A team of researchers in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Britain and the United States has demonstrated that remotely monitoring the acoustical structures of dolphin vocalizations can effectively detect "evolutionarily significant units" of the mammal—distinct populations that may be tracked for prioritizing and planning conservation efforts.
More than a mile beneath the ocean’s surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents, unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war.
Killer whales and other marine mammals likely hear sonar signals more than we’ve known. That’s because commercially available sonar systems, which are designed to create signals beyond the range of hearing of such animals, also emit signals known to be within their hearing range, scientists have discovered.
It’s broadly understood that the world’s oceans play a crucial role in the global-scale cycling and exchange of carbon between Earth’s ecosystems and atmosphere. Now scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have taken a leap forward in understanding the microscopic underpinnings of these processes.
Seagrass beds, which provide home and food for fish, manatees, sea turtles and other animals, find themselves in peril. A new UF/IFAS study shows how much sunlight is needed to keep the seagrass healthy.
A 20-year assessment of Nicaragua’s legal, artisanal green sea turtle fishery has uncovered a stark reality: greatly reduced overall catch rates of turtles in what may have become an unsustainable take, according to conservation scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Florida.
— Sea turtles—a group of seven species thought to have evolved more than 200 million years ago—are currently under significant stress, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, primarily as a result of human negligence and industrialization. A group of more than 600 scientists, conservationists, students and others will meet in New Orleans April 10-17 to discuss this and a wide range of other topics at the 34th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, the main meeting of the International Sea Turtle Society
Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D., associate professor of biological science at Florida Atlantic University, and Kate Mansfield, Ph.D., a co-investigator at the University of Central Florida, are the first to successfully track neonate sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean waters during what had previously been called their “lost years.” Findings from the study appear today in the journal Proceeding of the Royal Society B.
A new study analyzing the origins of the adipose fin, thought by some to be vestigial, finds that these fins arose repeatedly and independently in multiple species—a striking example of convergent evolution. Adipose fins also appear to have repeatedly and independently evolved skeleton, offering a glimpse into the evolution of vertebrate appendages.
A new report issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) ranked programs at UC San Diego as the two best in the country for algal biofuels research, including Scripps Institution of Oceanography as top in the nation.
Study shows the 1970s polynya within the Antarctic sea ice pack of the Weddell Sea may have been the last gasp of what was previously a more common feature of the Southern Ocean, and which is now suppressed due to the effects of climate change on ocean salinity.
By analyzing four years of continuous measurements of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current at Drake Passage, the narrowest point in the Southern Ocean, three University of Rhode Island oceanographers have concluded that the current carries 20 percent more water than previous estimates. They also found that the current remains strong all the way to the seafloor.
Reducing the size of the Lake Erie "dead zone" to acceptable levels will require cutting nutrient pollution nearly in half in coming decades, at a time when climate change is expected to make such reductions more difficult.
New research indicates that collecting and bleeding horseshoe crabs for biomedical purposes causes short-term changes in their behavior and physiology that could exacerbate the crabs’ population decline in parts of the east coast.
The Wildlife Conservation Society applauds the Government of Indonesia for its recent decision to protect the world’s largest ray species, the giant and reef manta rays, from fishing and trade throughout the country.
Scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Oregon State University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and the American Museum of Natural History have found that humpback whales swimming off the coast of western Africa encounter more than warm waters for mating and bearing young; new studies show that the whales share these waters with offshore oil rigs, major shipping routes, and potentially harmful toxicants.
One of the biggest threats to critically endangered leatherback turtles is bycatch from industrial fishing in the open oceans. Now, a team of researchers has satellite-tracked 135 leatherbacks with transmitters to determine the turtles’ patterns of movement in the Pacific Ocean. Combined with fisheries data, the researchers entered the information into a computer model to predict bycatch hotspots in the Pacific.
Some coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean can not only survive but thrive in waters that have high levels of acidification, according to a Texas A&M University researcher.
After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, invertebrates like shrimp, oysters and crabs were the subject of the majority of testing by federal and state agencies. One UAB expert analyzed fish caught a year after the spill to determine safety.
WCS expresses its alarm at the new findings released yesterday by IUCN indicating the heightened threatened status of the world’s sharks, rays, skates and chimeras, the cartilaginous fishes.
A new study published in the January 8 issue of PLOS One by Christopher Gobler, Professor in the School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University and colleagues, has found that low pH levels within these regions represent an additional, previously unappreciated, threat to ocean animals.
Competition may have a high cost for at least one species of tropical seaweed. Researchers examining the chemical warfare taking place on Fijian coral reefs have found that one species of seaweed increases its production of noxious anti-coral compounds when placed into contact with reef-building corals, but at the same time becomes more attractive to herbivorous fish.
An international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the elephant shark, a curious-looking fish with a snout that resembles the end of an elephant’s trunk. An analysis of the creature’s genome, is published Jan. 9 in the journal Nature.
Florida State University researchers have spearheaded a major review of fisheries data that examines the domino effect that occurs when too many fish are harvested from one habitat.
Like salmon in reverse, long-snouted Bandringa sharks migrated downstream from freshwater swamps to a tropical coastline to spawn 310 million years ago, leaving behind fossil evidence of one of the earliest known shark nurseries.
Bonefish are among the most elusive and highly prized quarry of recreational anglers in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and similar tropical habitats around the world. Now a research team has documented their rarely seen pre-spawning behavior, which should aid future conservation.
Published studies from an NYIT Anatomy Professor and international colleagues shed new light on ancient creatures' dental structure and wear -- and how these unique characteristics helped them live and adapt to their environments.
Despite widespread fascination with sharks, the world’s oldest ocean predators have long been a genetic mystery. The first deep dive into a great white shark’s genetic code has fished up big surprises behind a design so effective it has barely changed since before dinosaurs roamed.
Research conducted in Bimini in The Bahamas spanning almost two decades shows that female lemon sharks that were born there returned 15 years later to give birth to their own young, confirming this behavior for the first time in sharks. The study began in 1995, and has resulted in the capture, tagging, and release of more than 2,000 baby sharks.
A new research study combining marine physiology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and behavioral psychology has revealed a surprising outcome from increases of carbon dioxide uptake in the oceans: anxious fish.
Carbon dioxide pumped into the air since the Industrial Revolution appears to have changed the way the coastal ocean functions, according to a new analysis published this week in Nature. A comprehensive review of research on carbon cycling in rivers, estuaries and continental shelves suggests that collectively this coastal zone now takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases. The shift could impact global models of carbon’s flow through the environment and future predictions related to climate change.
In the first global assessment of its kind, a science team led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has produced a landmark report on the impact of fishing on a group of fish known to protect the health of coral reefs. The report, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences), offers key data for setting management and conservation targets to protect and preserve fragile coral reefs.
The mating roar of a male harbor seal is supposed to attract a partner, not a predator. Unfortunately for the seals, scientists have found evidence that marine-mammal-eating killer whales eavesdrop on their prey. Previous research had shown mammal-eating killer whales are nearly silent before making a kill, neither vocalizing nor using their echolocation. The likely reason, researchers say, is the excellent hearing of the seals, porpoises, and other animals the whales stalk.
A new study by scientists from Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Save Our Seas Shark Research Centre and Cornell University published in final form today in the journal BMC Genomics now undertakes the first large-scale exploration of the great white shark’s genetic repertoire, and comes up with unexpected findings.
It’s not every day that fishermen catch the world’s largest fish species in their nets, but this is what recently happened in Indonesia’s Karimunjawa National Park, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Ocean conditions like current directions and water temperature play a huge role in determining the behavior of young migrating salmon as they move from rivers and hit ocean waters for the first time. How the fish fare during their first few weeks in the ocean has a profound impact on their ability to survive.
Scientists have confirmed that humpback whales in the southern Gulf of Maine are spending more feeding time on the ocean floor than in any of their known feeding behaviors, putting them at risk for entanglement in bottom-set fishing gear like lobster traps.
A species of humpback dolphin previously unknown to science is swimming in the waters off northern Australia, according to a team of researchers working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and numerous other groups that contributed to the study.
An ambitious new study that includes Lisa Levin of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego describes the full chain of events by which ocean biogeochemical changes triggered by manmade greenhouse gas emissions may cascade through marine habitats and organisms, penetrating to the deep ocean and eventually influencing humans.
WACO, Texas (Sept. 23, 2013) — Baylor University professors Stephen Trumble, Ph.D., and Sascha Usenko, Ph.D., have developed a novel technique for reconstructing contaminant and hormone profiles using whale earplugs, determining—for the first time—lifetime chemical exposures and hormone profiles—from birth to death—for an individual whale, information that was previously unattainable. (VIDEO IS AVAILABLE.)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Many ancient crustaceans went extinct following a massive collapse of reefs across the planet, and new University of Florida research suggests modern species living in rapidly declining reef habitats may now be at risk.
A team of scientists from Canada and Australia has discovered that a decline in shark populations is detrimental to coral reefs. “Where shark numbers are reduced due to commercial fishing, there is also a decrease in the herbivorous fishes which play a key role in promoting reef health,” said Jonathan Ruppert, a recent University of Toronto PhD graduate. Ruppert was part of a team engaged in long-term monitoring of reefs off Australia's northwest coast.
As Earth’s temperature climbs, stony corals are in decline. Less discussed, however, is the plight of gorgonian corals — softer, flexible, tree-like species. Divers have noted that gorgonians seem to be proliferating in parts of the Caribbean, and a new study will look to quantify this phenomenon.
Oceanographers for the first time recorded an enormous wave breaking miles below the surface in a key bottleneck for global ocean circulation.
A University of Iowa researcher says that although microbes living in the so-called “dark ocean”—below a depth of some 600 feet where light doesn’t penetrate—may not absorb enough carbon to curtail global warming, they do absorb considerable amounts of carbon and merit further study.
Recent reports that lobster shell disease has turned up along the coast of Maine have Kathy Castro worried. The URI fisheries scientist has led a 15-year international effort to understand what causes the disease that has, until recently, been confined primarily to the waters of southern New England and Long Island Sound.
University of Michigan researchers and their University of Hawaii colleagues say they've solved the longstanding mystery of how mercury gets into open-ocean fish, and their findings suggest that levels of the toxin in Pacific Ocean fish will likely rise in coming decades.
A Florida State University research ship has returned from its first extended voyage, collecting more than 400 fishes in the northeastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on marine life.
If history’s closest analog is any indication, the look of the oceans will change drastically in the future as the coming greenhouse world alters marine food webs and gives certain species advantages over others.
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