Crude oil and cadmium (Cd) are common pollutants in Ghana's coastal ecosystems, where the cyanobacterial phytoplankton Synechococcus sp. serves as the primary producer and forms the base of the marine food web alongside small grazers. We hypothesized that cadmium and crude oil would disrupt microbial community structure and function, with the strongest effects under combined exposure. This study investigates the toxic effects of Oil (2 mL L−1), Cd (4.4 μg L−1), and their combined impact (Cd + Oil) on functional groups within the coastal microbial community, including Synechococcus sp., heterotrophic bacteria, nanoflagellates, eukaryotic phytoplankton, ciliates, and dinoflagellates, as well as on copepod nauplii and copepodite development during six-day incubations. We observed acute toxic effects on heterotrophic ciliates and dinoflagellates, with >50 % reductions in abundance within 6 h and a marked decrease in diversity. Phytoplankton showed growth within the first 24 h due to nutrient replenishment from the protist decay, however, their growth continued to decline after 24 h, with Synechococcus being particularly sensitive to Cd and less affected by Oil. In contrast, heterotrophic bacteria increased in abundance across all treatments, likely benefiting from organic matter released during phytoplankton decay and their high adaptability. Notably, the bacterial genera Marivivens and Rhodovulum became dominant mainly in the Oil-amended treatments. Overall, the microbial groups exhibited diverse responses to the pollutants, with the combined Cd + Oil treatment exerting the strongest negative effects, while crude oil alone had the least impact. These findings highlight the vulnerability of tropical microbial food webs, typically dominated by Synechococcus and microbial grazers, to combined pollutant stress, with potential cascading effects on higher trophic levels and coastal ecosystem productivity. This highlights the need for comprehensive monitoring and conservation efforts in these globally significant, yet understudied, regions.
Maritime security is a major international concern with the Gulf of Guinea recognised as one of the global hotspots of blue crime, such as piracy, kidnap for ransom, trafficking of narcotics, human and arms, and illegal fishing. The complex and complicated challenge of maritime security, a wicked problem, calls for inter-agency coordination, synergy of efforts and scaling up of responses. Given the complexity of maritime security threats, no single organisation has the institutional muscle to single-handedly deal with it. Drawing on evidence from Ghana, where the arrival of maritime security as a concept triggered a shift from single to a multi-agency approach to dealing with maritime issues, the article examines the potential of and challenges associated with inter-agency coordination. In line with recent international developments, African nations like Ghana aim to apply the concept of inter-agency coordination to tackle maritime insecurity in its waters. The paper assesses how inter-agency coordination could be used in an African maritime security governance context, while examining power imbalance, strife for agency autonomy and other obstacles that have to be addressed to ensure that the promises associated with the concept are fulfilled.
Maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea is a challenge that straddles multiple players and sectors, and crimes like piracy cause disruptions to international trade and shipping. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global shipping industry tried to keep maritime security on the agenda, while advocating for global security assemblages, specifically, transnational policing initiatives as part of the maritime security governance. Using the notion of narratives and assemblage thinking, it is argued that although global shipping and Ghanaian state agents agree on the problem, they differ on which maritime security governance infrastructure to deploy, resulting in tensions between the two parties.
It is widely acknowledged that maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea is a highly complex phenomenon involving a variety of issues (legal deficiencies, inadequate military equipment, and challenges like corruption, political unrest and youth unemployment) as well as a multiplicity of external responders. To make sense of the impact that external actors have when they address this complex problem through various maritime capacity building endeavours, this article argues that there is a need to understand the attractiveness of capacity building vis-à-vis the widely acknowledged need for a comprehensive approach, as well as the difficulties of translating the potential for comprehensiveness into practice (as important aspects of the problem remain largely unaddressed). Further, it is argued that it is important to appreciate that even if these gaps – i.e. the aspects that maritime capacity building currently leaves unaddressed – represent a ‘failure’ to deliver a comprehensive response, they are at the same time illustrative of how the maritime capacity building activities of various external actors also ‘succeed’ in having an impact on this regional security landscape – for instance, by influencing how certain aspects of this multifaceted problem are prioritised, whilst others are only marginally addressed, if at all.