically restricted species, and demographic aggregations, respectively). We identified 30 potential KBAs for 13 species distributed throughout the Southern Ocean that were vital for each individual species, population, and life-history stage for which they were determined. These areas were identified as highly used by these populations based on observational data and complement the ongoing habitat modeling and bioregionalization work that has been used to prioritize conservation areas in this region. Although further work is needed to identify potential KBAs based on additional current and future data sets, we highlight the benefits of utilizing KBAs as part of a holistic approach to marine conservation, given their significant value as a global conservation tool.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
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Chaudfontaine/Vaux-sur-Chèvremont: poursuite de l'intervention archéologique sur l'abbaye fortifiée de Chèvremont (Chaudfontaine)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025
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Paul Gigase
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026 OA
