Earth & Environment

Editor’s Picks: Ocean Sciences

Published December 18, 2017 Curated Collections

Ocean Science or Oceanography covers a wide range of scientific topics, including complex ecosystems, sustainability, marine organisms, ocean currents, climate change and the geology of the sea floor. In this Editor’s Picks, PLOS ONE Associate Editor Eileen Clancy selects recent PLOS publications highlighting the varied and critical research ongoing into understanding the world’s oceans. PLOS welcomes submissions in these fields.

Image Credit: NASA

Jump to section

Environmental Impacts and Sustainability
Paleoceanography
Marine Ecology
Climate Change and Ocean Acidification
Physical Oceanography
Microbiology and Plankton
Coral Reefs
Coastal Ecology

Environmental Impacts and Sustainability

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0171750

PLOS ONE Biological responses to disturbance from simulated deep-sea polymetallic nodule mining
February 8, 2017 Daniel O. B. Jones, Stefanie Kaiser, Andrew K. Sweetman, Craig R. Smith, Lenaick Menot, Annemiek Vink, Dwight Trueblood, Jens Greinert, David S. M. Billett, Pedro Martinez Arbizu, Teresa Radziejewska, Ravail Singh, Baban Ingole, Tanja Stratmann, Erik Simon-Lledó, Jennifer M. Durden, Malcolm R. Clark
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0178267

PLOS ONE Drivers and implications of change in global ocean health over the past five years
July 5, 2017 Benjamin S. Halpern, Melanie Frazier, Jamie Afflerbach, Casey O’Hara, Steven Katona, Julia S. Stewart Lowndes, Ning Jiang, Erich Pacheco, Courtney Scarborough, Johanna Polsenberg
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001886

PLOS Biology Simple rules can guide whether land- or ocean-based conservation will best benefit marine ecosystems
September 6, 2017 Megan I. Saunders, Michael Bode, Scott Atkinson, Carissa J. Klein, Anna Metaxas, Jutta Beher, Maria Beger, Morena Mills, Sylvaine Giakoumi, Vivitskaia Tulloch, Hugh P. Possingham
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001656

PLOS Biology Antarctica and the strategic plan for biodiversity
March 28, 2017 Steven L. Chown, Cassandra M. Brooks, Aleks Terauds, Céline Le Bohec, Céline van Klaveren-Impagliazzo, Jason D. Whittington, Stuart H. M. Butchart, Bernard W. T. Coetzee, Ben Collen, Peter Convey, Kevin J. Gaston, Neil Gilbert, Mike Gill, Robert Höft, Sam Johnston, Mahlon C. Kennicutt II, Hannah J. Kriesell, Yvon Le Maho, Heather J. Lynch, Maria Palomares, Roser Puig-Marcó, Peter Stoett, Melodie A. McGeoch
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0123095

PLOS ONE Post-Drilling Changes in Seabed Landscape and Megabenthos in a Deep-Sea Hydrothermal System, the Iheya North Field, Okinawa Trough
April 22, 2015 Ryota Nakajima, Hiroyuki Yamamoto, Shinsuke Kawagucci, Yutaro Takaya, Tatsuo Nozaki, Chong Chen, Katsunori Fujikura, Tetsuya Miwa, Ken Takai
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0120565

PLOS ONE A Decline in Benthic Foraminifera following the Deepwater Horizon Event in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico
March 18, 2015 Patrick T. Schwing, Isabel C. Romero, Gregg R. Brooks, David W. Hastings, Rebekka A. Larson, David J. Hollander
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0102498

PLOS ONE Sediment and Turbidity Associated with Offshore Dredging Increase Coral Disease Prevalence on Nearby Reefs
July 16, 2014 F. Joseph Pollock, Joleah B. Lamb, Stuart N. Field, Scott F. Heron, Britta Schaffelke, George Shedrawi, David G. Bourne, Bette L. Willis
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0111913

PLOS ONE Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea
December 10, 2014 Marcus Eriksen, Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Henry S. Carson, Martin Thiel, Charles J. Moore, Jose C. Borerro, Francois Galgani, Peter G. Ryan, Julia Reisser

Paleoceanography

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0146578

PLOS ONE Detection of Tephra Layers in Antarctic Sediment Cores with Hyperspectral Imaging
January 27, 2016 Ismael F. Aymerich, Marc Oliva, Santiago Giralt, Julio Martín-Herrero
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0115246

PLOS ONE Paleoceanographic Insights on Recent Oxygen Minimum Zone Expansion: Lessons for Modern Oceanography
January 28, 2015 Sarah E. Moffitt, Russell A. Moffitt, Wilson Sauthoff, Catherine V. Davis, Kathryn Hewett, Tessa M. Hill

Marine Ecology

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0096016

PLOS ONE Fish Food in the Deep Sea: Revisiting the Role of Large Food-Falls
May 7, 2014 Nicholas D. Higgs, Andrew R. Gates, Daniel O. B. Jones

Climate Change and Ocean Acidification

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0128405

PLOS ONE Giant Clams and Rising CO₂: Light May Ameliorate Effects of Ocean Acidification on a Solar-Powered Animal
June 17, 2015 Sue-Ann Watson
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0113746

PLOS ONE Projected Polar Bear Sea Ice Habitat in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago
November 26, 2014 Stephen Hamilton, Laura Castro de la Guardia, Andrew Derocher, Vicki Sahanatien, Bruno Tremblay, David Huard
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0094068

PLOS ONE Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Sediment Processes in Shallow Waters of the Arctic Ocean
April 9, 2014 Frédéric Gazeau, Pieter van Rijswijk, Lara Pozzato, Jack J. Middelburg

Physical Oceanography

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0132785

PLOS ONE Nitrate and Nitrite Variability at the Seafloor of an Oxygen Minimum Zone Revealed by a Novel Microfluidic In-Situ Chemical Sensor
July 10, 2015 Mustafa Yücel, Alexander D. Beaton, Marcus Dengler, Matthew C. Mowlem, Frank Sohl, Stefan Sommer
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0065417

PLOS ONE Disturbance of Shallow Marine Soft-Bottom Environments and Megabenthos Assemblages by a Huge Tsunami Induced by the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake
June 7, 2013 Koji Seike, Kotaro Shirai, Yukihisa Kogure

Microbiology and Plankton

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0152671

PLOS ONE Transporting Ocean Viromes: Invasion of the Aquatic Biosphere
April 7, 2016 Yiseul Kim, Tiong Gim Aw, Joan B. Rose
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0118136

PLOS ONE Transient Changes in Bacterioplankton Communities Induced by the Submarine Volcanic Eruption of El Hierro (Canary Islands)
February 11, 2015 Isabel Ferrera, Javier Arístegui, José M. González, María F. Montero, Eugenio Fraile-Nuez, Josep M. Gasol
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0098709

PLOS ONE Ocean Net Heat Flux Influences Seasonal to Interannual Patterns of Plankton Abundance
June 11, 2014 Tim J. Smyth, Icarus Allen, Angus Atkinson, John T. Bruun, Rachel A. Harmer, Robin D. Pingree, Claire E. Widdicombe, Paul J. Somerfield
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pgen.1003987

PLOS Genetics Expanding the Marine Virosphere Using Metagenomics
December 12, 2013 Carolina Megumi Mizuno, Nikole E. Kimes, Rohit Ghai, Francisco Rodriguez-Valera

Coral Reefs

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0175490

PLOS ONE A new, high-resolution global mass coral bleaching database
April 26, 2017 Simon D. Donner, Gregory J. M. Rickbeil, Scott F. Heron
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0164699

PLOS ONE Coral Reefs and People in a High-CO₂ World: Where Can Science Make a Difference to People?
November 9, 2016 Linwood Pendleton, Adrien Comte, Chris Langdon, Julia A. Ekstrom, Sarah R. Cooley, Lisa Suatoni, Michael W. Beck, Luke M. Brander, Lauretta Burke, Josh E. Cinner, Carolyn Doherty, Peter E. T. Edwards, Dwight Gledhill, Li-Qing Jiang, Ruben J. van Hooidonk, Louise Teh, George G. Waldbusser, Jessica Ritter
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0120924

PLOS ONE Glowing Seashells: Diversity of Fossilized Coloration Patterns on Coral Reef-Associated Cone Snail (Gastropoda: Conidae) Shells from the Neogene of the Dominican Republic
April 1, 2015 Jonathan R. Hendricks
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0109092

PLOS ONE Coral Reefs on the Edge? Carbon Chemistry on Inshore Reefs of the Great Barrier Reef
October 8, 2014 Sven Uthicke, Miles Furnas, Christian Lønborg

Coastal Ecology

Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0154735

PLOS ONE The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
May 2, 2016 Siddharth Narayan, Michael W. Beck, Borja G. Reguero, Iñigo J. Losada, Bregje van Wesenbeeck, Nigel Pontee, James N. Sanchirico, Jane Carter Ingram, Glenn-Marie Lange, Kelly A. Burks-Copes
Image credit
10.1371/journal.pone.0158094

PLOS ONE The Power of Three: Coral Reefs, Seagrasses and Mangroves Protect Coastal Regions and Increase Their Resilience
July 13, 2016 Greg Guannel, Katie Arkema, Peter Ruggiero, Gregory Verutes