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Marine organisms represent a source of unique chemical entities with valuable biomedical potentialities, broad diversity, and complexity. It is essential to ensure a reliable and sustainable supply of marine natural products (MNPs) for their translation into commercial drugs and other valuable products. From a structural point of view and with few exceptions, MNPs of pharmaceutical importance derive from the so-called secondary metabolism of marine organisms. When production strategies rely on marine macroorganisms, harvesting or culturing coupled with extraction procedures frequently remain the only alternative to producing these compounds on an industrial scale. Their supply can often be implemented with laboratory scale cultures for bacterial, fungal, or microalgal sources. However, a diverse approach, combining traditional methods with modern synthetic biology and biosynthesis strategies, must be considered for invertebrate MNPs, as they are usually naturally accumulated in only very small quantities. This review offers a comprehensive examination of various production strategies for MNPs, addressing the challenges related to supply, synthesis, and scalability. It also underscores recent biotechnological advancements that are likely to transform the current industrial-scale manufacturing methods for pharmaceuticals derived from marine sources.

In the Antarctic Peninsula, during the chick-rearing period Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) and gentoo (P. papua) penguins feed primarily on Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), which is also exploited by the commercial fishery. Krill length and proportion of juvenile krill consumed by these predators that breed at Stranger Point, South Shetland Islands (from 2007/2008 to 2015/2016), and those collected by the krill fishery in the Mar de la Flota/Bransfield Strait (from 2009/2010 to 2015/2016) were compared to evaluate the potential of each data source as an indicator of changes in the size composition and so, in the demographic structure of the krill population. Overall, the mean krill size taken by gentoo penguins was larger than that ingested by Adélie penguins, which consumed higher proportions of juvenile (≤ 35 mm) and one-year-old (≤ 25 mm) krill. Although the krill size caught by the fishery was statistically similar to that taken by both penguin species, there were differences in the frequency distributions of krill size among the three databases. Furthermore, when only adult krill (> 35 mm) was considered, the three sources of krill data showed a similar inter-annual variation in the availability of adult krill cohorts. Our findings suggest that each database analysed here can potentially provide different information (although complementary) about krill size composition. In addition, inter-annual fluctuations in the smaller size classes of krill likely reflect their first year of recruitment and, therefore, may be used as an indicator of shifts in local krill availability.

The oxidative cost of reproduction has been a matter of debate in recent years presumably because of the lack of proper experimental studies. Based on the hypothesis that different brood sizes produce differential reproductive costs, an experimental manipulation during breeding of Adélie penguins was conducted at Hope Bay, Antarctica, to study oxidative status and stress. We predict that a lower reproductive effort should be positively related to low oxidative and physiological stress. We randomly assigned nests with two chicks to a control reproductive effort group (CRE), and by removing one chick from some nests with two chicks, formed a second, low reproductive effort group (LRE). We examined how oxidative status in blood plasma (reactive oxygen metabolites, ROMs, and total antioxidant capacity, OXY) and stress (heterophil/lymphocyte ratio, H/L) responded to a lower production of offspring total biomass. Our nest manipulation showed significant differences in offspring total biomass, which was lower in the LRE group. As predicted, the LRE group had higher antioxidant capacity than individuals in the CRE group. We have also found, although marginally significant, interactions between sex and treatment in the three variables analysed. Females had higher OXY, lower ROMs and lower H/L ratio when rearing one chick, whereas males did so when rearing two except for OXY which was high regardless of treatment. Moreover, there was a significant negative correlation between the H/L ratio and OXY in females. Finally, we have found a negative and significant relationship between the duration of the experiment and OXY and ROMs and positive with H/L ratio which suggests that indeed breeding penguins are paying an effort in physiological terms in relation to the duration of the chick rearing. In conclusion, a reduction of the reproductive effort decreased oxidative stress in this long-lived bird meaning that a link exists between breeding effort and oxidative stress. However, our findings suggest different sex strategies which results in opposite physiological responses presumably depending on different life-history strategies in males and females.

The One Health framework highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, requiring interdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration to address complex global health challenges. This scoping review protocol aims to guide the systematic mapping on how studies and policy initiatives have incorporated socioecological interconnections within the One Health paradigm, following the Joanna Briggs Institute guidance and the PRISMA Scr checklist. The experimental design includes searches in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, LILACS, Health Systems Evidence, Social Systems Evidence, and Google Scholar for the period from 2004 to 2025. The strategy, developed with librarian support and peer reviewed, includes terms in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Pilot searches retrieved 5333 PubMed and 470 LILACS records. Eligible documents must explicitly present two or more of the six One Health dimensions: policies to strengthen health systems; antimicrobial resistance; food safety; environmental health; emerging and re-emerging zoonotic epidemics and pandemics; endemic zoonotic, neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases. A standardized tool was developed for data extraction, synthesizing in narrative, tabular, and graphical formats. The protocol’s utilization will provide comprehensive mapping of practices and policies, identifying achievements, barriers, and knowledge gaps to inform future strategies and strengthen global health governance.

Knowledge of continental shelf faunal biodiversity of Antarctica is patchy and as such, the ecology of this unique ecosystem is not fully understood. To this end, we deployed baited cameras at 20 locations along ~ 500 km of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) at depths from 90 to 797 m. We identified 111 unique taxa, with mud bottom accounting for 90% of the dominant ([greater than or equal to] 50% cover) habitat sampled. Amphipoda comprised 41% of the total maximum number of individuals per camera deployment (MaxN) and occurred on 75% of deployments. Excluding this taxon, the highest MaxN occurred around King George/25 de Mayo Island and was driven primarily by the abundance of krill (Euphausiidae), which accounted for 36% of total average MaxN among deployments around this island. In comparison, krill comprised 22% of total average MaxN at Deception Island and only 10% along the peninsula. Taxa richness, diversity, and evenness all increased with depth and depth explained 18.2% of the variation in community structure among locations, which may be explained by decreasing ice scour with depth. We identified a number of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem taxa, including habitat-forming species of cold-water corals and sponge fields. Channichthyidae was the most common fish family, occurring on 80% of all deployments. The Antarctic jonasfish (Notolepis coatsorum) was the most frequently encountered fish taxa, occurring on 70% of all deployments and comprising 25% of total MaxN among all deployments. Nototheniidae was the most numerically abundant fish family, accounting for 36% of total MaxN and was present on 70% of the deployments. The WAP is among the fastest warming regions on Earth and mitigating the impacts of warming, along with more direct impacts such as those from fishing, is critical in providing opportunities for species to adapt to environmental change and to preserve this unique ecosystem.

The plasticity in the trophic ecology, the breeding phenology, and the low nesting site fidelity would be the reasons why most of the gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) populations breeding in the western Antarctic Peninsula and islands of Scotia Arc remained stable or increasing, despite the changing environmental conditions. Regardless of the overall trend, recent studies revealed a decline in the abundance of some gentoo penguin populations at those regions. Therefore, it is highly valuable to update the population size of each colony in order to confirm the current trends of individual colonies and generate a comprehensive overview of the population status. We report the abundance and breeding performance of gentoo penguins at the Stranger Point/Cabo Funes colony from 2000/2001 to 2018/2019. During the last season, 5383 breeding pairs and 5545 chicks in crèche were counted. Despite there were considerable inter-annual fluctuations over the study period, the total number of gentoo penguin breeding pairs increased by 74.6% (+ 3.1% per annum), while the number of chicks crèched increased by 60.0% (+ 2.6% per annum). However, the index of breeding success remained relatively constant over time, varying between 0.74 and 1.23 chicks in crèche/breeding pairs. Gentoo penguins have life-history strategies that are advantageous to face the environmental variability, allowing the species to maintain their breeding performance stable over time and enhance their resilience, which can favour the population growth at Stranger Point.

Information on marine predator at‐sea distributions is key to understanding ecosystem and community dynamics and an important component of spatial management frameworks that aim to identify regions important for conservation. Tracking data from seabirds are widely used to define priority areas for conservation, but such data are often restricted to the breeding population. This also applies to penguins in Antarctica, where identification of important habitat for nonbreeders has received limited attention. Nonbreeding penguins are expected to have larger foraging distributions than breeding conspecifics, which may alter their interactions with physical environmental factors, conspecifics, other marine predators, and threats. We studied the movement behavior of nonbreeding Adélie penguins tracked during the 2016/2017 breeding season at King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. We quantify how nonbreeding penguins' horizontal moment behavior varies in relation to environmental conditions and assess the extent of spatial overlap in the foraging ranges of nonbreeders and breeders, which were tracked over several years. Nonbreeders increased their prey search and area‐restricted foraging behavior as sea surface temperature and bottom depths decreased, and in response to increasing sea ice concentration. Nonbreeders tended to transit (high directional movement) over the relatively deep Central Basin of the Bransfield Strait. The majority of foraging behavior occurred within the colder, Weddell Sea–sourced water of the Antarctic Coastal Current (incubation) and in the Weddell Sea (crèche). The utilization distributions of breeders and nonbreeders overlapped in the central Bransfield Strait. Spatial segregation was greater during the crèche stage of breeding compared to incubation and brood, because chick provisioning still constrained the foraging range of breeders to a scale of a few tens of kilometers, while nonbreeders commenced with premolt foraging trips into the Weddell Sea. Our results show that breeding and nonbreeding penguins may not be impacted similarly by local environmental variability, given that their spatial and temporal scales of foraging differ during some part of the austral summer. Our study highlights the need to account for different life history stages when characterizing foraging behavior of marine predator populations. This is particularly important for “sentinel” species monitored as part of marine conservation and ecosystem‐based management programs.

King penguins ( Aptenodytes patagonicus ) have a circum-subantarctic range though recently, pairs breeding in Antarctica were reported. In a scenario of environmental variability as it is recorded in Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent islands, one ecological response registered in penguins was the shift in its distribution and breeding range probably due to the increment in the areas available to breed and/or feed. In the 2014–2015 season, the first king penguin chick was registered at Stranger Point (62°S. 25 de Mayo/King George Island), which remained alive until 5 months old. This record represents the southernmost birth of this species and the fourth consecutive breeding attempts in this site. This provides further evidence of a possible consolidation of a new breeding site at South Shetland Islands and thus the southward expansion of the bio-geographic range. Moreover, it suggests that both terrestrial and marine environmental conditions were favourable for king penguins, at least until the beginning of the crèche stage. Nevertheless, an increase in the number of breeding pairs is essential to ensure the survival of chicks and enable the colonization.

The White-rumped Sandpiper (Calidris fuscicollis) (Vieillot 1819) is one of the longest migrating birds that breeds in the high Arctic in Alaska and Canada and spends the post-breeding period in South America. This bird is a frequent vagrant visitor of Islas Georgias del Sur/South Georgia and the South Shetland islands. Here we provide the first record for the White-rumped Sandpiper at the Continental Antarctica. The individual was observed the 2 February 2019 at Esperanza/Hope Bay (63° 23′ 56″ S, 56° 59′ 06″ W), the north of the Antarctic Peninsula, in an ice-free rockery close to a melt-water-run-off area. At the moment of the observation, the temperature was above 0 °C and the wind calm. However, strong winds from the north-west and west directions were registered during the last week of January 2019 at Esperanza Station (peak 65 knots) and at the Drake Passage (peak 49 knots) which might explain the presence of the White-rumped Sandpiper individual at Hope Bay. Our report contributes to list the non-native species observed in Antarctica. One plausible explanation could be related to changes in migratory routes of flying birds.

Ecologically similar marine species inhabiting the same areas compete for food resources. Such competition is reduced by resource-partitioning strategies that may affect physiology. For instance, diet and feeding strategies may affect the antioxidant defences or the production of reactive oxygen species. Oxidative stress is defined as the imbalance between pro-oxidants and antioxidant defences. If such an imbalance favours the former, this can lead to oxidative damage, and oxidative stress increases. However, to our knowledge, how free-ranging animals adjust their oxidative status in relation to their foraging habitats, diet and dietary antioxidants has not yet been studied. Penguins are an interesting biological model for such a comparison because their diet, based on krill, fish and/or cephalopods, presents strong variation in dietary antioxidant content. We therefore examined trophic level (δ15N), foraging habitat (δ13C), dietary antioxidants (retinol, α-tocopherol and astaxanthin) and oxidative status (plasma non-enzymatic antioxidant capacity and oxidative damage) in pygoscelid penguins (chinstrap Pygoscelis antarcticus, gentoo P. papua and Adélie P. adeliae) breeding in Antarctica. We found interspecific differences in all variables analysed except α-tocopherol. Gentoo penguins exploited more cephalopods and fish in coastal and benthic habitats, Adélies showed an intermediate position, whereas chinstraps foraged more on krill and fish in pelagic waters. Dietary antioxidant levels showed specific patterns resulting in relationships with prey items. However, we did not find any clear relationships between dietary antioxidants and species-specific antioxidant capacity, suggesting the importance of endogenously produced antioxidants. Oxidative status appeared to be differently related to foraging strategy and antioxidant capacity in each species.