Key Expoitable Results (KERs)

Microorganisms regulate key biogeochemical processes and ecosystem feedbacks to climate change, yet they remain underrepresented in global environmental policy and implementation frameworks. The World Microbiome Partnership (WMP) Environment and Climate Change Roadmap sets out a coordinated agenda to embed microbial science into climate mitigation, adaptation, and nature-based solutions. It identifies three scientific priority actions: (i) microbial process accounting, (ii) global integration of microbiome data, and (iii) the deployment of microbiomes for ecological resilience. These priorities define the core knowledge and governance gaps that currently limit the effectiveness of climate mitigation, adaptation, and nature-based solutions. To operationalise these priorities, the Roadmap establishes interoperable microbiome data infrastructures linking distributed observations across biomes, a federated governance model combining regional stewardship with global standards, and measurable microbial indicators translated into policy-relevant targets for climate, biodiversity, and ecosystem rehabilitation. The roadmap proposes alignment with existing climate and biodiversity agreements to avoid duplication and maximise impact. By articulating concrete near-term priorities and cross-sector partnerships, this comment aims to catalyze coordinated investment and action so that microbial systems are recognized, protected, and harnessed as essential components of a stable and just climate future.

Mission Microbiomes AtlantECO (MMA) is an international study of the most fundamental fabric of the ocean — the ocean microbiome — aiming to understand its structure, functioning and connectivity in the Atlantic Ocean. It is an initiative of the European Union’s research and innovation project AtlantECO, which aims at sharing capacity along and across the Atlantic, and providing knowledge-based resources to help design policies for the management and protection of Atlantic Ecosystem Services. The success and legacy of MMA on science and society relies on the fair, open and inclusive collaboration among its Partners, and the exploitation of jointly owned MMA Results. The adoption of the present Data Sharing and Publication Best Practices is therefore essential to achieve the scientific objectives of MMA and maximise their impacts.

Secondary or specialized metabolites show extraordinary structural diversity and potent biological activities relevant for clinical and industrial applications. The biosynthesis of these metabolites usually starts with the assembly of a core ‘scaffold’, which is subsequently modified by tailoring enzymes to define the molecule’s final structure and, in turn, its biological activity profile. Knowledge about reaction and substrate specificity of tailoring enzymes is essential for understanding and computationally predicting metabolite biosynthesis, but this information is usually scattered in the literature. Here, we present MITE, the Minimum Information about a Tailoring Enzyme database. MITE employs a comprehensive set of parameters to annotate tailoring enzymes, defining substrate and reaction specificity by the expressive reaction SMARTS (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System Arbitrary Target Specification) chemical pattern language. Both human and machine readable, MITE can be used as a knowledge base, for in silico biosynthesis, or to train machine-learning applications, and tightly integrates with existing resources. Designed as a community-driven and open resource, MITE employs a rolling release model of data curation and expert review. MITE is freely accessible at https://mite.bioinformatics.nl/.

Every few years, juvenile Kemp’s ridley turtles (Lepidochelys kempii) are stranded on the Dutch coasts. The main population distribution of this critically endangered species primarily inhabits the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of the United States. This study focuses on five reports from the Netherlands between 2007 and 2022, where juvenile turtles were reported to strand alive during the winter, albeit in a hypothermic state. At ambient ocean temperatures between 10°C and 13°C, Kemp’s ridley turtles begin to show an inability to actively swim and remain afloat on the ocean’s surface, a condition termed ‘cold stunning’. Understanding their transport in cold-stunned state can help improve the rehabilitation process of stranded turtles. Cold-stunned turtles are back-tracked as passive, virtual particles from their stranding location using Lagrangian flow modelling. This study investigates when and where these juvenile turtles cross the threshold temperatures between 10° C and 14° C before stranding by tracking the temperature along the trajectories. As expected, the simulations show the transport of the cold-stunned turtles via the English Channel. More surprisingly, the analysis suggests they likely experience cold-stunning in the southern North Sea region and encounter temperatures below 10°C for only a few days to up to three weeks, and below 12°C for up to a month before stranding. The estimate of cold-stunned drift duration of the turtles provides additional knowledge about their health status at the time of stranding. Adherence to rehabilitation protocols for Kemp’s ridley and post-release monitoring are recommended to improve their long-term survival.

Non-cyanobacteria diazotrophs (NCDs) are shown to dominate in surface waters shifting the long-held paradigm of cyanobacteria dominance. This raises fundamental questions on how these putative heterotrophic bacteria thrive in sunlit oceans. The absence of laboratory cultures of these bacteria significantly limits our ability to understand their behavior in natural environments and, consequently, their contribution to the marine nitrogen cycle. Here, via a multidisciplinary approach, we identify the presence of NCDs within the phycosphere of the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Pt), which sustain the survival of Pt in nitrogen-depleted conditions. Through bacterial metacommunity sequencing and genome assembly, we identify multiple NCDs belonging to the Rhizobiales order, including Bradyrhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Georhizobium, and Methylobacterium. We demonstrate the nitrogen-fixing ability of PtNCDs through in silico identification of nitrogen fixation genes and by other experimental assays. We show the wide occurrence of this type of interactions with the isolation of NCDs from other microalgae, their identification in the environment, and their predicted associations with photosynthetic microalgae. Our study underscores the importance of microalgae interactions with NCDs to support nitrogen fixation. This work provides a unique model Pt-NCDs to study the ecology of this interaction, advancing our understanding of the key drivers of global marine nitrogen fixation.

To provide input to the possible future establishment of such a framework, ten innovative EU projects to build user-focused, interdisciplinary, responsive and sustained ocean information systems and increase the sustainability of the Blue Economy, joined forces in a strong cluster to better address key global marine challenges. Under the lead of the EuroSea project, the group translated its common concerns to recommendations and listed these in the joint policy brief ‘Nourishing Blue Economy and Sharing Ocean Knowledge. Ocean Information for Sustainable Management.’. Following up on these recommendations will strengthen the entire Value Chain of Ocean Information and ensure sound sustainable ocean management. In this way, the 10 projects jointly strive to achieve goals set out in the EU Green Deal, the Paris Agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the United Nations 2021-2030 Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Ocean Development. Toste Tanhua (GEOMAR), EuroSea coordinator: “It was great to collaborate with these other innovative projects and make joint recommendations based on different perspectives and expertise.”

Traditionally, the concept of Ocean Literacy(OL) has been defined as the understanding ofthe ocean's influence on us and our influenceon the ocean. In recent years, the concept ofOcean Literacy has radically evolved,transitioning from an educational approach to aconcept to be considered by society as a whole.In this context, Ocean Literacy assumesdifferent forms and shapes, as well as newforms to be connected to a variety of sectors,thought culture, citizenship as well as valuesand attitudes of students.In the scholar context, mainly where this Toolkitis intended to be used, Ocean Literacy can beadapted to diverse disciplines, considering local,geographical and historical aspects, pertinentfor example, to the Atlantic Region.