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The NEREA (Naples Ecological REsearch for Augmented observatories) initiative aims to establish an augmented observatory in the Gulf of Naples (GoN), designed to advance the understanding of marine ecosystems through a holistic approach. Inspired by the Tara Oceans expedition and building on the scientific legacy of the MareChiara Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER-MC) site, NEREA integrates traditional physical, chemical, and biological measurements with state-of-the-art methodologies such as metabarcoding and metagenomics. Here we present the first 10 months of NEREA data, collected from April 2019 to January 2020, encompassing physico-chemical parameters, plankton biodiversity (e.g., microscopy and flow cytometry), prokaryotic and eukaryotic metabarcoding, a prokaryotic gene catalogue, and a collection of 3818 prokaryotic Metagenome-Assembled Genomes (MAGs). NEREA's efforts produce a significant volume of multifaceted data, which enhances our understanding of marine ecosystems and promotes the development of scientific hypotheses and ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10.1038/s41467-023-36241-5 7 Lomartire S., Marques J.C., Gonçalves A.M.M. The key role of zooplankton in ecosystem services: A perspective of interaction between zooplankton and fish recruitment. Marine ecosystems, from coastal areas to open waters, teem with a multitude of heterotrophic and mixotrophic organisms collectively forming the zooplankton, the animal component of the plankton. The authors find significant changes in the mesozooplankton community structure and copepod assemblages in the upwelling cold dome region, formed by the Kuroshio Current intrusion in the Southeast China Sea during the southwest monsoon. However, parasitized copepods are mainly females rather than males and juveniles, and the highest percentage of infected copepods is observed in the winter and summer seasons of different years. [Extracted from the article]

Long‐term ecological research has revealed the impact of climate on marine ecosystems at multiple time scales. Changes in the pelagic system have been detected at the LTER‐MC site in the Gulf of Naples (Tyrrhenian Sea, western Mediterranean) since 1984. Here we analyzed the time series to determine whether zooplankton had significantly changed over the three decades 1984–2015. In addition to the seasonal cycle as the main mode of temporal variability, we observed long‐term trends in the functional groups and species. Copepods, the most abundant group, declined over the years owing to a decrease in the abundance of Acartia clausi, Centropages typicus, the Paracalanus parvus complex, and Oithona spp. Increasing trends were observed for strict carnivores (chaetognaths) and typical filter feeders (cladocerans, appendicularians, and thaliaceans); the latter may be linked to a higher density of <5 μm phytoplankton. Two main temporal shifts were detected: (i) in 1985–87, similarly to the regime shifts registered in other basins of the Northern Hemisphere, and (ii) after 2011, likely related to local atmospheric forcing. The disappearance or decrease in some neritic copepods and the increased abundance of typical offshore species seem to reflect the enhanced influence of the open Tyrrhenian waters at the sampling site. Despite these changes, no significant trends were detected in the total zooplankton abundance and overall composition, which indicates restructuring within the whole community. These results underline the need to examine the entire zooplankton diversity spectrum and improve our knowledge of their ecological traits to detect and interpret long‐term variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics are recognised as a potential global threat to marine ecosystems, but the biological mechanisms determining their impact on marine life are still largely unknown. Here, we investigated the effects of microplastics on the red coral, a long-lived habitat-forming organism belonging to the Corallium genus, which is present at almost all latitudes from shallow-water to deep-sea habitats. When exposed to microplastics, corals preferentially ingest polypropylene, with multiple biological effects, from feeding impairment to mucus production and altered gene expression. Microplastics can alter the coral microbiome directly and indirectly by causing tissue abrasions that allow the proliferation of opportunistic bacteria. These multiple effects suggest that microplastics at the concentrations present in some marine areas and predicted for most oceans in the coming decades, can ultimately cause coral death. Other habitat-forming suspension-feeding species are likely subjected to similar impacts, which may act synergistically with climate-driven events primarily responsible for mass mortalities. Corinaldesi et al. investigated the biological responses to microplastic contamination of the red coral Corallium rubrum, a genus with near global distribution. Microplastics caused feeding impairment, tissue damage, altered gene expression, oxidative DNA damage and microbiome alteration. Such diverse deleterious effects may be generalizable to other habitat-forming suspension and filter feeders given the burgeoning levels of microplastic contamination across the world's oceans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]