This study analyzes land-use transitions in Vietnam's Central Highlands during 1990-2020, focusing on forest land, agricultural land, and urban land. Using JAXA land-use data, the study applies transition matrix analysis, persistence indicators, and Getis-Ord Gi* hotspot analysis to assess major land-use transition patterns and their spatial concentration over time. The results show that the dominant transition throughout the study period was the conversion of forest land to agricultural land. Forest area declined from approximately 4.42 million ha in 1990 to 3.53 million ha in 2020, whereas agricultural land expanded from approximately 1.18 million ha to more than 1.91 million ha. Persistence analysis showed varying persistence patterns between forest and agricultural land across different observation periods, reflecting changing levels of land-use exchange. Urban land exhibited the fastest proportional increase despite its relatively small total area. Spatial hotspot analysis revealed that agricultural-to-urban land conversion was most spatially concentrated during the earlier observation periods, whereas hotspot clusters associated with forest-to-urban land conversion became more widespread after 2010. Overall, the results suggest a gradual transition from predominantly forest-based landscape toward more agriculture- and urban-oriented land-use system in the Central Highlands. Although the study does not directly evaluate causal driving mechanisms, it provides a spatially consistent regional synthesis of transition magnitude, land-use persistence, and hotspot concentration over three decades, establishing an empirical baseline for subsequent explanatory research.
Increasing food production often comes at the cost of habitat loss, which contributes to declining biodiversity. Consequently, balancing global food production with biodiversity conservation is a growing challenge, particularly as agricultural production expands and intensifies to meet the needs of a growing human population. The land sharing-land sparing (LSLS) framework presents two contrasting strategies for managing the trade-off between food production and biodiversity conservation. Land sharing involves low-intensity agriculture being interspersed within heterogeneous landscapes that retain natural habitats, whereas land sparing concentrates high-yield agriculture in some areas to allow separate areas to remain undisturbed as natural habitat designated for conservation. While LSLS has been studied extensively in terrestrial ecosystems, its relevance for freshwater ecosystems, despite their exceptional biodiversity and vulnerability, remains largely unexplored. Here, we evaluate how aquatic macroinvertebrate diversity is influenced by LSLS land use configurations in agricultural landscapes of Pennsylvania, USA. We compared macroinvertebrate community metrics (taxa richness, evenness, total abundance), and community composition between paired stream reaches-one flowing through a land sharing landscape configuration and the other through a land sparing configuration. The paired study design ensured streams were matched for physical habitat characteristics and most water quality variables known to influence macroinvertebrates, thus allowing us to isolate any potential impacts of land configuration per se. We found no significant differences in analyzed macroinvertebrate community metrics or composition between paired streams flowing through land sharing versus land sparing configurations. The only differences identified were small changes in the abundance of collector-filterers that are likely to be biologically insignificant. As one of the first empirical tests of the LSLS framework in aquatic ecosystems, these findings suggest that the spatial configuration of agricultural land use, whether integrated with or spatially separated from natural habitat, may have limited influence on macroinvertebrate diversity in streams, cautioning against overgeneralizing terrestrial conservation strategies for use in freshwater ecosystems.
Groundwater on coastal islands is an important water source for human activities and may influence nutrient and carbon cycling in adjacent marginal seas. However, its short-term response to extreme climate events remains poorly understood. Here, 19 groundwater and 4 surface pond-water samples were collected on Donghai Island, South China, before and within 3-5 days after Super Typhoon Yagi (No. 2411). Nutrients, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), chromophoric and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (CDOM and FDOM), together with elevation and land-use data, were analyzed using correlation, regression, and paired tests. Before the typhoon, groundwater showed high concentrations of NO3--N (633.62 ± 555.10 μmol/L) and DSi (354.20 ± 254.96 μmol/L) but low SRP (5.96 ± 15.17 μmol/L) and DOC (0.69 ± 0.48 mg/L). The associations of NO3--N with cultivated land, SRP with elevation and forest cover, and DOC and humic-like DOM with wetland-influenced lowland settings suggest that groundwater had a pre-existing hydrochemical and DOM framework shaped by landscape setting, land-use effects, and subsurface processes, against which short-term post-typhoon changes were superimposed. In contrast, surface pond water had lower NO3--N (62.67 ± 124.07 μmol/L) and DSi (150.27 ± 90.30 μmol/L), but much higher DOC (9.49 ± 4.61 mg/L), indicating a more hydrologically open and DOM-rich system. After the typhoon, groundwater showed limited paired changes in most nutrients, small increases in DOC (+13.0%) and humic-like FDOM (C3; +4.9%), and convergence of selected nutrient and protein-like FDOM high-value features. Surface pond water showed larger post-typhoon changes, including increased salinity (+111.1%) and NO3--N (+156.1%), decreased DSi (-20.5%), DOC (-19.5%), and protein-like FDOM (-36.7% and -57.1%). Meanwhile, DOM composition shifted toward relatively more aromatic and humified characteristics, as reflected by increases in specific UV absorbance at 350 nm (SUVA350; +39.1%) and the humification index (HIX; +38.3%), together with stronger DOC-CDOM-FDOM coupling. These results indicate contrasting short-term changes in hydrochemistry and DOM composition between groundwater and surface pond water.
River systems are significant methane (CH4) sources, with ebullition representing an important but highly uncertain emission pathway. Although land use is known to influence aquatic CH4 emissions, the mechanisms by which land use types regulate ebullition remain poorly understood at broad scales. Here, by combining a five-year field survey of China's major rivers with a global data set, we revealed a strong land-use-dependent pattern in riverine ebullition globally. Rivers draining human-dominated urban and agricultural landscapes exhibited ebullitive fluxes over four times higher than those in relatively natural (i.e., forested or grassland) basins, with ebullition contributing >59% of CH4 emissions in human-dominated systems compared to <46% in natural ones. This is mainly linked to the land-use-induced changes in aquatic conditions, including nutrient enrichment, labile organic carbon inputs, oxygen depletion, and fine sediment accumulation, which collectively promote methanogenesis and bubble formation. Upscaling estimates for human-dominated regions indicated a 44% increase in riverine CH4 emissions from 1960 to 2020 due to agricultural and urban expansion, with ebullition responsible for 76% of this rise. Conventional upscaling methods that ignore land-use effects would introduce biases exceeding 20% in ebullition estimates. Implementing watershed-scale restoration and targeting ebullition mitigation in human-dominated systems presents a critical opportunity for reducing aquatic CH4 emissions. Our findings advance understanding of land-use controls on riverine CH4 ebullition and provide science-based guidance for upscaling frameworks and developing targeted management.
Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a progressive degenerative disease causing pain, muscle weakness, and functional decline, particularly in postmenopausal women. While closed kinetic chain (CKC) exercises are effective for rehabilitation, the comparative efficacy of aquatic- versus land-based environments for these exercises remains poorly understood. This study compared the effects of aquatic- and land-based CKC exercises on pain, functional performance, knee proprioception, muscle strength, and kinesiophobia in women aged 40-70 years with KOA. Thirty women aged 40-70 years with knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to an aquatic CKC exercise group (n = 15) or a land‑based CKC exercise group (n = 15). Twenty-nine participants completed the 8-week intervention and were included in the final analysis. Both groups performed CKC exercises three times per week for 8 weeks. Primary outcomes were pain (visual analog scale) and functional performance (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index, Timed Up and Go, stair test, and 40‑meter walk). Secondary outcomes included self‑reported knee instability, kinesiophobia (Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia), knee proprioception (Inclinometer), and isometric muscle strength assessed with a handheld dynamometer. Both groups showed significant within-group improvements in all measured variables (p < 0.05; aquatic d = 0.39 to 3.40; land d = 0.54 to 4.01). However, after adjusting for baseline values (ANCOVA), no significant between-group differences were found in primary or secondary outcomes, except for the 40-meter walk test, where the land-based group showed significantly greater improvement (p = 0.03, η p 2 =0.15). Both aquatic- and land-based CKC exercises are equally effective in improving pain, functional capacity, and muscle strength in women with KOA. Clinicians can prescribe either environment based on patient preference, accessibility, and tolerance to weight-bearing, as both yield comparable clinical benefits.
Atractylodis Rhizoma, a traditional Chinese medicinal herb, has significant medicinal, ecological, and scientific value; however, global climate change is altering its geographical distribution and quality. On the basis of species occurrence data, in this study, bioclimatic, topographic, and soil variables, as well as land use types, were integrated to predict the potentially suitable habitats of Atractylodes lancea (AL) and Atractylodes chinensis (AC) in China under current and future climate scenarios, and future stable quality distribution areas were proposed. The results revealed that AL was influenced primarily by the precipitation of the driest quarter (Bio17), temperature seasonality (Bio4), and mean temperature of the coldest quarter (Bio11), whereas AC showed the strongest response to the precipitation of the wettest quarter (Bio16), temperature seasonality (Bio4), and precipitation of the warmest quarter (Bio18). Under current climatic conditions, AL was primarily distributed in the southern regions of the middle and lower Yangtze River Basin, whereas AC occurred mainly in the boundary areas between semiarid and arid regions, primarily in central and northeastern China. Under future climate warming scenarios, the total suitable area of AL is projected to decline and shift southeastward, whereas that of AC is projected to contract and migrate northeastward. The atractylodin content in AL was primarily associated with variables such as isothermality (Bio3) and temperature seasonality (Bio4), whereas atractylodin accumulation in AC was influenced mainly by the precipitation of the driest quarter (Bio17) and temperature seasonality (Bio4). The stable quality distribution areas of AL were primarily located in Central China, whereas those of AC were mainly distributed in North China. Under all the climate scenarios and across all the time periods considered, dryland and forestland were consistently identified as the most suitable land use types for both Atractylodis Rhizoma species. These findings may provide a scientific basis for the conservation, rational introduction, and high-quality cultivation of AL and AC, as well as for future strategies to mitigate the potential impacts of climate change on these medicinal species.
Foreign holdings of U.S. farmland have received increased regulatory and public attention amid concerns about national security risks, particularly when adversary-linked acquisitions occur near military installations. Most existing research focuses on the volume rather than the spatial distribution of these holdings. Using social media listening, we document a sharp rise in public discussion of foreign agricultural land holdings since 2020, coinciding with the post-2022 wave of state-level legislation. We then assess the spatial relationship between foreign land transactions and U.S. Military Interest Points (MIPs) using transaction-level data from the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act covering 1996-2024. People's Republic of China (PRC)-linked transactions excluding the 2013 Smithfield acquisition occur in MIP counties at 43.7%, compared with approximately 11% for non-adversary foreign and unidentified-origin transactions. Linear probability and probit specifications with state and acquisition-year fixed effects estimate that MIP presence is associated with a 0.47 percentage-point to 0.75 percentage point higher probability that a transaction is PRC- linked, while non-adversary foreign transactions show no MIP association. Descriptive evidence suggests that PRC-linked transactions shifted from MIP counties toward MIP-adjacent counties after 2022, while the share of transactions reported under unidentified-origin codes rose in both MIP and MIP-adjacent counties, though small post-2022 sample sizes preclude statistical inference. Our findings are associational rather than causal and inform ongoing policy discussions about foreign agricultural land ownership.
The coastal zone serves as a critical interface of intensive anthropogenic activity. Utilizing Landsat imagery from 1987 to 2025, we characterized the spatiotemporal evolution of China's mainland coastline and assessed coastal vulnerability. Over 38 years, the coastline expanded by 3997.85 km and the land area increased by 9654.03 km2. Regionally, Tianjin recorded the highest seaward advancement (ASAD: 2910.77 m/km) and Zhejiang the highest morphological efficiency (MEI: 8.16 km2/km), reflecting contrasting engineering modes of extensive mudflat enclosure versus intensive bay-enclosing seawall construction. Anthropogenic activities accounted for 77.02% of expansion, with aquaculture (47.29%) and impervious surfaces (21.20%) as primary contributors. Municipal-scale attribution revealed a 'rate-type decoupling' - comparable expansion rates driven by different land-cover transformations within the same province. An Interrupted Time Series Analysis decomposed the post-2015 deceleration into a pre-existing trend and a policy-induced level drop of -3.92 m/yr following the 2018 reclamation moratorium. The Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) indicates moderate vulnerability nationally, with coastal slope as the primary driver. Bivariate spatial coupling analysis revealed significant spatial decoupling (Global Moran's I = -0.177, p = 0.001): only 0.4% of points were co-amplification hotspots, while 17.3% were 'sleeping risk' zones with high natural vulnerability but low anthropogenic pressure. The Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) (0.588) places the national system in a transitional state. These findings demonstrate that reclamation control effectively suppresses anthropogenic risk but cannot eliminate climate-driven vulnerability, underscoring the need for differentiated adaptive governance.
As agricultural intensification expands globally, there is an increasing concern about the impact of food production on global biodiversity. Biodiversity decline is problematic as species provide a wealth of benefits, including pollination, soil fertility, and protection against pests, within agrosystems. Many countries, especially across Europe, have implemented incentives for farmers to introduce biodiversity-friendly land management practices, from building hedgerows to planting pollinator fields. Quantifying the impacts of these measures on biodiversity at the farm scale is technically challenging. Here, we developed a method involving the collection of environmental DNA (eDNA) samples with drones from crops, demonstrated in a case study on rapeseed fields under three management types: conventional, biological, and IP Suisse. We analyzed swabbed material through metabarcoding of a 16S amplicon to detect the composition of hexapod in the field. After cleaning and taxonomic assignment, we obtained a total of 75 taxa assigned to 19 families, 23 genera, and 33 species. We found that the variance in recovered diversity was significantly higher for replicates between fields than for replicates within a field, suggesting that eDNA swabbing replicates provided consistent local results. We did not detect significant differences between treatments, possibly because of a landscape effect which causes spillover of species from neighboring seminatural habitats. Our results provide a direction for developing a toolbox for biodiversity measurements in agricultural fields, highlighting the potential for expanding these methodologies to suit the needs of scientists, farmers, and other stakeholders in understanding and fostering farm-scale biodiversity.
Coal mining creates coupled physicochemical stresses, including extreme pH, nutrient depletion, metal enrichment, compaction, and loss of plant-derived carbon, that reduce microbial biomass, simplify interaction networks, and suppress biogeochemical functions. This review synthesizes recent evidence on microbial community restoration in abandoned coal mine lands, with emphasis on community assembly, stress adaptation, functional genes, and the interpretive value of high-throughput sequencing and meta-omics. During natural recovery, microbial propagule dispersal interacts with strong habitat filtering and rhizosphere selection. Pioneer plants and biological soil crusts progressively add carbon and nitrogen, stabilize surfaces, and recruit bacterial, fungal, and phototrophic guilds. Active interventions accelerate these processes by correcting substrate constraints and by inoculating soils, planting holes, seeds, or carriers with locally adapted microorganisms. However, field performance is often limited by competition with resident communities, host mismatch, environmental heterogeneity, and declining inoculant persistence. Restoration assessment should therefore combine taxonomic composition with functional-gene abundance, gene expression, enzyme activity, microbial biomass, and ecosystem-level indicators. Across sites, no single strategy is consistently superior: amendments act rapidly but may require repeated inputs, vegetation-based approaches are slower but potentially self-sustaining, and inoculation is most effective after major physicochemical barriers have been removed. Future research should prioritize replicated field trials, standardized and activity-resolved measurements, locally adapted consortia, and early-stage interventions that influence microbiome composition and function without assuming complete control. These priorities provide a practical basis for precision restoration of mine-affected soils.
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[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07623.].
Regenerative agriculture is a multifaceted approach that aims at transitioning farmers from conventional to sustainable management practices, by increasing biodiversity, functional redundancy, and nutrient cycling efficiency in the soil. This study investigated the effects of three crop rotation systems, wheat after wheat, wheat after medicago, and wheat after canola on the soil fungal and bacterial communities, in a regenerative agriculture system, in the Western Cape, South Africa, following a record-breaking drought (2015-19). Utilizing 16S rRNA and ITS (Internal transcribed spacer region) targeted amplicon sequences, soil-geochemical properties, and qPCR (Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction) analyses, it was found that crop rotations had little significant effect on the alpha-diversity between different crop-rotation systems . Medicago and wheat had the most similar communities, with canola diverging from the other rotation systems. Host driven selection was prevalent in the rhizosphere microbiome during the wheat growth period, across treatments and farms. After senescence, the microbiome composition transitioned from the wheat-selected communities towards communities consisting of saprotrophs and yeasts. qPCR analyses of nitrogen-associated genes revealed that genes for nitrification (amoA) and denitrification (nirK) increased during fertilizer application events, whereas genes associated with nitrogen fixation (nifH), denitrification (nirS), and nitrification (nxrB) increased throughout the season. Genera associated with drought and halotolerance were enriched in all samples.
Anthropogenic land formation has been shown to substantially alter terrestrial landscapes, impacting both soil properties and microbial communities. Nevertheless, the impact of anthropogenic land formation on greenhouse gas emissions and the underlying mechanisms were not fully elucidated. In this study, chronological sequences of soil samples were collected from a recently reclaimed land area at multiple intervals over a fifteen-year period. High-throughput sequencing was employed to analyze the composition of microbial communities, including bacteria, fungi, and protists. It was observed that land formation induced profound shifts in soil properties, with notable decreases in soil temperature and increases in moisture content over time. Furthermore, significant increases in greenhouse gas emissions were observed during the land formation process. The soil bacterial diversity exhibited a marked increase at the outset of land formation, followed by a period of relative stability over time. In contrast, fungal diversity was lowest, and protistan diversity was highest, after 7-9 years of reclamation. The impact of land formation on soil microbial communities varied across taxa, with bacteria exhibiting greater sensitivity compared to fungi and protists. Additionally, structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated that bacterial diversity directly influences carbon dioxide emissions, while protistan diversity affects methane and nitrous oxide emissions in reclaimed lands. Variations in soil bacterial diversity were driven by changes in soil moisture and nitrate content during land formation, whereas protistan diversity was primarily regulated by total organic carbon levels. These findings suggest that optimizing organic matter inputs, enhancing early-stage vegetation establishment, and steering microbial community succession during hydraulic land reclamation may represent effective strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and improve the ecological sustainability of reclaimed coastal landscapes.
Green-blue infrastructure (GBI) is increasingly promoted as a nature-based solution for mitigating urban overheating and managing heatwave events, highlighting the need for long-term monitoring evidence to support its effective implementation. This study compares cooling contrasts observed at six monitored GBI sites - woodland, lakeside, grassland, pocket park, riverside, and green wall - relative to a selected built-up reference site, using a three-year in-situ sensor network integrated with satellite-derived Land Surface Temperature (LST) data. The largest summer air temperature contrasts relative to the built-up reference during peak hours (12:00-16:00 h) were observed at the woodland, grassland, and lakeside sites, ranging from 2.1 to 2.5 °C. During the same period, air temperature contrasts of 2.1 °C were observed at the pocket park and riverside sites, while the contrast at the green wall was 1.8 °C. Satellite-based mean summer LST provided a complementary surface thermal perspective, revealing pronounced spatial contrasts, with the largest reductions observed at the woodland and lakeside extraction areas. During peak temperature events, cooling benefits declined across all GBI sites. Air temperature contrasts between the monitored GBI sites and the built-up reference varied across regional wind regimes, with contrasts at the woodland, grassland, and lakeside sites generally remaining within 2-3 °C, while greater variability was observed at the smaller monitored GBI sites. Over the three-year study period, the built-up reference recorded the highest heatwave threshold occurrence (19.6% of the summer period), while considerably lower occurrences were recorded across the monitored GBI sites (0.0-8.7%). This study provides long-term microclimatic evidence on the capacity of selected GBI settings to buffer high ambient temperatures. Although no direct epidemiological or individual exposure assessment was conducted, the observed reductions in high ambient temperatures, particularly during daytime heat peaks, provide policy-relevant microclimatic evidence for urban heat-health adaptation.
Land use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss across ecosystems, yet its consequences for host-associated microbiomes in freshwater food webs remain poorly understood. In this case study, we used the gut microbiome of mayfly larvae (Ephemera danica) as a sensitive biological interface to assess how site-specific adjacent land use types shape microbial community composition and functions in stream ecosystems. Larvae were sampled in summer and autumn from sites adjacent to forest, extensive grassland, and intensive agriculture along the Otterbach stream (Bavarian Forest, Germany). Combining 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) amplicon sequencing with long-read metagenomics, we show that site-specific land use, in interaction with seasonality, significantly restructures larval gut bacterial communities without affecting alpha diversity. Rather than introducing distinct agriculturally derived taxa, agricultural land use acted as a selective environmental filter, enriching bacterial groups with specific functional traits. Taxa enriched in the sites adjacent to agricultural sites harboured genes involved in complex carbon and xenobiotic degradation, short-chain fatty acid production, efflux pumps, and stress response. These functional signatures were further supported by 14 metagenome-assembled genomes linked to these enriched taxa. Together, our results reveal that site in combination with seasonality not only reshaped bacterial community composition without affecting alpha diversity but also triggered shifts in the abundance of genes involved in microbial-host interactions and degradation pathways in E. danica larvae. This study also highlights the larval gut microbiome as a sensitive indicator of environmental change, suggesting that environmental microbial shifts may have cascading consequences for freshwater trophic interactions and ecosystem functioning.
Contamination of freshwater ecosystems by microplastics has become a significant global issue. This study investigates the abundance, distribution, and characteristics of microplastics in the surface water and sediments of the Densu River during both wet and dry seasons. Surface water and sediment samples were collected from ten (10) sites in the Densu River and processed using density separation with NaCl solution. Microplastics were identified under a Motic SMZ-71 stereomicroscope, and FTIR analysis was conducted to determine the polymer composition. Land use/land cover (LULC) analysis was conducted using the ESA WorldCover 2021 dataset, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to evaluate the relationships among catchment land-use composition, hydrological conditions, as well as microplastic abundance and characteristics. Sampling was conducted in June 2024 (wet season) and December 2024 (dry season), with a total of 120 samples collected. The surface water had a mean microplastic abundance of 1.63 ± 0.95 particles/L during the dry season and 2.57 ± 1.42 particles/L during the wet season, showing no significant difference between the seasons (p = 0.101). The difference in mean microplastic abundance in sediment was 20.67 ± 8.55 particles/kg dry weight (dw) in the wet season and 29.67 ± 11.60 particles/kg during the dry season. Fragments and fibres predominated among microplastic forms, while polyethylene and polypropylene were the primary polymer types identified in surface water and sediments across both seasons. Microplastics of diameter < 1000 μm constituted 85.72% in surface water during the wet season and 82.02% in the sediment during the dry season. The Pollution Load Index values, ranging from 1.0 to 4.14, indicated low risk levels of microplastic contamination in surface water and sediments across the sampling sites. Natural vegetation dominated the river catchment (78.40%), while built-up areas accounted for 16.23%. PCA indicated that spatial variability in microplastic distribution was associated with catchment land-use composition, polymer composition, particle characteristics, and hydrological conditions. Sites with higher urban influence were associated with potential anthropogenic inputs, whereas agricultural areas suggested runoff-mediated transport pathways. These findings emphasise the need to improve the management of plastic initiatives and develop long-term mitigation programmes to address the microplastic pollution in the Densu River and other freshwater bodies.
Ambient particle oxidative toxicity in coastal monsoon transition regions has been deemed a growing concern because long-range transport and atmospheric aging can rapidly reshape particle composition and reactivity. Thereby, we investigated size-resolved particulate matter (PM0.4-10) collected at a peri-urban hilly site (IHS) and a coastal lowland site (CLS) in southeastern China, throughout 2024-2025 to elucidate the seasonal variability of oxidative potential (OP) and environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs). The results revealed that seasonal shifts in particulate chemical composition and dominant source contributions lead to pronounced changes in OP activity and radical generation, with consistently higher OPDTT and EPR-derived radicals at the IHS than at the CLS, indicating enhanced oxidative toxicity under more inland-influenced conditions. Furthermore, distinct EPFR signatures were observed between the two sites, as coastal samples were enriched in semiquinone and oxygen radicals while inland samples tended toward more carbon- and oxygen-centered radicals, suggesting that EPFR speciation and redox cycling can modulate OP and ROS-relevant signals beyond bulk composition alone. Moreover, source apportionment resolved six major factors, including ship emissions, aged sea salt, biomass burning influence, traffic, industrial activities, and dust, demonstrating that temporal source switching rather than a single pollutant precursor largely controlled OP dynamics. Potential source region analysis further identified the Guangdong-Fujian coastal corridor and adjacent marginal seas as common upwind sectors, highlighting a coupled land-sea transport regime that governs seasonal source transitions and oxidative toxicity in coastal Fujian. This improved understanding of seasonally evolving PM oxidative behavior and its source transport drivers will assist in developing targeted mitigation strategies to reduce health-relevant particle toxicity in coastal monsoon regions.
Coral reefs around the world are experiencing increasingly frequent and intense stress events, leading to benthic phase shifts. The ecological consequences of this are often profound and lasting, necessitating the development of both effective and regionally specific conservation strategies. Actualising positive conservational outcomes require managers to first gain insight into the present ecosystem diversity and structure; yet, in Groote Eylandt, a remote reef and largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria off the northern end of Australia, this has not occurred. The Traditional Owners of Groote Eylandt (the Anindilyakwa people) have a long history of connection to the sea, but despite this rich history, they have not formally documented changes to their reef systems, which can create challenges for modern collaborative management efforts. Consequently, this study aims to document the benthic composition of key reef sites within the Groote Archipelago. Considering recent consecutive stress events, in the form of coral bleaching and Tropical Cyclone Megan, assessments of individual site health were also performed through frame compositional analysis of video surveys captured using a remotely operated vehicle. Benthic composition of five reefs within the Groote Archipelago were successfully documented. Scleractinian coral cover was documented at all sites, ranging from 5.2-47.1%, although dominant morphology and levels of mortality were site-specific. Branching morphologies were exceedingly rare, with coral composition dominated by massive morphology corals at the sites surveyed. Other major benthic taxa included soft corals, macroalgae, and sponges. Sea surface temperature data from satellites revealed that temperatures were elevated prior to bleaching observations but did not exceed a Degree Heating Week of 2.1, placing these reefs into the "Bleaching Warning" category. Our findings establish a foundational understanding of benthic composition at Groote Eylandt, necessary for further marine conservation within the region. This work also highlights the importance of acquiring data at remote reefs where data deficiencies can complicate local management efforts.
The transfer of pesticides to Aiguillon Bay, a major coastal ecosystem on the Atlantic coast of France, was investigated in relation to watershed characteristics, agricultural pressure, and hydrological dynamics. The bay receives inputs from three main rivers (Sèvre Niortaise, Lay, and Curé) as well as from the Vieux channel, a downstream branch of the Lay watershed characterized by distinct land-use and drainage features. This study combined spatial land-use analysis with contamination indicators to clarify pesticide transfer pathways and associated ecological risks in intensively cultivated sub-basins. Monthly surface water samples were analyzed using LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS. A Proximity Indicator was developed to identify high-pressure agricultural zones adjacent to watercourses. Individual Risk Quotients (RQs) were also calculated by comparing measured environmental concentrations with Predicted No-Effect Concentrations (PNECs) to evaluate the ecological risk associated with selected pesticide compounds, and the Cumulative Toxic Pressure Index (CTPI) was applied to assess mixture toxicity. CTPI analysis revealed recurrent exceedances of the toxicity threshold (CTPI > 1) across all monitored systems, with strong seasonal variability linked to hydrological conditions. The Sèvre Niortaise and Vieux channel exhibited sustained mixture pressure, whereas the Lay showed pronounced event-driven peaks associated with rainfall episodes. Despite its smaller size, the Curé watershed displayed disproportionately high toxic pressure, reflecting strong hydrological connectivity and cereal-dominated land use. Herbicides and their metabolites were the primary contributors to mixture toxicity, including the persistent metabolite chlorothalonil R471811, frequently detected despite its regulatory ban in 2020, suggesting legacy contamination and progressive remobilization. Although individual Risk Quotients indicated negligible ecological risk for the selected compounds, CTPI revealed repeated mixture toxicity exceedances, demonstrating that cumulative effects represent the primary ecological pressure within the watershed. By integrating land-use characterization, hydrological analysis, statistical comparison, mixture toxicity assessment, and ecological risk evaluation, this study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding pesticide transfer to protected coastal ecosystems and supports the development of more effective watershed management and monitoring strategies.