Category

Marine Ecology and Society

Science group

Marine Ecology and Society

Understanding how marine ecosystems respond to environmental change and human pressures. Integrating ecological, social, psychological, and economic perspectives, to uncover the drivers of resilience, sensitivity, and adaptation, and to inform policies that support sustainable and equitable use of o...

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  Aquatic Pollution from Light and Anthropogenic Noise: Management of Impacts on Biodiversity (AquaPLAN)

  AquaPLAN is a four-year EU Horizon Europe project quantifying the combined impacts of artificial light at night (ALAN) and anthropogenic noise on aquatic biodiversity across Europe’s freshwater, estuarine, coastal and offshore environments. PML contributes expertise in physical and social mari...
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  Deep Vision: AI-enabled Mapping of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the Atlantic

  Co-led by Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Plymouth, this project uses artificial intelligence and high-resolution seabed data to map vulnerable marine ecosystems across the Atlantic Basin. The resulting evidence supports the design of legal protections for deep-sea biodiversity, inc...
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  DEcentrAlised Learning for automated image analysis and biodiversity monitoring (DEAL)

  DEAL will create an application that allows owners of biological image data to participate in decentralised, collaborative networks, where they can leverage the data and expertise of all participants to obtain better, higher efficacy classification results for their data.
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  Carbon sequestration in BLUe EcoSystems (C-BLUES)

  The C-BLUES project aims to significantly advance knowledge and understanding of blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) – seagrasses, tidal marshes, mangroves and macroalgae – to reduce scientific uncertainty, improve reporting of blue carbon, and promote the role of blue carbon in delivering cli...
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  TYRE-LOSS: Lost at Sea – where are all the tyre particles?

  Tyre particles are increasingly recognised as a potentially major source of microplastic pollution, yet limited data exists on their accumulation and risks in the marine environments. The TYRE-LOSS project is tackling this critical knowledge gap.
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  Future States of the global Coastal ocean: Understanding for Solutions (FOCUS)

  The Future states Of the global Coastal ocean: Understanding for Solutions (FOCUS) project is working to understand how climate change and human activities are impacting coastal seas worldwide.

20 July 2026

State of the South-West’s Seas 2025 report highlights warming waters and octopus boom

Marine heatwaves, rising sea temperatures and a boom in Common Octopus populations are among the standout findings in the newly published State of the South-West’s Seas 2025 report. Produced by the South-West Marine Ecosystems (SWME) programme, with key contributions from PML scientists, the annual report provides a comprehensive assessment of the region’s marine environment.

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  Scientists urge caution on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal as pressure to limit global warming intensifies  

  Emissions reductions remain the priority as highlighte...

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  From mudflats to markets: research reveals strong economic case for investing in marine nature recovery

  Findings from the Sea The Value project are presented in this latest report, suggesting that by applying a ‘natural capital assessment’ approach, there is genuine potential for marine nat...

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  Record-breaking marine heatwave highlights the importance of long-term monitoring

  UK sea temperatures have

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  Hundreds of jellyfish wash ashore Southwest beaches – what is causing such large blooms?

  Following a mass jellyfish stranding