About this Research Topic

Background

Marine deoxygenation is increasingly recognized as a major environmental threat. Global warming leads a substantial part of this deoxygenation trend and, it is foreseen to exacerbate during the next decades both in the open ocean and in the coastal waters, which are additionally exposed to increasing anthropogenic pressure. The number of affected coastal systems is already growing exponentially and the most recent assessments of oceanic deoxygenation show the highest rates.

Two main challenges are thus addressed to the scientific community:
1) To understand and predict the response of global biogeochemical cycles to deoxygenation. In particular, to clarify how the disturbance induced by lower oxygen conditions on nitrogen and phosphorus cycles across the estuarine-shelves-ocean continuum may feedback on climate systems and on oxygen balance.
2) To evaluate and mitigate the threat posed by deoxygenation on essential and valuable marine goods and services and on marine biodiversity.

Open ocean and coastal deoxygenation differ in terms of temporal scale, morphology, driving processes and implications. However, we consider it opportune to gather contributions related to both typologies in order to highlight interactions and common processes, and to promote the synoptic perception of marine deoxygenation required for public awareness and preluding the development of specific mitigation strategies.

This research topic thus welcomes contributions providing means to meet these challenges, which includes non-exhaustively:
• The study, through modelling and/or observational means, of marine deoxygenation morphologies and their temporal variability; identification and quantification of driving processes, and the development of short to mid-term forecast capacities.
• The development of oxygen sensors and deployment protocols, general or specifically targeted, in particular regarding their inter-exploitability with historical datasets.
• The assessment of the biological consequences of marine deoxygenation at an individual, targeted species or ecosystem level, considering non-lethal disturbances, threats to ecosystem functions, and ideally acknowledging a multiple stressor framework.
• Evaluate the resilience of present ecosystems, and monetize the risk of further deoxygenation.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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