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The long-awaited first total synthesis of the structurally intriguing natural product palau'amine has now been achieved. The synthesis features cascade reactions and an 'across ring' stitching of a 'macropalau'amine', and sets the bar for future efforts towards an enantioselective variant.

Measures to protect marine habitats must consider the interlinkages between conservation policies and food systems. This study illustrates how a new protected area in Palau may shift fish supply and tourist consumption, highlighting policies to avoid negative environmental consequences.

Given rising diabetes prevalence globally, access to diabetes treatments is gaining urgency. Here, the authors show patterns of glucose-lowering medication use for diabetes across 62 low- and middle-income countries.

Electrophilic halogenation approaches often suffer from low reactivity and chemoselectivity when it comes to complex compounds. Now a class of halogenating reagents based on anomeric amides that can halogenate complex bioactive molecules with diverse functional groups and heterocycles has been developed. The higher reactivity of these anomeric amide reagents is attributed to the energy stored in the pyramidalized nitrogen.

Marine fishes can substantially contribute to the inorganic carbon cycle through the excretion of intestinally precipitated carbonates, but the underlying drivers remain largely unknown. This study identifies the environmental factors and fish traits that predict carbonate excretion rate and mineralogical composition in tropical reef fishes.

From 2014–2017, marine heatwaves caused global mass coral bleaching, where the corals lose their symbiotic algae. The authors find, this event exceeded the severity of all prior global bleaching events in recorded history, with approximately half the world’s reefs bleaching and 15% experiencing substantial mortality.

Global shark and ray populations have declined sharply, driven by expanding fisheries and inequitable gaps in catch, trade and distribution data. This Review assesses global status, highlights drivers of decline, and outlines the regulatory, market-based and conservation actions needed to reduce mortality and reverse shark and ray biodiversity loss.

Natural products and their synthesis have always fascinated organic chemists, frequently providing the inspiration and testing ground for new synthetic methods. This Review considers examples of natural products that were prepared first synthetically and predicted to be natural products prior to their isolation from nature.

Using data from the Tara Pacific expedition, this study shows that a key driver of variation in coral telomere DNA length across the Pacific Ocean is the history of water temperature. The telomere lengths of short-lived, stress-sensitive Pocillopora colonies are more sensitive to seasonal temperature variations than those of long-lived and stress-resistant Porites colonies.

A synthetic route to GB18, an alkaloid from the bark of hallucinogenic Galbulimima sp., is developed, enabling its identification as an antagonist of κ- and μ-opioid receptors.

How plate tectonic subduction is initiated is unclear. Analysis of sediments and rock cores taken from the Izu–Bonin–Mariana subduction zone trench suggests subduction started spontaneously in this region around 50 million years ago.

Global warming is causing widespread coral mortality through bleaching. Here, simulations of coral eco-evolutionary dynamics forecast strong population declines in the 21st century. Coral reefs may collapse by 2100, unless global warming is limited to 2 °C, enabling corals to adapt and persist.

The ocean is a key part of the climate system but is often neglected in individual country priorities. Analysis of Nationally Determined Contributions reveals 70% include marine issues. The level of inclusion varies dependent on country factors including vulnerability to rising seas.

The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.

Plastics were found in 77 out of 84 coral reefs surveyed in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, including in deeper reefs and remote and near-pristine reefs, such as in uninhabited central Pacific atolls.

Hannah Barkley and Anne Cohen and colleagues used bleaching signatures in coral skeletons to examine the Jarvis Island coral community response to multiple El Niño heatwaves. They find the historically productive ecosystem experienced 10 bleaching events in the past 60 years and its recovery provides insights into coral reef resilience under ocean warming.

Using data from the Tara Pacific expedition, this study reports the biogeography and the diversity of microbiomes collected from corals, fish and plankton in 99 reefs across the Pacific Ocean. The large richness of Pacific Ocean reef microorganisms, when extrapolated to all fish and corals of the Pacific, represents the current estimated total prokaryotic diversity for the entire Earth.

Re-melting of both ancient and younger refractory lithospheric mantle contributed to the generation of Izu–Bonin forearc basalts during the earliest stages of subduction initiation, according to hafnium–neodymium isotope analyses.

Daily location data on the individuals of 14 migratory marine species from 2000 to 2009 allow annual migratory cycles to be mapped to the time spent in the high seas and the exclusive economic zones of specific countries, providing a basis for international management strategies for these species.

Bacterial symbionts of the Endozoicomonadaceae family are frequently found in marine animals but are poorly understood. Using data from the Tara Pacific expedition, this study of Endozoicomonadaceae ecology at an ocean basin-scale reveals that corals across the Pacific Ocean have different host-symbiont association strategies that are determined at the bacterial lineage level.

This study estimates the reproductive potential of fish in globally distributed coral reef sites. The results show substantial gains in reproductive potential can be achieved through the 30 × 30 conservation target, particularly for the important fisheries family, Serranidae, demonstrating the possible benefit of protection to population replenishment.

Despite missed deadlines in 2020 for key targets in marine conservation, momentum for these Sustainable Development Goals is growing.

Magmatism associated with early growth of subduction zones is unlike that of mature island arc systems. Here, the authors find basalts with distinct mineralogical and geochemical characteristics were erupted during this early stage, and derived from extremely refractory, hot mantle sources.

Two Japanese scientists supply hundreds of laboratories with a prized gem — and are now among the world’s most published researchers.

Ocean warming threatens to wipe out corals, but scientists are trying to protect naturally resilient reefs and are nursing some others back to health.

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

Indigenous peoples are disproportionally affected by poor kidney health outcomes globally. Here, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors provide a global overview of kidney health among Indigenous populations across different regions and its key determinants, including structural factors, and make actionable policy recommendations for addressing these health inequities.

Fishing has had a profound impact on global reef shark populations, and the absence or presence of sharks is strongly correlated with national socio-economic conditions and reef governance.

A bioinspired system combining cobalamin with microscale zero-valent iron achieves near-complete conversion of 1,2-dichloroethane to ethylene, offering a cost-effective and sustainable approach to pollutant remediation and resource recovery.

The authors develop a climate risk index for marine species under two emission scenarios and find that exploited species in low-income countries have the greatest risk under the high emissions scenario. Mitigating emissions reduces risks, enhances ecosystem stability and benefits low-income countries that depend on fisheries.

Genome-wide data of 16 ancient human individuals from islands of the North Moluccas, Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara reveal diverse sources of admixture and support a scenario of multiple dispersals into Wallacea.

Mangrove forests protect communities from storms and support fisheries. Here, the authors show that the association with economic growth has shifted from negatively impacting mangroves to enabling mangrove expansion, and that community forestry is promoting mangrove expansion.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) frequency and risk factors vary considerably across regions and ancestries. Here, the authors conduct a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study and fine mapping study of HNSCC subsites in cohorts from multiple continents, finding susceptibility and protective loci, gene-environment interactions, and gene variants related to immune response.

A hundred years after scientists first linked histamine molecules to allergies, the study of histamine pathways is in the midst of a revival, thanks in part to the discovery of a new type of receptor. This fourth known histamine receptor now provides an attractive drug target for seasonal allergies, asthma and possibly even cancer. Erica Westly traces the histamine reaction.