The Marine Stressors Forum of MASTS, The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, has been holding regular sessions at MASTS Annual Science Meetings over the past few years. A key outcome of these sessions is the shared recognition that our understanding of the nature and impact of the interactions of multiple abiotic and biotic stressors from a variety of sources on marine species has some major and critical gaps. Sources of stress include chemical, noise and light pollution as well as climate change-related parameters, such as water temperature, pH and salinity, furthermore fishery, coastal/sea-use changes and changes in species interactions, such as predation and resource competition. To date, our knowledge of whether and how different stressors interact is minimal. It is often assumed that interactions are additive, but in fact they can be antagonistic, synergistic and include potentiation.
We seek contributions presenting original data and new insight into Multiple Stressors and associated drivers in the Marine Environment.
The multiple stressors knowledge gaps present major obstacles to adequately considering multiple stressors in routine environmental risk assessments currently informing governments around the world on a variety of environmental policy decisions. Present available regulatory guidance is rather general, and clear and scientific evidence on which to base such guidance is lacking. This special issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin is timely and aligned with the UN Decade of Oceans Science for Sustainable Development, where multiple concurrent environmental drivers (sensu stressors) have been proposed as a science topic. The Marine-Multi-Stressors special issue brings together a series of complementary papers addressing and highlighting the topic of multiple stressors in marine environmental impact assessments.
Timeline:
Submission deadline: 31-May-2021
Acceptance deadline: 31-Dec-2021