Landscape transcriptomics reveals ecological constraints on fish under anthropogenic coastal change.

Urban coastal environments are linked to metabolic, immune, and inflammatory transcriptomic shifts in Chrysiptera cyanea across 18 sites in Okinawa, Japan.

• Why it matters: Understanding how human activities influence organismal responses at ecological scales is crucial for assessing resilience and managing coastal ecosystems.
• What they did: Researchers analyzed transcriptomes from fish sampled across multiple sites, integrating field data with fasting-feeding experiments to identify molecular signatures associated with urbanization.
• The result: Findings suggest urban areas provide energy-rich diets but also impose chronic stress, demonstrating how anthropogenic activities alter fish resilience and highlighting landscape transcriptomics as a tool for ecological assessment.