In exploring new sources for economically important products, marine environment draws particular attention because of its remarkable diversity and extreme conditions; it is known to produce metabolic products of great value. It represents untapped source for the discovery of novel secondary metabolites with varying potential such as antibiotic, anti-tumor, antifouling and cytotoxic properties. Marine actinomycetes distributed throughout the marine environment from shallow to deep sea sediments have proved to be a finest source for this discovery. Secondary metabolites derived from marine actinomycetes have proved their worth in industries based on the research on their properties and wide range applications. Spotlight of the review is range of marine based actinomycetes products and significant research in this field. This shows the capability of marine actinomycetes as bioactive metabolite producers. Additionally, the present review addresses some effective and novel approaches of procuring marine microbial compounds utilizing the latest screening strategies of drug discovery from which traditional resources such as marine actinobacteria has decreased due to declining yields. The aim is in the context of promoting fruitful and profitable results in the near future. The recent surfacing of new technologies for bioprospection of marine actinomycetes are very promising, resulting in high quality value added products, and will be de?ning a new era for bioactive compounds with medical and biotechnological applications.

An experimental study is carried out for waves passing an isolated reef terrain in a wave tank. A three-dimensional model of a representative and isolated reef terrain in the West Pacific is built. Random wave trains with various periods and wave heights are generated by a wave maker using the improved JONSWAP spectrum. It is observed that there are different kinds of generation processes and waveforms of freak waves. The freak wave factor ${H_{\rm{m}}}/{H_{\rm{s}}}$ (where ${H_{\rm{m}}}$ is the maximum wave height of wave series, and ${H_{\rm{s}}}$ is significant wave height) is analyzed in detail, in terms of the skewness, kurtosis and water depth, as well as the relationship between freak wave height ${H_{{\rm{fr}}}}$ and skewness. The freak wave factor ${H_{\rm{m}}}/{H_{\rm{s}}}$ is found to be in positive correlation with the kurtosis, while larger ${H_{{\rm{fr}}}}$ tends to be related with bigger skewness. The rapid variation of water depth, such as slope and seamount, contributes to the occurrence probability of freak waves.

Whitespotted conger Conger myriaster is a commercially important species in the seas around China, Korea and Japan. The coastal waters of China serve as an important feeding ground for congers, but the spatio-temporal variations in the fishery and biological characteristics of the population have been rarely evaluated and less well understood in this area. We studied the growth, spawning and feeding characteristics of C. myriaster on the basis of samples collected from October 2016 to April 2017 in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. A total of 529 specimens were collected, with ages ranging from 1 to 6 years and total length ranging from 132 mm to 834 mm. The parameters of von Bertalanffy growth equation L_∞ and k were 1 026 mm and 0.226 a^–1, respectively; the sex ratio was 88:0 (female: male) in the East China Sea and 2.67:1 in the South Yellow Sea; the development stage of ovary ranged from peri-nucleolus stage to secondary yolk globule stage, and the testis of two males was at mid-meiotic stage; Crustacean was the major prey for conger of small length, and food source shift to fish with somatic growth. The results showed substantial differences from previous studies in Japan and Korean waters, as well as from China seas in the 1980s, suggesting potential spatiotemporal changes in the biological characteristics of C. myriaster. This study may improve current understanding of the fishery biology of C. myriaster in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea.

Phytoplankton physiologies are dynamic and have sensitive responses to the ambient environment. In this paper, we examine photosynthetic physiologies of phytoplankton communities with Phyto-PAM in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean during the spring inter-monsoon. Environmental parameters were measured to investigate the coupling between phytoplankton photosynthetic physiologies and their habitats. During the cruise, the water column was highly stratified. The mixed layer extended to about 75 m and was characterized by high temperature (>28°C) and low nutrient level. The F_v/F_m values and chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations were lower at the surface, as consequences of nutrient depletion and photo-inhibition. Subsurface Chl a maximum (SCM) occurred between 75 and 100 m, and had the highest F_v/F_m values. The formation of SCM was a balance between nutrient availability and light limitation. The SCM may contribute significantly to pelagic food web and primary production in the water column. Phytoplankton in different layers encountered different light, trophic and hydrographic dynamics and evolved distinct photosynthetic characteristics. Despite of co-limitation of nutrient limitation and photo-inhibition, phytoplankton in the surface layer showed their acclimation to high irradiance, had lower light utilization efficiencies (α: 0.061±0.032) and could exploit a wide range of light irradiance. Whereas, phytoplankton in the SCM layers presented the highest light utilization efficiencies (α: 0.146±0.48), which guaranteed higher photosynthetic capacities under low light level. These results provide insights into phytoplankton photo-adaption strategies in this less explored region.

The mesozooplankton in both epipelagic and mesopelagic zones is essentially important for the study of ecosystem and biological carbon pump. Previous studies showed that the diel vertical migration (DVM) pattern of mesozooplankton varied among ecosystems. However, that pattern was largely unknown in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP). The vertical distribution, DVM and community structure of mesozooplankton from the surface to 1 000 m were compared at Stas JL7K (WPWP) and MA (North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, NPSG). Two sites showed similarly low biomass in both epipelagic and mesopelagic zones, which were in accordance with oligotrophic conditions of these two ecosystems. Stronger DVM (night/day ratio) was found at JL7K (1.31) than that at MA (1.09) on surface 0–100 m, and an obvious night increase of mesopelagic biomass was observed at JL7K, which was probably due to migrators from bathypelagic zone. Active carbon flux by DVM of zooplankton was estimated to be 0.23 mmol/(m²·d) at JL7K and 0.16 mmol/(m²·d) at MA. The community structure analysis showed that calanoid copepods, cnidarians and appendicularians were the main contributors to DVM of mesozooplankton at both sites. We also compared the present result with previous studies of the two ecosystems, and suggested that the DVM of mesozooplankton was more homogeneous within the WPWP and more variable within the NPSG, though both ecosystems showed typically extremely oligotrophic conditions. The different diel vertical migration strength of mesozooplankton between NPSG and WPWP implied different efficiency of carbon pump in these two ecosystems.

This study aimed to improve the thermostability of arylsulfatase from Pseudoalteromonas carrageenovora. A library of P. carrageenovora arylsulfatase mutants was constructed by introducing random mutagenesis using error-prone PCR. After screening, two mutants of H260L and D84A/H260L showed enhanced thermal stability than the wild-type predecessor (WT). Site-directed mutagenesis demonstrated that only amino acid residue at Position 260 plays an important role in the thermostability of P. carrageenovora arylsulfatase. Thermal inactivation analysis showed that the half-life (t_1/2) values at 55°C for H260L, H260I, H260Q, H260F and H260R were 40.6, 48.4, 30.9, 29.1 and 34.5 min, respectively, while that of WT was 9.1 min. Structure modeling demonstrated that the additional hydrogen bonds and/or optimization of surface charge-charge interactions could be responsible for the increased thermostability imparted by H260L, H260I, H260Q, H260F and H260R.

Rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were carried out to analyze the CYP4 gene expression in polychaete Marphysa sanguinea exposed to benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in this study. The full length of MsCYP4 cDNA was 2 470 bp, and it encoded 512 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence showed 47% identity with CYP4F from frog Xenopus tropicalis and shared high homology with other known CYP4 sequences. To analyse the role of CYP4 in protecting M. sanguinea from BaP exposure, three BaP groups were established: 0.5, 5 and 50 μg/L. Polychaetes were sampled after 3, 7 and 12 d. At 0.5 μg/L, the effect of BaP on MsCYP4 gene expression increased with time prolonged. MsCYP4 gene expression curve showed U-shaped trend with time in 5 and 50 μg/L BaP groups. Therefore, MsCYP4 gene may play an important role in maintaining the balance of cellular metabolism and protecting M. sanguinea from BaP toxicity.

Nonlinear internal waves (NIWs) are ubiquitous around the Kara Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean that is north of Siberia. Three hot spot sources for internal waves, one of which is the Kara Strait, have been identified based on Envisat ASAR. The generation and evolution of the NIWs through the interactions of the tide and topography across the strait is studied based on a nonhydrostatic numerical model. The model captures most wave characteristics shown by satellite data. A typical inter-packets distance on the Barents Sea side is about 25 km in summer, with a phase speed about 0.65 m/s. A northward background current may intensify the accumulation of energy during generation, but it has little influence on the other properties of the generated waves. The single internal solitary wave (ISW) structure is a special phenomenon that follows major wave trains, with a distance about 5–8 km. This wave is generated with the leading wave packets during the same tidal period. When a steady current toward the Kara Sea is included, the basic generation process is similar, but the waves toward the Kara Sea weaken and display an internal bore-like structure with smaller amplitude than in the control experiment. In winter, due to the growth of sea ice, stratification across the Kara Strait is mainly determined by the salinity, with an almost uniform temperature close to freezing. A pycnocline deepens near the middle of the water depth (Barents Sea side), and the NIWs process is not as important as the NIWs process in summer. There is no fission process during the simulation.

This paper develops a deep learning classification method with fully-connected 8-layers characteristics to classification of coastal wetland based on CHRIS hyperspectral image. The method combined spectral feature and multi-spatial texture feature information has been applied in the Huanghe (Yellow) River Estuary coastal wetland. The results show that: (1) Based on testing samples, the DCNN model combined spectral feature and texture feature after K-L transformation appear high classification accuracy, which is up to 99%. (2) The accuracy by using spectral feature with all the texture feature is lower than that using spectral only and combing spectral and texture feature after K-L transformation. The DCNN classification accuracy using spectral feature and texture feature after K-L transformation was up to 99.38%, and the outperformed that of all the texture feature by 4.15%. (3) The classification accuracy of the DCNN method achieves better performance than other methods based on the whole validation image, with an overall accuracy of 84.64% and the Kappa coefficient of 0.80. (4) The developed DCNN model classification algorithm ensured the accuracy of all types is more balanced, and it also greatly improved the accuracy of tidal flat and farmland, while kept the classification accuracy of main types almost invariant compared to the shallow algorithms. The classification accuracy of tidal flat and farmland is up to 79.26% and 56.72% respectively based on the DCNN model. And it improves by about 2.51% and 10.6% compared with that of the other shallow classification methods.

Annual observations of first-year ice (FYI) and second-year ice (SYI) near Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica, were conducted for the first time from December 2011 to December 2012. Melt ponds appeared from early December 2011. Landfast ice partly broke in late January, 2012 after a strong cyclone. Open water was refrozen to form new ice cover in mid-February, and then FYI and SYI co-existed in March with a growth rate of 0.8 cm/d for FYI and a melting rate of 2.7 cm/d for SYI. This difference was due to the oceanic heat flux and the thickness of ice, with weaker heat flux through thicker ice. From May onward, FYI and SYI showed a similar growth by 0.5 cm/d. Their maximum thickness reached 160.5 cm and 167.0 cm, respectively, in late October. Drillings showed variations of FYI thickness to be generally less than 1.0 cm, but variations were up to 33.0 cm for SYI in March, suggesting that the SYI bottom was particularly uneven. Snow distribution was strongly affected by wind and surface roughness, leading to large thickness differences in the different sites. Snow and ice thickness in Nella Fjord had a similar “east thicker, west thinner” spatial distribution. Easterly prevailing wind and local topography led to this snow pattern. Superimposed ice induced by snow cover melting in summer thickened multi-year ice, causing it to be thicker than the snow-free SYI. The estimated monthly oceanic heat flux was ~30.0 W/m² in March–May, reducing to ~10.0 W/m² during July–October, and increasing to ~15.0 W/m² in November. The seasonal change and mean value of 15.6 W/m² was similar to the findings of previous research. The results can be used to further our understanding of landfast ice for climate change study and Chinese Antarctic Expedition services.