As an important part of the Bohai economic rim, the Laizhou Bay has been stressed by serious eco-environmental problems in recent years. In this study, the Shannon-Wiener index (H′), AZTI’s marine biotic index (AMBI) and the multivariate AMBI (M-AMBI) were used to assess the ecological quality status (EQS) of the Laizhou Bay according to macrobenthos data collected annually in August 2011–2014. The results showed that the overall benthic habitat quality in the Laizhou Bay was assessed as “Good”. However, 25% of the samples were classified as “Moderate”, “Bad” or “Poor” status under degraded conditions. Ecological group III (EGIII) species which had a certain tolerance to environmental disturbances had a higher proportion in each station, and most of them had appeared the pollution indicator species Capitella capitata. This indicated that the benthic habitat in the Laizhou Bay had been disturbed and polluted to some extent. The comparison of the three indices evaluation result and the RDA analysis showed that the H′ and M-AMBI were more suitable when the relative abundance of the single species was high and the macrobenthic community was significantly imbalanced; when the relative abundance of opportunistic species (EGIV and EGV) was high, the AMBI and M-AMBI could reflected the EQS objectively; in an undisturbed and polluted environment, all the three indices could indicate the benthic habitats quality. In summary, the better correlation between the three indices and environmental factors showed that they were well responsive to the tendency of the benthic habitats quality in the Laizhou Bay.

The present investigation focuses on population genetic structure analysis of the endangered giant clam species Tridacna maxima across part of the Red Sea, with the main aim of assessing the influence of postulated potential barriers to gene flow (i.e., particular oceanographic features and marked environmental heterogeneity) on genetic connectivity among populations of this poorly dispersive bivalve species. For this purpose, a total of 44 specimens of T. maxima were collected from five sampling locations along the Saudi Arabian coast and examined for genetic variability at the considerably variable mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase I (COI). Our results revealed lack of population subdivision and phylogeographic structure across the surveyed geographic spectrum, suggesting that neither the short pelagic larval dispersal nor the various postulated barriers to gene flow in the Red Sea can trigger the onset of marked genetic differentiation in T. maxima. Furthermore, the discerned shallow COI haplotype genealogy (exhibiting high haplotype diversity and low nucleotide diversity), associated with recent demographic and spatial expansion events, can be considered as residual effect of a recent evolutionary history of the species in the Red Sea.

This study investigated differences in the community structure and environmental responses of the bacterial community in sediments of the Bohai Sea. Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology and real-time PCR were used to assay the bacterial 16S rRNA genes in the surface sediments of 13 sampling stations in the Bohai Sea. The results showed that sediments at the majority of the 13 sampling stations were contaminated by heavy metal mercury. The main phyla of bacteria recorded included Proteobacteria (52.92%), Bacteroidetes (11.76%), Planctomycetes (7.39%), Acidobacteria (6.53%) and Chloroflexi (4.97%). The genus with the highest relative abundance was Desulfobulbus (4.99%), which was the dominant genus at most sampling stations, followed by Lutimonas and Halioglobus. The main factors influencing bacterial community structure were total organic carbon, followed by depth and total phosphorus. The content of lead, cadmium, chromium, copper and zinc had a consistent effect on community structure. Arsenic showed a negative correlation with bacterial community structure in most samples, while the impact of mercury on community structure was not significant. The bacterial community in sediment samples from the Bohai Sea was rich in diversity and displayed an increase in diversity from high to low latitudes. The data indicated that the Bohai Sea had abundant microbial resources and was rich in bacteria with the potential to metabolize many types of pollutants.

Seasonal and spatial distributions of dissolved and particulate dimethylsulfoxide (DMSOd, DMSOp) were measured in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea during March–April 2011 and October–November 2011. The concentrations of DMSOd and DMSOp in the surface water were 20.6 (5.13–73.8) and 8.90 (3.75–29.6) nmol/L in spring, and 13.4 (4.17–42.7) and 8.18 (3.44–22.6) nmol/L in autumn, respectively. Both DMSOd and DMSOp concentrations revealed similar seasonal changes with higher values occurring in spring, mainly because of the higher phytoplankton biomass observed in spring. Moreover, the ratios of DMSOp/chlorophyll a also exhibited an apparent seasonal change with higher values in autumn (35.7 mmol/g) and lower values in spring (23.4 mmol/g), thereby corresponding with the seasonal variation in the proportion of DMSO producers in the phytoplankton community between spring and autumn. In addition, DMSOd and DMSOp concentrations in the surface seawater revealed obvious diurnal variations with the maxima appearing in the afternoon.

In this study, the impact of oceanic processes on the sensitivity of transient climate change is investigated using two sets of coupled experiments with and without tidal forcing, which are termed Exp_Tide and Exp_Control, respectively. After introducing tidal forcing, the transient climate response (TCR) decreases from 2.32 K to 1.90 K, and the surface air temperature warming at high latitudes decreases by 29%. Large ocean heat uptake efficiency and heat storage can explain the low TCR in Exp_Tide. Approximately 21% more heat is stored in the ocean in Exp_Tide (1.10×10²⁴J) than in Exp_Control (0.91×10²⁴J). Most of the large ocean warming occurs in the upper 1 000 m between 60°S and 60°N, primarily in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. This ocean warming is closely related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The initial transport at mid- and high latitudes and the decline in the AMOC observed in Exp_Tide are both larger than those observed in Exp_Control. The spatial structures of AMOC are also different with and without tidal forcing in present experiments. The AMOC in Exp_Tide has a large northward extension. We also investigated the relationship between AMOC and TCR suggested by previous studies using the present experiments.

An explicit one-dimensional model based on the shallow water equations (SWEs) was established in this work to simulate tsunami wave propagation on a vegetated beach. This model adopted the finite-volume method (FVM) for maintaining the mass balance of these equations. The resistance force caused by vegetation was taken into account as a source term in the momentum equation. The Harten–Lax–van Leer (HLL) approximate Riemann solver was applied to evaluate the interface fluxes for tracing the wet/dry transition boundary. This proposed model was used to simulate solitary wave run-up and long-periodic wave propagation on a sloping beach. The calibration process suitably compared the calculated results with the measured data. The tsunami waves were also simulated to discuss the water depth, tsunami force, as well as the current speed in absence of and in presence of forest domain. The results indicated that forest growth at the beach reduced wave energy loss caused by tsunamis. A series of sensitivity analyses were conducted with respect to variable parameters (such as vegetation densities, wave heights, wave periods, bed resistance, and beach slopes) to identify important influences on mitigating tsunami damage on coastal forest beach.

We analyzed seafloor morphology and geophysical anomalies of the Southeast Indian Ridge (SEIR) to reveal the remarkable changes in magma supply along this intermediate fast-spreading ridge. We found systematic differences of the Australian-Antarctic Discordance (AAD) from adjacent ridge segments with the residual mantle Bouguer gravity anomaly (RMBA) being more positive, seafloor being deeper, morphology being more chaotic, M factors being smaller at the AAD. These systematic anomalies, as well as the observed Na_8.0 being greater and Fe_8.0 being smaller at AAD, suggest relatively starved magma supply and relatively thin crust within the AAD. Comparing to the adjacent ridges segments, the calculated average map-view M factors are relatively small for the AAD, where several Oceanic Core Complexes (OCCs) develop. Close to 30 OCCs were found to be distributed asymmetrically along the SEIR with 60% of OCCs at the northern flank. The OCCs are concentrated mainly in Segments B3 and B4 within the AAD at ~124°–126°E, as well as at the eastern end of Zone C at ~115°E. The relatively small map-view M factors within the AAD indicate stronger tectonism than the adjacent SEIR segments. The interaction between the westward migrating Pacific mantle and the relatively cold mantle beneath the AAD may have caused a reduction in magma supply, leading to the development of abundant OCCs.

Numerical wave tanks are widely-acknowledged tools in studying waves and wave-structure interactions. They can generate waves under realistic scales and offers more information on the fluid field. However, most numerical wave tanks suffer from issues known as the numerical dissipation and numerical dispersion. The former causes wave energy to be slowly dissipated and the latter shifts wave frequencies during wave propagation. This paper proposes a simple method of depressing numerical dissipation effects on the basis of solving Euler equations using the finite difference method (FDM). The wave propagation solutions are solved analytically taking into account the influence of the damping terms. The main idea of the method is to append a source term to the momentum equation, whose strength is determined by how strong the numerical damping effect is. The method is verified by successfully depressing numerical effects during the simulation of regular linear waves, Stokes waves and irregular waves. By applying the method, wave energy is able to be close to its initial value after long distance of travel.

We used satellite altimetry data to investigate the Kuroshio Current because of the higher resolution and wider range of observations. In previous studies, satellite absolute geostrophic velocities were used to study the spatio-temporal variability of the sea surface velocity field along the current, and extraction methods were employed to detect the Kuroshio axes and paths. However, sea surface absolute geostrophic velocity estimated from absolute dynamic topography should be regarded as the geostrophic component of the actual surface velocity, which cannot represent a sea surface current accurately. In this study, mathematical verification between the climatic absolute geostrophic and bin-averaged drifting buoy velocity was established and then adopted to correct the satellite absolute geostrophic velocities. There were some differences in the characteristics between satellite geostrophic and drifting buoy velocities. As a result, the corrected satellite absolute geostrophic velocities were used to detect the Kuroshio axis and path based on a principal-component detection scheme. The results showed that the detection of the Kuroshio axes and paths from corrected absolute geostrophic velocities performed better than those from satellite absolute geostrophic velocities and surface current estimations. The corrected satellite absolute geostrophic velocity may therefore contribute to more precise day-to-day detection of the Kuroshio Current axis and path.

This study produced a statistical analysis of multicore eddy structures based on 23 years' altimetry data in global oceans. Multicore structures were identified using a threshold-free closed-contour algorithm of sea surface height, which was improved for this study in respect of certain technical details. Meanwhile a more accurate definition of eddy boundary was used to estimate eddy scale. Generally, multicore structures, which have two or more closed eddies of the same polarity within their boundaries, represent an important transitional stage in their lives during which the component eddies might experience splitting or merging. In comparison with global eddies, the lifetimes and propagation distances of multicore eddies were found to be much smaller because of their inherent structural instability. However, at the same latitude, the spatial scale of multicore eddies was found larger than that of single-core eddies, i.e., the eddy area could be at least twice as large. Multicore eddies were found to exhibit some features similar to global eddies. For example, multicore eddies tend to occur in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, some western boundary currents, and mid-latitude regions around 25°N/S, the majority (70%) of eddies propagate westward while only 30% propagate eastward, and large-amplitude eddies are restricted mainly to reasonably confined regions of highly unstable currents.