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The NEREA (Naples Ecological REsearch for Augmented observatories) initiative aims to establish an augmented observatory in the Gulf of Naples (GoN), designed to advance the understanding of marine ecosystems through a holistic approach. Inspired by the Tara Oceans expedition and building on the scientific legacy of the MareChiara Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER-MC) site, NEREA integrates traditional physical, chemical, and biological measurements with state-of-the-art methodologies such as metabarcoding and metagenomics. Here we present the first 10 months of NEREA data, collected from April 2019 to January 2020, encompassing physico-chemical parameters, plankton biodiversity (e.g., microscopy and flow cytometry), prokaryotic and eukaryotic metabarcoding, a prokaryotic gene catalogue, and a collection of 3818 prokaryotic Metagenome-Assembled Genomes (MAGs). NEREA's efforts produce a significant volume of multifaceted data, which enhances our understanding of marine ecosystems and promotes the development of scientific hypotheses and ideas., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

While the effects of industrial contamination in coastal areas may persist for years in benthos communities, plankton should not show permanent impairments because of their high spatial dynamics, fast turnover times and pronounced seasonality. To test this hypothesis, in 2019 we conducted five surveys in the Bay of Pozzuoli (Gulf of Naples, Mediterranean Sea), in front of a dismissed steel factory and in the adjacent inshore coastal waters. High seasonal variability was observed for bacteria, phytoplankton and mesozooplankton, whereas plankton spatial gradients were relatively smooth during each survey. Plankton biomass and diversity did not reveal any effects of past industrial activities not even at the innermost stations of the Bay, which however showed some signals of present anthropogenic pressure. Hydrodynamic and morphological features likely play a prominent role in maintaining a relatively good status of the plankton of the Bay, which hints at the relevance of coastal circulation and meteorological dynamics to revitalize areas impacted by human activities., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Seagrasses are globally declining and often their loss is due to synergies among stressors. We investigated the interactive effects of eutrophication and burial on the Mediterranean seagrass, Posidonia oceanica. A field experiment was conducted to estimate whether shoot survival depends on the interactive effects of three levels of intensity of both stressors and to identify early changes in plants (i.e., morphological, physiological and biochemical, and expression of stress-related genes) that may serve to detect signals of imminent shoot density collapse. Sediment burial and nutrient enrichment produced interactive effects on P. oceanica shoot survival, as high nutrient levels had the potential to accelerate the regression of the seagrass exposed to high burial (HB). After 11 weeks, HB in combination with either high or medium nutrient enrichment caused a shoot loss of about 60%. Changes in morphology were poor predictors of the seagrass decline. Likewise, few biochemical variables were associated with P. oceanica survival (the phenolics, ORAC and leaf δ 34 S). In contrast, the expression of target genes had the highest correlation with plant survival: photosynthetic genes (ATPa, psbD and psbA) were up-regulated in response to high burial, while carbon metabolism genes (CA-chl, PGK and GADPH) were down-regulated. Therefore, die-offs due to high sedimentation rate in eutrophic areas can only be anticipated by altered expression of stress-related genes that may warn the imminent seagrass collapse. Management of local stressors, such as nutrient pollution, may enhance seagrass resilience in the face of the intensification of extreme climate events, such as floods.