Human-made structures are ubiquitous in the marine realm. Complex structures such as oil and gas platforms may constitute a suitable habitat for species in areas where natural reefs have been highly degraded by coastal development. We here explore the suitability of fish assemblages associated to offshore platforms as surrogates for depleted fish stocks from coastal areas. Taxonomic and functional ...

Background: Buoyancy and balance are important parameters for slow-moving, low-metabolic, aquatic organisms. The extant coelacanths have among the lowest metabolic rates of any living vertebrate and can aford little energy to keep station. Previous observations on living coelacanths support the hypothesis that the coelacanth is neutrally buoyant and in close-to-perfect hydrostatic balance. However, ...

The deep-sea is vast, remote, and largely underexplored. However, methodological advances in environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys could aid in the exploration efforts, such as using sponges as natural eDNA filters for studying fish biodiversity. In this study, we analyzed the eDNA from 116 sponge tissue samples and compared these to 18 water eDNA samples and visual surveys obtained on an Arctic seamount. ...

Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland is experiencing the effects of climate change, with the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier being one of the fastest-moving and most productive ice streams in Greenland. This is likely affecting the distribution of species in the fjord, including those important to local fisheries. Due to heavy ice conditions, few studies on environmental and ecological conditions exist from ...

The anthropogenic impact on the world's ecosystems is severe and the need for non-invasive, cost-effective tools for monitoring and understanding those impacts are therefore urgent. Here, we combine two such methods in a comprehensive multi-year study; camera trapping (CT) and analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA), in river marginal zones of a temperate, wetland Nature Park in Denmark. CT was ...

European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) is a key species in commercial fisheries in the North Sea, Skagerrak, Kattegat, and Baltic Sea. The reformed European Union Common Fisheries Policy includes the possibility of exemptions from the landing obligation for “species for which scientific evidence demonstrates high survival rates”. Discard survival from set-net fisheries is poorly studied. Trials ...

The earliest Eocene (Ypresian) Fur Formation (Denmark) is globally renowned for its exceptionally well-preserved fossils, including birds, sea turtles, insects, plants, andfishes. Fishes, albeit abundant and diverse, however, areonly superficially known and very few detailed, taxonomic studies have been realized to date. A new polymixiiformfish,Polyspinatusflueregen. et sp. nov., from the Fur Formation ...

A new species of the rare, deep-sea genus Sciadonus Garman, 1899 (Bythitidae) is described based on two specimens obtained by the Brazilian R/V Alpha Crucis on the continental slope off São Paulo State, Southeastern Brazil, western South Atlantic. It differs from its congeners by the combination of the following characters: body pale lacking dark pigmentation except for on female claspers; a pair ...

Current seawater temperatures around the northeastern Arabian Peninsula resemble future global forecasts as temperatures [35 C are commonly observed in summer. To provide a more fundamental aim of understanding the structure of wild populations in extreme environmental conditions, we conducted a population genetic study of a widespread, regional endemic table coral species, Acropora downingi, ...

Temporal variation in eDNA signals is increasingly explored for understanding community ecology in aquatic habitats. Seasonal changes have been addressed using eDNA sampling, but very little is known regarding short-term temporal variation that spans hours to days. To address this, we filtered marine water samples from a single coastal site in Denmark every hour for 32 h. We used metabarcoding to ...