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We report on the evolution of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) over Spain, focusing on the densely populated cities of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia, during 17 years, from 1996 to 2012. This data series combines observations from in-situ air quality monitoring networks and the satellite-based instruments GOME and SCIAMACHY. The results in these five cities show a smooth decrease in the NO 2 concentrations of ∼2% per year in the period 1996-2008, due to the implementation of emissions control environmental legislation, and a more abrupt descend of ∼7% per year from 2008 to 2012 as a consequence of the economic recession. In the whole Spanish territory the NO 2 levels have decreased by ∼22% from 1996 to 2012. Statistical analysis of several economic indicators is used to investigate the different factors driving the NO 2 concentration trends over Spain during the last two decades. Peer Reviewed

In e-health intervention studies, there are concerns about the reliability of internet-based, self-reported (SR) data and about the potential for identity fraud. This study introduced and tested a novel procedure for assessing the validity of internet-based, SR identity and validated anthropometric and demographic data via measurements performed face-to-face in a validation study (VS). Participants (n = 140) from seven European countries, participating in the Food4Me intervention study which aimed to test the efficacy of personalised nutrition approaches delivered via the internet, were invited to take part in the VS. Participants visited a research centre in each country within 2 weeks of providing SR data via the internet. Participants received detailed instructions on how to perform each measurement. Individual’s identity was checked visually and by repeated collection and analysis of buccal cell DNA for 33 genetic variants. Validation of identity using genomic information showed perfect concordance between SR and VS. Similar results were found for demographic data (age and sex verification). We observed strong intra-class correlation coefficients between SR and VS for anthropometric data (height 0.990, weight 0.994 and BMI 0.983). However, internet-based SR weight was under-reported (Δ −0.70 kg [−3.6 to 2.1], p < 0.0001) and, therefore, BMI was lower for SR data (Δ −0.29 kg m−2 [−1.5 to 1.0], p < 0.0001). BMI classification was correct in 93 % of cases. We demonstrate the utility of genotype information for detection of possible identity fraud in e-health studies and confirm the reliability of internet-based, SR anthropometric and demographic data collected in the Food4Me study. Trial registration: NCT01530139 (http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01530139© 2015, European Union.

[Main conclusion] Both AE and SIE rarity on La Palma show a clear spatial pattern, with hotspots of endemic rarity found at high elevations and in rare climates, presumably owing to geographical and climatic constraints and possibly anthropogenic pressure (e.g., land use, introduced herbivores, fire). Areas of high rarity estimates coincide with the distribution and extent of PAs on La Palma, especially since the recent addition of the Natura 2000 sites. The hypervolume approach is a promising tool to estimate species range sizes, and can be applied on all scales where point/plot data are available. [Methods] We recorded all present endemic vascular plant species in 1,212 plots covering the entire island. We calculated endemic rarity (corrected range-rarity richness for endemics) using a rarity estimation approach based on kernel density estimations (hypervolume approach). We performed a sensitivity analysis based on multiple linear regressions and relative importance estimations of environmental drivers to estimate the performance of the hypervolume-based rarity estimation compared to standard methods (occurrence frequency, convex hulls, alpha hulls). [Aim] Rarity—an important measure for conservation biogeography—can vary over many orders of magnitude. However, it is unclear which regional-scale abiotic conditions drive processes affecting rarity of endemic species on islands. To support conservation efforts, we (1) assess the main abiotic drivers of endemic rarity, (2) determine how well existing protected areas (PAs) coincide with hotspots of endemic rarity and (3) introduce and evaluate a new hypervolume-based rarity estimator. [Results] Climate variables (mean annual temperature, climatic rarity, precipitation variability) best explained archipelago endemic (AE) and single-island endemic (SIE) rarity. Existing PAs covered the majority of AE and SIE rarity, especially national and natural parks as well as the Natura 2000 sites. In our study system, hypervolumes performed better than standard measures of range size. This work contributed to and was partially supported by the European H2020 Project 641762 ECOPOTENTIAL: Improving future ecosystem benefits through Earth Observations. [Location] La Palma (Canary Islands). © 2017 The Authors. Peer Reviewed

Galicia (NW Spain) is an important fishing region with a high potential for cetacean–fishery interactions. Cetacean depredation on catch and damage to fishing gear can potentially lead to substantial economic loss for fishers, while cetacean bycatch raises conservation concerns. With the aim of gathering information on the types and scale of interactions and of suggesting possible management strategies, we conducted face-to-face interviews with fishers in local fishing harbours, in particular to identify specific problematic interactions and to quantify the level of economic loss and bycatch rates associated with these interactions. We found that cetacean–fishery interactions are frequent, although damage to catch and fishing gear by cetaceans was mostly reported as small. Nevertheless, substantial economic loss can result from common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) damaging coastal gillnets and from short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) scattering fish in purse-seine fisheries. Cetacean bycatch mortality was reported to be highest for trawls and set gillnets, and probably exceeds sustainable levels for local common and bottlenose dolphin populations. Although interview data may be biased due to the perceptions of interviewees, and therefore should be interpreted with care, the methodology allowed us to cover multiple sites and fisheries within a reasonable time frame. Minimizing cetacean–fishery interactions requires the implementation of case-specific management strategies with the active participation of fishers. For set gillnet and purse-seine fisheries, the use of acoustic deterrent devices (pingers) may prevent cetaceans from approaching and getting trapped in the nets. For trawl fisheries, where bycatch appears to be particularly high at night in water depths of 100–300 m, possible solutions include the implementation of time/area closures and the relocation of some fishing effort to deeper waters The study was funded by the EC projects MEXC-CT-2006-042337 and MEST-CT-2005-020501), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). MBS participation was part of the EU FP7 grant MYFISH (No. 289257) and the LOTOFPEL project (Plan Nacional de I + D + I, CTM 2010-16053) 14 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables Peer reviewed

Whether renewable energy sources (RES) will provide sufficient energy surplus to entirely power complex modern societies is under discussion. We contribute to this debate by estimating the current global average energy return on energy invested (EROI) for the five RES technologies with the highest potential of electricity generation from the comprehensive and internally consistent estimations of their material requirements at three distinct energy system boundaries: standard farm-gate (EROIst), final at consumer point-of-use (EROIfinal), and extended (including indirect investments, EROIext). EROIst levels found fall within the respective literature ranges. Expanding the boundaries closer to the system level, we find that only large hydroelectricity would currently have a high EROIext ~ 6.5:1, while the rest of variable RES would be below 3:1: onshore wind (2.9:1), offshore wind (2.3:1), solar Photovoltaic (PV) (1.8:1), and solar Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) (<1:1). These results indicate that, very likely, the global average EROIext levels of variable RES are currently below those of fossil fuel-fired electricity. It remains unknown if technological improvements will be able to compensate for factors, which will become increasingly important as the variable RES scale-up. Hence, without dynamically accounting for the evolution of the EROI of the system, the viability of sustainable energy systems cannot be ensured, especially for modern societies pursuing continuous economic growth LOCOMOTION project, funded by the EuropeanUnion’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeunder grant agreement no. 821105 MEDEAS project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agree-ment no. 691287 Producción Científica

Land use and land cover (LULC) mapping are of paramount importance to monitor and understand the structure and dynamics of the Earth system. One of the most promising ways to create accurate global LULC maps is by building good quality state-of-the-art machine learning models. Building such models requires large and global datasets of annotated time series of satellite images, which are not available yet. This paper presents TimeSpec4LULC (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5913554; Khaldi et al., 2022), a smart opensource global dataset of multispectral time series for 29 LULC classes ready to train machine learning models. TimeSpec4LULC was built based on the seven spectral bands of the MODIS sensors at 500m resolution, from 2000 to 2021, and was annotated using spatial–temporal agreement across the 15 global LULC products available in Google Earth Engine (GEE). The 22-year monthly time series of the seven bands were created globally by (1) applying different spatial–temporal quality assessment filters on MODIS Terra and Aqua satellites; (2) aggregating their original 8 d temporal granularity into monthly composites; (3) merging TerraCAqua data into a combined time series; and (4) extracting, at the pixel level, 6 076 531 time series of size 262 for the seven bands along with a set of metadata: geographic coordinates, country and departmental divisions, spatial–temporal consistency across LULC products, temporal data availability, and the global human modification index. A balanced subset of the original dataset was also provided by selecting 1000 evenly distributed samples from each class such that they are representative of the entire globe. To assess the annotation quality of the dataset, a sample of pixels, evenly distributed around the world from each LULC class, was selected and validated by experts using very high resolution images from both Google Earth and Bing Maps imagery. This smartly, pre-processed, and annotated dataset is targeted towards scientific users interested in developing various machine learning models, including deep learning networks, to perform global LULC mapping. This work was partially supported by DETECTOR (grant no. A-RNM-256-UGR18, Universidad de Granada/FEDER), LifeWatch SmartEcoMountains (grant no. LifeWatch-2019-10-UGR-01, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER), BBVA DeepSCOP (Ayudas Fundacion BBVA a Equipos de Investigacion Cientifica 2018), DeepL-ISCO (grant no. A-TIC-458-UGR18, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/FEDER), SMART-DASCI (grant no. TIN2017-89517-P, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER), BigDDL-CET (grant no. P18-FR-4961, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER), RESISTE (grant no. P18-RT-1927, Consejeria de Economia, Conocimiento y Universidad from the Junta de Andalucia/FEDER), Ecopotential (grant no. 641762, European Commission), PID2020-119478GB-I00, the Conselleria de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte de la Generalitat Valenciana, the European Social Fund (grant no. APOSTD/2021/188), the European Research Council (ERC grant no. 647038/BIODESERT), and the Group on Earth Observations and Google Earth Engine (Essential Biodiversity Variables -ScaleUp project). Group on Earth Observations and Google Earth Engine (Essential Biodiversity Variables -ScaleUp project) PID2020-119478GB-I00 RESISTE (Consejeria de Economia, Conocimiento y Universidad from the Junta de Andalucia/FEDER) P18-RT-1927 LifeWatch SmartEcoMountains (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER) SMART-DASCI (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER) TIN2017-89517-P BigDDL-CET (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/Universidad de Granada/FEDER) P18-FR-4961 BBVA DeepSCOP (Ayudas Fundacion BBVA a Equipos de Investigacion Cientifica 2018) Conselleria de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte de la Generalitat Valenciana DeepL-ISCO (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/FEDER) A-TIC-458-UGR18 DETECTOR (Universidad de Granada/FEDER) A-RNM-256-UGR18 European Social Fund (ESF) APOSTD/2021/188 European Commission 647038/BIODESERT European Research Council (ERC) European Commission 641762 LifeWatch-2019-10-UGR-01

We investigated the effect of temperature on the limiting oxygen saturation (LOS) of gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata. This threshold was defined as the % O2 saturation where fish no longer upheld their routine metabolic rate (RMR, the metabolic rate of fed and active fish) during a progressive decline in oxygen saturation. S. aurata (398 ± 10 g, mean ± SE) were kept in 3 replicate tanks and subjected to 3 changes in temperature: 16 to 20°C, 20 to 16°C and 16 to 12°C. At each temperature, fish were left to acclimatize for 8 to 10 d, before daily feed intake (DFI), the routine oxygen consumption rate (routine MO2, mg kg-1 min-1) and the LOS were measured. In addition, at 20°C the swimming speed was measured in fish subjected to a decline in O2 from full air saturation to levels below the LOS (minimum of 8-10% O2). For the temperature range tested (12-20°C), DFI, MO2 and LOS increased exponentially with temperature (7.5-, 3.6- and 2.2-fold, respectively) with mean (± SE) LOS being 17 ± 1, 21 ± 0 and 35 ± 5% O2 at 12, 16 and 20°C, respectively. A gradual decline in swimming activity was observed as O2 declined below the LOS, indicating increasing metabolic stress and/or a 'sit-out' coping strategy which may prolong survival time in severe hypoxia. The results show the importance of temperature as an influential variable over the environmental O2 requirements of S. aurata. © The authors 2015. The study was funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme by the AQUAEXCEL (FP7-2007-2012; grant agreement no. 262336) and the Norwegian Research Council through the Centre for Research-based Innovation in Aquaculture Technology, CREATE. Peer Reviewed

The authors are thankful to Conservation International, under the Global Ocean Valuation research. Andrea Ghermandi is thankful to the European Commission, under contract agreement no. 265103 MedSeA—Mediterranean Sea Acidification in a Changing Climate, for its financial support. Paulo A.L.D. Nunes is thankful to the European Commission, under contract agreement no. 266445 Vectors–Vectors of Change in Oceans and Seas Marine Life, Impact on Economic Sectors, for its financial support Peer Reviewed 7 pages