SEACS Lab (UNSW)
@seacs.bsky.social
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We are a lab of passionate marine ecologists at CMSI UNSW, conducting solutions-based research on human stressors in estuarine and coastal ecosystems.
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seacs.bsky.social
Hi everyone! We are the SEACS lab at UNSW, investigating Solutions for Estuarine And Coastal Stressors. Headed by Dr. Mariana Mayer Pinto, we study a diverse range of human impacts, including artificial structures, light pollution and climate change in coastal ecosystems 😊🌱✹🐚💡
seacs.bsky.social
New paper from PhD student Annemie Rose Jannsen, who found distinct #kelp genotypes in the inner and outer parts of #SydneyHarbour. Genotype-environment analyses suggest adaptation to local conditions.

Super cool results, great work Annemie Rose & coauthors!!

🌊🌐🧪 #marine

doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...
seacs.bsky.social
Thanks Elizabeth! We are super excited about the project 😊🌱
seacs.bsky.social
PhD student Natalie Coy spoke on Radio National this morning about the Seeds of the Sea citizen science project. This project asks citizen scientists to report sightings of Posidonia seagrass flowers in NSW, to inform future restoration of this endangered species. 🌊🌐🧪

www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...
Call for beachgoers to snap pics for science - ABC listen
If you've ever been swimming or diving along the south coast of Australia, you might be familiar with the stunning array of colours and textures that make up our native seagrass meadows. But did you ...
www.abc.net.au
seacs.bsky.social
A new citizen science project, Seeds of the Sea, run by one of our PhD students Natalie Coy has launched, helping to map seagrass flowering of #Posidonia in south-eastern Australia.

Check out the website and map of sightings here: www.seedsofthesea.org

🧪🌍🦤🦑🌐🌊
Close up image with Green Posidonia seagrass buds in the foreground, and seagrass and sand in the background.
seacs.bsky.social
Seaweed-associated microbial communities show limited responses to light pollution and warming 🌱💡

New paper assessing the independent and combined effects of #lightpollution and #oceanwarming on microbial communities associated with two habitat-forming #seaweed species 🧪🌐🌊

doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...
Graphical abstract showing two plots illustrating distance to centroid (degree of dispersion), with the left plot showing values for Ecklonia radiata (picture of Ecklonia below, with symbol showing microbes) and right plot showing values for Sargassum (picture of Sargassum below, with symbol showing microbes). The Ecklonia plot shows greater dispersion with warming, while the sargassum plot shows no effect of treatment.
seacs.bsky.social
Congratulations our lab leader, Mariana Mayer Pinto and to the whole Living Seawalls team, who won the 2025 Eureka Prize for Environmental Research! A wonderful achievement. Watch the short video for this project at  www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yrR...

#MarineEcology 🧪🌊🌐🌱
The Living Seawalls team standing on stage at the Australian Museum Eureka Prize Awards 2025. From left to right: Janine Ledet, Aria Lee, Mariana Mayer Pinto, Melanie Bishop, Maria Vozzo and Kyle Hilliam.
seacs.bsky.social
Light pollution caused by excessive Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) has harmful effects on wildlife. This petition calls for legislation to limit light pollution, to reduce impacts on wildlife and people. www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
e-petitions
e-petitions
www.aph.gov.au
seacs.bsky.social
Another recent paper from our lab on the impact of #bushfires on sediment quality in #estuaries, led by Thayanne Lima Barros, with coauthors Mariana Mayer-Pinto, Katherine Dafforn, Stuart Simpson, Mark Farrell, Sally Bracewell and Emma Johnston.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🧪🌎🌐
Impact of wildfires on sediment quality in estuaries in New South Wales, Australia
Climate change is increasing wildfire intensity, introducing new risks to estuarine systems. However, the impacts of wildfires on estuaries and their …
www.sciencedirect.com
seacs.bsky.social
Recent paper highlight - Multiple stressors affect function rather than taxonomic structure of freshwater microbial communities, headed by PhD student Rose Fuggle supervised by Miguel G. Matias, Mariana Mayer-Pinto & Ezequiel M. Marzinelli.

🧪🌐

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Multiple stressors affect function rather than taxonomic structure of freshwater microbial communities - npj Biofilms and Microbiomes
npj Biofilms and Microbiomes - Multiple stressors affect function rather than taxonomic structure of freshwater microbial communities
www.nature.com
seacs.bsky.social
This work follows on from Annemie Rose's Masters project, where she found inner harbour kelp had higher lead and lower nitrogen concentrations, while outer harbour kelp had thicker stipes and longer and narrower laminae with spines. Read here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...
Redirecting
doi.org
seacs.bsky.social
Fieldwork highlight! PhD student Annemie Rose is investigating whether kelps in the inner harbour are more adapted to urbanisation 🌱🌆 Yesterday we collected kelp from inner and outer sites in Sydney Harbour, for experiments where she will test responses to copper and nutrients!
📸 by Aliah Banchik
Annemie Rose holds two Ecklonia radiata/kelp adults. She is standing on a boat in a wetsuit. An underwater photo, showing a snorkeller, Milly Caley, holding a kelp individual (Ecklonia radiata). In the background is a kelp forest. A photo of Sydney Harbour, with the Sydney Opera House in the background, and in a foreground, three people on a boat, smiling, in wetsuits and lifejackets. These three people are Luke Walker, Annemie Rose and Milly Caley.
Reposted by SEACS Lab (UNSW)
nikihubbard.bsky.social
Beaut of a morning for fieldwork at Parsley Bay. Helping @lenaholtmanns.bsky.social with her experiments on ALAN and habitat complexity in the shallow subtidal. @seacs.bsky.social 🧪
Beautiful blue! Parsley Bay on a gorgeous sunny morning. Calm water, cloudless sky. A few trees and houses in the distance along the shore
seacs.bsky.social
New paper out on the effects of major global ports on light regimes for marine biofouling communities💡🌱🛳☀️
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
seacs.bsky.social
New paper from our lab, on the effects of artificial light at night on fish predation and herbivory rates in a nearshore reef. 🌱🐟💡 doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...
seacs.bsky.social
Valuing Darkness Conference on light pollution will take place March 19th-21st in Naarm (Melbourne). Mariana will be sharing research on the effects of light pollution in marine systems, but lots of other interesting talks as well! #ALAN #light
australasiandarkskyalliance.org/program?utm_...
seacs.bsky.social
Hi everyone! We are the SEACS lab at UNSW, investigating Solutions for Estuarine And Coastal Stressors. Headed by Dr. Mariana Mayer Pinto, we study a diverse range of human impacts, including artificial structures, light pollution and climate change in coastal ecosystems 😊🌱✹🐚💡