Turns out those prickly sea urchins can be pretty picky eaters. An experiment aimed at seeing whether native urchins would chow down on alien seaweeds that are invading the Mediterranean has produced distasteful results, according to a new study.
The invasive seaweeds – known to scientists as Lophocladia lallemandii and Caulerpa racemosa – are having […] Read More »
Lions and tigers and bears – no more? Dorothy’s trip through the forests of Oz might be a lot less scary these days due to massive losses of the world’s largest predators. But the wipe-out has horrendous implications for the world’s ecosystems – and us, a research team argues in a major new study.
“We […] Read More »
Oceanographers call it the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. But headline writers have dubbed the remote area the “garbage patch” due to debris carried in by converging currents. Now, information gathered by a research cruise is giving new meaning to the term “trash fish,” suggesting that fish in the patch are eating up to 24,000 tons […] Read More »
A century after being hunted to local extinction, southern right whales are returning to their ancestral calving grounds off New Zealand. A few whales from a relict population living near Antarctica are finding their way back home, according to a new study.
“These are probably just the first pioneers,” says Scott Baker, an author of […] Read More »
Talk about going to extremes. A sophisticated radio collar has helped scientists document the extraordinary journey of an Alaskan polar bear, including a 9-day swim from the coast out to Arctic sea ice. But the study also suggests that the journey cost the mother bear her cub – and that if climate change makes such […] Read More »
A Sea in Flames:
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout
By Carl Safina
Crown, 2011
Book review by Eric Wagner
Little more than a year has passed since the BP drill rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico about 60 miles off the Louisiana coast. Gone are the dashed-off Tweets, the […] Read More »
A Peruvian leech with gigantic teeth and a mushroom that fruits underwater are among the top picks for the most notable new species that scientists described and named in 2010.
The annual list, released by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of taxonomists from around the world, is […] Read More »
The sea’s undulating green carpet is at risk of melting away in murky waters. Nearly one-third of the world’s known seagrass species are in decline and ten species are at risk of extinction, often due to declining water clarity, according to a landmark global analysis. The trend threatens a critical marine habitat that supports fish […] Read More »
A complex conservation problem just got even more complicated. A new study finds that shifting climate and ocean conditions appear to have played a dominant role in recent worldwide declines of endangered loggerhead sea turtles. The conclusion suggests that efforts to protect nesting beaches and keep turtles out of fishing nets will be just part […] Read More »
Narwhals are best known for their long, unicorn-like tusks. But it is the Arctic whale’s thick muscles that may be a better guide to how the species will cope with climate change. A new analysis of muscle fibers finds that narwhals are world-class endurance swimmers – and that could be a problem in a fast-changing […] Read More »
It was 1956 – the year Elvis Presley had his first big hit, and President Dwight Eisenhower created the Insterstate Highway System — when a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist named Chandler Robbins banded a young Laysan albatross on the Pacific atoll of Midway. Robbins went on to write a best-selling bird guide, and become […] Read More »
Fruit trees and garden flowers aren’t the only things blooming earlier due to climate change. In the Arctic Ocean, tiny floating phytoplankton are also blooming earlier each year, according to a new analysis of satellite records. The question now is how this shift at the base of the food web will ripple out through Arctic […] Read More »
Fisheries scientists have thrown some new fuel on a long-running—and often feisty—debate over how best to measure the impact of humans on the world’s marine fisheries.
The scholarly feud dates back to 1998, when a team led by Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre in Vancouver published a paper in […] Read More »
Crashing surf and surging currents make for dramatic seaside scenery. These high-energy environments are also increasingly eyed for producing electricity—a trend that highlights the need for more study of the ecological implications of ocean-energy projects, argues a new study.
Engineers have come up with a variety of promising ways to turn ocean waves and […] Read More »
By Alan Burdick
I’m always struck by how quiet ocean documentaries are. One hears the ghostly soundings of whales, of course, the eager pip of dolphins, the clacking of a crab’s claws. But invariably, as if to cover for an awkward and extended natural silence, the sound track swoops in, alternately dreamy and orchestral, […] Read More »
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Changing the BatteryFlamingos stand precariously on top of one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium—the very stuff that powers our mobile world
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Shrink to FitHumanity appears to be ushering in new age of minifauna, a kind of Lilliputian world full of runts and dwarves |
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Chasing RainbowsLured by a utopian visions, agencies dropped billions of trout into thousands of lakes. Now, they’re determined to undo the damage they caused. |
