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Germplasm banks are important for preserving genetic diversity, yet the availability and long-term maintenance of macroalgal strains in germplasm banks is currently limited in European collections. To support future food security, restoration efforts, and biotechnological innovation, a strategy was recently developed for the long-term preservation of macroalgal genetic diversity. A foundational step in this effort is to assess the existing biodiversity, biogeographical distribution, and commercial relevance of seaweed cultures maintained in European collections. Using a universal data-collection template distributed widely across European seaweed networks, we compiled and analysed information on these seaweed cultures. As of November 2025, the resulting SeaStrains Database of European Seaweed Collections contains 2541 cultures representing 426 species, accounting for only 4
A global coordination and continuous synthesis of interoperable data related to biogeochemical Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) is critically needed to enhance the creation of information products and services to sustainably manage the climate system and ocean health. Among the existing biogeochemical EOVs, data synthesis products—which demonstrate the immense value of data coordination—already exist for carbon-relevant data (e.g. SOCAT, Global Ocean Data Analysis Project), and for methane and nitrous oxide (MEMENTO). The roadmap for building a Global Ocean Oxygen Database and ATlas (GO _2 DAT) (Grégoire et al (2021 Front. Mar. Sci. 1638 )) provides the theoretical basis to increase the interoperability of ocean oxygen data sets, without creating yet another separate repository. The goal is now to advance from the idea of GO _2 DAT to its implementation, building a sustainable, interoperable, and inclusive digital ecosystem for all stakeholders who may use ocean oxygen data. Successful implementation will require (I) the provision of guidance on data acquisition/ocean oxygen measurements, (II) recommended practices for ocean oxygen data management, including metadata requirements, uncertainty and data quality control attribution, (III) development of the ocean oxygen data platform including data flow and application of the recommended practices introduced in I and II, as well as its deep integration with cross-domain data federations such as the Ocean Data and Information System. This document provides an outline of GO _2 DAT’s objective and progress since 2021 and contributes to addressing these three requirements, synthesizing a series of global consultations on recommended practices for marine dissolved oxygen measurements, a working definition of ocean oxygen metadata, proposed data quality control levels and flags, a described novel mechanism for uncertainty attribution to allow the determination of data suitability for different scientific applications, and it concludes with an illustration of the data flow for implementation.
Coastal flooding events are escalating worldwide, yet the role of human-driven sea-level rise remains poorly constrained. Here we provide the first global detection and attribution of changes in extreme sea-level (ESL) frequency since 1900, combining tide gauge records with historical and single-forcing experiments from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We show that relative sea-level (RSL) rise, driven primarily by anthropogenic forcing since the 1960s, has already transformed the likelihood of historically rare extremes. Globally, the median frequency of a historical 1-in-100-year ESL event has increased sixfold, with human-driven forcing alone tripling the likelihood of such events. Natural variability still modulates regional patterns but has become secondary along most coastlines. These findings provide direct, observation-based evidence that climate change has already reshaped coastal flood hazard, underscoring the urgency of integrating attribution science into coastal adaptation, risk management, and policy frameworks.
To understand the functioning of ecosystems and to carry out scenario studies to forecast functional change, we need to integrate different fields of research. An emerging approach to do so is digital twins: innovative tools for integrated ecosystem analysis, capturing species interactions, biodiversity dynamics, and ecosystem carrying capacity. Digital twins can be characterised as (i) being tailored to and behave like a specific ecosystem, and as such accepted by empiricists as representing a description of a real ecosystem, (ii) having a dynamic interaction between the digital twin and the physical ecosystem, (iii) integrating diverse information and data sources, (iv) combining complementary models, and (v) enabling scenario studies. Development of digital twins of ecosystems is instrumental to bend the curve of biodiversity loss and enhance climate resilience, and is timely because of breakthroughs in digital technologies.
