Feature Channels: Marine Science

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An international team of marine biologists has discovered the remnants of ancient RNA viruses embedded in the DNA of symbiotic organisms living inside reef-building corals.

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New research finds that a warming climate could flip globally abundant microbial communities from carbon sinks to carbon emitters, potentially triggering climate change tipping points.

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Plastic made from cane sugar also threatens the environment. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have found that perch change their behaviour when exposed to so-called bioplastic.

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In this Q&A, Berkeley Lab's Yuxin Wu discusses how scientists are developing sensing technologies that could be installed on floating offshore structures. This would allow the structures to self-monitor damaging conditions that could lead to costly repairs, and could also gauge impacts to marine mammals.

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The overfishing of codfish spanning the second half of the 20th century indicates that human action can force evolutionary changes more quickly than widely believed, according to a Rutgers-led study. Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a report by scientists offers the first genomic evidence that Atlantic cod evolved new traits over only decades during a period of overfishing – evolutionary changes that scientists formerly believed could take millions of years.

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Polar fish experience lower mortality than tropical fish, allowing them to delay reproduction until later in life when they are larger and can produce more eggs, according to a study by Mariana Álvarez-Noriega at Monash University in Australia and colleagues, publishing May 25th in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

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Animals using the most of efficient methods of searching for resources may well pay with their lives, scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered.

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Scientists have been worried about the potential harms of microplastics for years. These small plastic particles less than 5 mm in length have been found everywhere because of plastic pollution – from the Earth’s deep oceans to remote regions in Antarctica, and even the seafood we eat.

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Species known as marine habitat-forming species —gorgonians, corals, algae, seaweeds, marine phanerogams, etc.— are organisms that help generate and structure the underwater landscapes.

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As a biogeochemist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Matthew Berens studies how carbon, nutrients and minerals move through water and soil. In this firsthand account, Berens describes recent fieldwork in Louisiana with colleagues to better understand coastal ecosystems.

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The Greenland ice sheet (GIS) and Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) contribute largely to global mean sea level (GMSL) changes, though the seas surrounding the Antarctic like the Bellinghausen-Amundsen Seas and the Indian Ocean sector are seeing significantly more warming than the rest of the marginal seas, with immediate noticeable effects on the mass balance (net weight of the glacier mainly accounting for ice gained by snow and lost by melting and calving) of the AIS.

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Florida State University researchers have analyzed the carbon exported from surface waters of the California Current Ecosystem — the first-ever study to quantify the total carbon sequestration for a region of the ocean.

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Little is known about the ecological relationship of Vibrio bacteria with Sargassum. Evidence also is sparse as to whether vibrios colonizing plastic marine debris and Sargassum could potentially infect humans. As summer kicks off and efforts are underway to find solutions to repurpose Sargassum, could these substrates pose a triple threat to public health? Results of a study representing the first Vibrio spp. genome assembled from plastic finds Vibrio pathogens have the unique ability to “stick” to microplastics, harboring potent opportunistic pathogens.

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For the first time, a newly published artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm is allowing researchers to quickly and accurately estimate coastal fish stocks without ever entering the water.

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Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, a sea-dwelling lizard from the age of the dinosaurs, with strange, ridged teeth unlike those of any known reptile.

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A marine research team led by Professor YAN Qingyun has proposed a method to assess the net carbon sink of marine macroalgae (Gracilaria) cultivation. Then, they calculated the net carbon sink of Gracilaria cultivation in China based on the yield of annual cultivated Gracilaria in the last ten years.

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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Sea Grant has been recommended for rapid response funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sea Grant Program to study the pathways of circulation in Cape Cod Bay. This study is designed to shed light on the possible fate of 1.1 million gallons of radioactive wastewater from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, which the plant’s owner, Holtec, has proposed to release into Cape Cod Bay.

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An international research team led by Faviel A. López-Romero of the University of Vienna investigated how the jaw shape of sharks has changed over the course of evolution. Their conclusion: in the most widespread shark species, the jaws show relatively little variation in shape over millions of years; most variable jaws were found for deep-sea sharks. The results of this study were published in the journal Communications Biology.

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The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is assuming management of the Oleander Project, a 30-year effort to monitor circulation in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean using data gathered from sensors mounted on or launched from a cargo ship that makes regular crossings of the Gulf Stream. Magdalena Andres, an associate scientist in WHOI’s Department of Physical Oceanography will head the effort, which began in 1992 under the leadership of H. Thomas Rossby at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography (URI GSO) and Charles Flagg at Stony Brook University, New York.

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The light pollution caused by coastal cities can trick coral reefs into spawning outside of the optimum times when they would normally reproduce, a new study has found.

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Tropical oceans are typically nutrient-poor, yet they host vast biologically diverse reef ecosystems built by symbiotic cnidarians (including corals and anemones).

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Researchers from Kyushu University and Asahi Kasei Corporation have developed a new way to estimate the age of microplastics found in the upper oceans.

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Inspired by clam fishermen reports, researchers used passive acoustic telemetry to gauge the interactions between two highly mobile rays. They monitored the tagged rays in the wild over two years to see how often and when they visited clam leases. Results provide both good news and bad news for clammers. Rays spent even more time in these clam lease sites than clammers reported or suspected, but it’s not necessarily where they prefer hanging out.

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In a new study they propose that ancestors of Prochlorococcus acquired an ability to latch onto chitin — the degraded particles of ancient exoskeletons. The microbes hitched a ride on passing flakes, using the particles as rafts to venture further out to sea. These chitin rafts may have also provided essential nutrients, fueling and sustaining the microbes along their journey.

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Scalloped hammerhead sharks hold their breath to keep their bodies warm during deep dives into cold water where they hunt prey such as deep sea squids. This discovery, published today in Science by University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa researchers, provides important new insights into the physiology and ecology of a species that serves as an important link between the deep and shallow water habitats.

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A University of Queensland study has found humpback whales sing louder when the wind is noisy, but don’t have the same reaction to boat engines. Research lead Dr Elisa Girola from UQ’s Faculty of Science said this quirk of whale evolution could have consequences for breeding and behaviour.

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A team of marine scientists has examined life cycles, abundance, and seasonal variability of shelled sea butterflies in the north-east Scotia Sea, a region undergoing some of the fastest climate change in the Southern Ocean.

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At the 184th ASA Meeting, Colin Malloy of Ocean Network Canada will present his method to transform ocean data into captivating, solo percussion songs. He employs sound from hydrophones and introduces elements inspired by ocean-related data such as temperature, acidity, and oxygenation. For example, in his piece, Oil & Water, Malloy represents the impact of oil production on the oceans. He plays an eerily catchy melody on steel drums and inserts noise to represent oil production over the past 120 years.

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Even without body parts that allowed for movement, new research shows — for the first time — that some of Earth’s earliest animals managed to be picky about where they lived.

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Fibre-optic cables line the coasts of the continents and criss-cross the oceans, carrying signals that are the backbone of communication in the modern world.

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A new study provides the first observational evidence of the stabilization of the anti-cyclonic Beaufort Gyre, which is the dominant circulation of the Canada Basin and the largest freshwater reservoir in the Arctic Ocean.

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Scientists at Flinders University have used sub-surface imaging and aerial surveys to see through floodplains in the Red Lily Lagoon area of West Arnhem Land in Northern Australia.

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With glaciers melting at unprecedented rates due to climate change, invertebrates that live in the cold meltwater rivers of the European Alps will face widespread habitat loss, warn researchers.

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The North Pacific “Garbage Patch” is home to an abundance of floating sea creatures, as well as the plastic waste it has become famous for, according to a study by Rebecca Helm from Georgetown University, US, and colleagues, publishing May 4th in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

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A study in Florida Bay, one of the largest global contiguous seagrass systems, examined if a phytotoxin that accumulates as seagrass ecosystems become more enriched in nutrients prevents a marine seagrass, turtlegrass, from recruiting into open bare sediment following die-off events. While they do “bounce back,” long-term monitoring indicates the timeframe for recovery after major die-off events is at least a decade. Turtlegrass can successfully recruit into open bare sediment following die-off events due to biomass partitioning.

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In the face of global warming and other environmental changes, corals in the Atlantic Ocean have declined precipitously in recent years, while corals in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are faring better.

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A recent study by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and collaborators found that many of the fossils from Germany’s Posidonia shale do not get their gleam from pyrite, commonly known as fool’s gold, which was long thought to be the source of the shine. Instead, the golden hue is from a mix of minerals that hints at the conditions in which the fossils formed.

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After capturing the world’s attention on expeditions around East Africa, the Flipflopi project continues to find ways to inspire communities, governments and businesses to take action against environmental pollution. Now, a model of the traditional ‘dhow’ style vessel has arrived in Lisbon in Portugal from Dundee in Scotland as part of a travelling exhibition.

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Researchers, including from NTNU, are breeding bacteria-free fish fry. This pursuit is more important than you might think. The researchers have studied how bacteria affect the growth, genes and mucous membranes of the fish.

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he Spring Members’ Meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) included discussions of data collection and dissemination from renewable energy platforms and new and up-and-coming uncrewed systems, as well as the latest information from the large-scale effort to better understand the Gulf’s Loop Current System.