Life below Water: Marine Biology and Sustainable Ocean—2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change, biodiversity loss, chemical contamination, and plastic pollution represent the main issues of marine environmental concern, impacting marine species, habitats, and the ecosystem services that they provide to humans in different ways. Therefore, it is mandatory to better understand the effects of these multiple stressors on marine environments, which require urgent remediation actions. Moreover, many marine habitats and taxa are still understudied; therefore, it is urgent to improve the scientific knowledge on their ecological and biological processes, to better prevent and mitigate the human impacts.

The opening of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) represents a unique opportunity for our scientific community to improve and share our knowledge and to achieve the ambitious goal of conservation and sustainable development of the seas and oceans worldwide.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect papers regarding the biodiversity conservation and protection of marine ecosystems, paying special attention to innovative tools for monitoring both natural and anthropic disturbances, mitigation measures, and the restoration of marine habitats.

The present issue will be devoted to studies focused on the conservation of marine biodiversity, including relevant papers dealing with population genetics and systematics, forensic studies, environmental crimes and the sustainable exploitation of marine biological resources, innovative tools for species detection and monitoring (for example, environmental DNA), and the occurrence and impact of invasive alien species.

It will also include papers related to different environmental contaminants (for example, metals, POPs, marine litter, and emerging contaminants), their levels in water and sediments, and their bioaccumulation and effects on marine species.

Moreover, this Special Issue will also welcome papers dealing with mitigation and restoration measures for marine habitats and their ecosystem services, paying particular attention to the implementation of the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directive for European Seas, but not being limited to this.

Finally, this issue will also consider papers regarding new innovative tools for data collection (for example, citizen science approaches and questionnaires), elaboration, and modeling.

We welcome the submission of papers reporting frontier results in identifying, detecting, monitoring, controlling, and preventing the effects of different threats and disturbances to marine ecosystems. Scientific, technical, and management papers, ideas, opinions, and mini reviews are also welcomed.

Dr. Stefania Chiesa
Dr. Livia Lucentini
Dr. Silvia Maltese
Dr. Alfonso Scarpato
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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