Noise from motorboat traffic makes some fish more than two and a half times more likely to be eaten by predators, according to an international team of researchers including biologists from the University of Saskatchewan.
Climate change projections that look ahead one or two centuries show a rapid rise in temperature and sea level, but say little about the longer picture. Today (Feb. 8, 2016), a study published in Nature Climate Change looks at the next 10,000 years, and finds that the catastrophic impact of another three centuries of carbon pollution will persist millennia after the carbon dioxide releases cease.
A pink flatworm-like animal known by a single species found in waters off Sweden has puzzled biologists for nearly six decades. New discoveries half a world away by a team of scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the Western Australian Museum, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have helped properly identify these elusive creatures through genetic analysis.
The rate that fish are captured by predators can double when boats are motoring nearby, according to pioneering work led by a University of Exeter marine biologist.
Underwater sound linked to human activity could alter the behaviour of seabed creatures that play a vital role in marine ecosystems, according to new research from the University of Southampton.
The smooth surfaces of much of the plastic waste rapidly increasing in the ocean appear to provide poor habitat for animals -- that is, until barnacles step in.
In 2010, a research team garnered attention when it published evidence of finding the first animals living in permanently anoxic conditions at the bottom of the sea. But a new study, led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), raises doubts.
When an endangered orca is in hot pursuit of an endangered salmon, sending out clicks and listening for their echoes in the murky ocean near Seattle, does the noise from the nearby shipping lane interfere with them catching dinner? To find out scientists measured underwater noise as ships passed their study site 3,000 times. This unprecedented characterization of ship noise will aid in the understanding of the potential effects on marine life, and help with possible mitigation strategies.
The California Natural Resources Agency has named University of California, Irvine biologist Tim Bradley to the science advisory committee for the state effort to preserve its largest inland body of water.
Laziness can help you succeed… if you’re a nurse shark.
A new research paper from Mote Marine Laboratory reveals that nurse sharks have the lowest metabolic rate measured in any shark — new evidence of the sluggish lifestyle that has helped the species survive for millennia.
With California in the fourth year of a historic drought, there is much controversy over how to supply cities, farms, and ecosystems with the water they need. Technology may help solve the puzzle.
A new global analysis of seafood found that fish populations throughout the world's oceans are contaminated with industrial and agricultural pollutants, collectively known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The study from researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego also uncovered some good news¾concentrations of these pollutants have been consistently dropping over the last 30 years.
Coastal seagrass ecosystems cover some 200,000 square kilometers and account for an estimated 15 percent of carbon fixed in global ocean. In Nature, a team including DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers describes the first marine angiosperm genome: the eelgrass Zostera marina.
The old proverbial saying, “Give a Man a Fish and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish and You Feed Him for a Lifetime,” aptly describes the newly-formed partnership between FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Aquaculture without Frontiers. They will work jointly to support and promote responsible and sustainable aquaculture farming to help enhance food security and alleviate poverty and malnutrition in developing and impoverished countries.
When scientists from McGill University learned that some fish were proliferating in water polluted by oil extraction in Southern Trinidad, they thought they had found a rare example of a species able to adapt to crude oil pollution. But when they tested them, these guppies were actually less adapted to pollution than similar fish from non-polluted areas.
A Florida State University researcher and his team have developed a comprehensive analysis of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and determined how much of it occurs naturally and how much came from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. And more importantly, their data creates a map, showing where the active natural oil seeps are located.
A new study suggests that current ‘hotspots’ of shark activity are at risk of overfishing, and that the introduction of catch quotas might be necessary to protect oceanic sharks.
An international team of researchers has identified a way to predict which reef fish can live across a greater range of depths, increasing their chances of surviving natural disasters such as cyclones and coral bleaching.
Researchers at the University of Hawai'i - Mānoa (UHM) developed an array of highly innovative experiments to allow scientists to safely test first-aid measures used for box jellyfish stings - from folk tales, like urine, to state-of-the-art technologies developed for the military.
Matthew Johnston, Ph.D., a researcher at NSU's Guy Harvey Research Institute, has conducted research on the diminutive Regal Damselfish found in non-native waters in the Southern Gulf of Mexico.
A new scientific journal article reports that carbon dioxide can emerge from the deep ocean in a surprising way — a new piece of the global carbon “puzzle” that researchers must solve to fully understand major issues like climate change.
Seashells and lobster claws are hard to break, but chalk is soft enough to draw on sidewalks. Though all three are made of calcium carbonate crystals, the hard materials include clumps of soft biological matter that make them much stronger. A study today in Nature Communications reveals how soft clumps get into crystals and endow them with remarkable strength.
The Galápagos Islands have long offered researchers a natural laboratory in which to study unique volcanic features and a diverse population of native plants and animals.
Researchers from the Great Lakes Center at SUNY Buffalo State join scientists from 39 institutions as coauthors and advocates for international cooperation in furthering studies of freshwater mussels. The paper is the first comprehensive survey on the status of freshwater mussels in Europe that provides recommendations for their protection.
Scientists and veterinarians working for WCS’s New York Aquarium have discovered something noteworthy in the near shore waters of Long Island’s Great South Bay: a nursery ground for the sand tiger shark, a fearsome-looking but non-aggressive fish.
University of Delaware researchers Danielle Dixson and Rohan Brooker have found that butterflyfish avoid coral that has come in contact with seaweed. It is the first study to evaluate how coral-seaweed interactions affect coral associated reef fishes, a key component of coral reef resilience.
Permanent marine protected areas and wilderness—places where fish can grow old—are critical to the effective conservation of marine ecosystems according to a new study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Cook University, and Lancaster University.
Scientists from James Cook University have discovered two critically endangered species of sea snakes, previously thought to be extinct, off the coast of Western Australia.
A URI undergraduate has investigated six research papers claiming discoveries of human-associated fungi living in seafloor sediments and concluded that they were likely the result of contaminated samples.
The ability of baby fish to find a home, or other safe haven, to grow into adulthood will be severely impacted under predicted ocean acidification, University of Adelaide research has found.
The function and behavior of microbial marine systems will determine how the global ocean responds to broader environmental changes, according to a new review article published in the journal Science by University of Georgia marine scientist Mary Ann Moran.
A 15 million year-old fossil sperm whale specimen from California belongs to a new genus, according to a study published December 9, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alexandra Boersma and Nicholas Pyenson from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
For years, many scientists thought we had a secret weapon to protect coral reefs from nutrients flushed into the seas by human activity. Experiments suggested that herbivores such as fish, urchins and sea turtles could keep corals and their ecosystems healthy by eating up extra algae that grew in the presence of these nutrients. But a new University of Florida study sheds doubt on that idea, underscoring the importance of sustainable growth in coastal areas.
By examining rocks at the bottom of ancient oceans, an international group of researchers have revealed that arsenic concentrations in the oceans have varied greatly over time. But also that in the very early oceans, arsenic co-varied with the rise of atmospheric oxygen and coincided with the coming and going of global glaciations. The study was recently published in the Nature Group Journal, Scientific Reports.
A dolphin’s echolocation beam was directed at a submerged man and the echo captured by a hydrophone system. The echo signal was sent to a sound imaging laboratory who created the first ever ‘what-the-dolphin-saw’ image of the submerged man, by using a cymatic-holographic imaging technique.
The GCOOS-RA today released a new plan that will help protect humans and marine life from the negative impacts caused by harmful algal blooms, or HABs.
Current El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have created high water temperatures that are seriously damaging coral reefs, including those on Christmas Island, which may be the epicenter for what could become a global coral bleaching event.
A microscopic marine alga is thriving in the North Atlantic to an extent that defies scientific predictions, suggesting swift environmental change as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the ocean.