Goals, challenges, and next steps in transdisciplinary fisheries research: perspectives and experiences from early-career researchers.

Fisheries are highly complex social-ecological systems that often face 'wicked' problems from unsustainable resource management to climate change. Addressing these challenges requires transdisciplinary approaches that integrate perspectives across scientific disciplines and knowledge systems. Despite widespread calls for transdisciplinary fisheries research (TFR), there are still limitations in personal and institutional capacity to conduct and support this work to the highest potential. The viewpoints of early career researchers (ECRs) in this field can illuminate challenges and promote systemic change within fisheries research. This paper presents the perspectives of ECRs from across the globe, gathered through a virtual workshop held during the 2021 World Fisheries Congress, on goals, challenges, and future potential for TFR. Big picture goals for TFR were guided by principles of co-production and included (i) integrating transdisciplinary thinking at all stages of the research process, (ii) ensuring that research is inclusive and equitable, (iii) co-creating knowledge that is credible, relevant, actionable, and impactful, and (iv) consistently communicating with partners. Institutional inertia, lack of recognition of the extra time and labour required for TFR, and lack of skill development opportunities were identified as three key barriers in conducting TFR. Several critical actions were identified to help ECRs, established researchers, and institutions reach these goals. We encourage ECRs to form peer-mentorship networks to guide each other along the way. We suggest that established researchers ensure consistent mentorship while also giving space to ECR voices. Actions for institutions include retooling education programs, developing and implementing new metrics of impact, and critically examining individualism and privilege in academia. We suggest that the opportunities and actions identified here, if widely embraced now, can enable research that addresses complex challenges facing fishery systems contributing to a healthier future for fish and humans alike.

Sampling microfibres at the sea surface: The effects of mesh size, sample volume and water depth.

Microfibres are one of the most ubiquitous particulate pollutants, occurring in all environmental compartments. They are often assumed to be microplastics, but include natural as well as synthetic textile fibres and are perhaps best treated as a separate class of pollutants given the challenges they pose in terms of identification and contamination. Microfibres have been largely ignored by traditional methods used to sample floating microplastics at sea, which use 300-500 µm mesh nets that are too coarse to sample most textile fibres. There is thus a need for a consistent set of methods for sampling microfibres in seawater. We processed bulk water samples through 0.7-63 µm filters to collect microfibres in three ocean basins. Fibre density increased as mesh size decreased: 20 µm mesh sampled 41% more fibres than 63 µm, and 0.7 µm filters sampled 44% more fibres than 25 µm mesh, but mesh size (20-63 µm) had little effect on the size of fibres retained. Fibre density decreased with sample volume when processed through larger mesh filters, presumably because more fibres were flushed through the filters. Microfibres averaged 2.5 times more abundant at the sea surface than in water sampled 5 m sub-surface. However, the data were noisy; counts of replicate 10-L samples had low repeatability (0.15-0.36; CV = 56%), suggesting that single samples provide only a rough estimate of microfibre abundance. We propose that sampling for microfibres should use a combination of <1 µm and 20-25 µm filters and process multiple samples to offset high within-site variability in microfibre densities.

Microfibers in oceanic surface waters: A global characterization.

Microfibers are ubiquitous contaminants of emerging concern. Traditionally ascribed to the "microplastics" family, their widespread occurrence in the natural environment is commonly reported in plastic pollution studies, based on the assumption that fibers largely derive from wear and tear of synthetic textiles. By compiling a global dataset from 916 seawater samples collected in six ocean basins, we show that although synthetic polymers currently account for two-thirds of global fiber production, oceanic fibers are mainly composed of natural polymers. µFT-IR characterization of ~2000 fibers revealed that only 8.2% of oceanic fibers are synthetic, with most being cellulosic (79.5%) or of animal origin (12.3%). The widespread occurrence of natural fibers throughout marine environments emphasizes the necessity of chemically identifying microfibers before classifying them as microplastics. Our results highlight a considerable mismatch between the global production of synthetic fibers and the current composition of marine fibers, a finding that clearly deserves further attention.

A new record of the invasive seaweed Caulerpa cylindracea Sonder in the South Adriatic Sea.

The green alga Caulerpa cylindracea Sonder is one of the most infamous and threatening invasive species in the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1985, it started rapidly spreading to all Mediterranean regions causing many ecological changes on natural communities. In the present study, we present an example of this proliferation with the first record in the Marine Protected Area of Tremiti Island (MPATI) in the South Adriatic Sea. Fifteen sites along the coast and 5 different depths have been investigated. Our results provide eveidence of a wide invasion of this pest in three islands, San Domino, San Nicola and Capraia. This study fills a particular data gap in the ongoing biomonitoring of invasive seaweeds in the Mediterranean Sea representing a base line of this invasive species for the MPATI.

Erratum to "A new record of the invasive seaweed Caulerpa cylindracea Sonder in the South Adriatic Sea" [Heliyon 5 (9), (September 2019), e02449].

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02449.].