Feature Channels: Marine Science

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Researchers model sea ice dynamics and thermodynamics to understand its role in global climate.

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In a new paper published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, WHOI scientists Collin Ward, Bryan James, Chris Reddy, and Yanchen Sun put different types of plastics and paper drinking straws head-to-head to see which degrade the fastest in the coastal ocean.

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Visitors to the Bronx Zoo can view three newly acquired Sunda gharial in the World of Reptiles. The three male siblings, about five years old, that were hatched at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans will be raised at the Bronx Zoo to support the propagation efforts of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) Sunda Gharial Species Survival Plan (SSP).

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Modelling shows how microplastics may bioaccumulate in the Galápagos Islands food web, with Galápagos penguins most affected, according to a study published January 24, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

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Marine heat waves appear to trigger earlier reproduction, high mortality in early life stages and fewer surviving juvenile Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska, a new study from Oregon State University shows.

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In wave-making research recently published in Marine and Coastal Fisheries, a team of researchers, led by biologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has quantified the rate at which great hammerhead sharks are eating Atlantic tarpon hooked by anglers at Bahia Honda, Florida—one of the prime tarpon fishing spots in the Florida Keys.

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A new study shows the Megalodon, a gigantic shark that went extinct 3.6 million years ago, was more slender than earlier studies suggested.

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Scientists at the University of Southampton and University of Edinburgh have developed a flexible underwater robot that can propel itself through water in the same style as nature's most efficient swimmer - the Aurelia aurita jellyfish.

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Climate change has increased the demand for renewable energy sources, driving hydropower development.

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An international team of marine biologists including Oliver Shipley, PhD, of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, has discovered a unique isopod, a form of crustacean, that has been formally identified as a new species of the genus Booralana from the deep waters of The Bahamas. The news is published in the journal Zootaxa.

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Like Indiana Jones, thresher sharks have mastered the art of the whip using their tails. Now, new research provides intricate details showing that vertebrae anatomy might support the mechanics of extreme body bending in thresher sharks, enabling these expert hunters to weaponize their tails. Using micro-CT scanning similar to CAT scans in humans and two-dimensional shape analysis, results suggest vertebral anatomy and mineralized microstructure meet the demands required for fast swimming and tail-whipping behavior seen in these species.

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The ocean is the world’s largest habitat, yet much of its biodiversity is still unknown. A study published in Frontiers in Science marks a significant breakthrough, reporting the largest and most comprehensive database of marine microbes to date – matched with biological function, location, and habitat type.

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Conserving water won’t be enough to restore the depleted Great Salt Lake, the signature Utah landscape whose existence as a functioning ecosystem remains seriously imperiled from low water levels and rising salinity.

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The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years.

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Curtin-led research has for the first time precisely dated some of the oldest fossils of complex multicellular life in the world, helping to track a pivotal moment in the history of Earth when the seas began teeming with new lifeforms - after four billion years of containing only single-celled microbes.

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Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are taking a closer look at what’s causing a decrease in sunlight reflectivity, or albedo, in the Arctic.

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A multi-national team of scientists (China, USA, New Zealand, Italy, and France) analyze the temperature of the Earth annually.

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From intensifying wildfires to record-breaking floods year on year, the effects of climate change have manifested in devastating outcomes on ecosystems that threaten species all over the world.

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Findings about their reproductive ability can help mitigate the overpopulation crisis that threatens native species in Japan’s freshwater ecosystems.

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When imagining corals, the picture that comes to mind is usually a stationary one: a garden of rock-like structures covering sections of the ocean floor. Reef conservation efforts typically focus on preserving established coral and protecting them from known stressors such as pollution, overfishing and runoff from coastline populations.

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While the cold snap brought relief by significantly reducing the prevalence of particulate matter obscuring our surroundings, a recent study indicates that, besides diminishing particulate matter, it is significantly contributing to the heightened uptake of carbon dioxide by the East Sea.

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Significant evolutionary changes happen gradually as opposed to in dramatic ‘monster’ steps, biologists have discovered, answering the long-debated question as to how game-changing innovations like flight, vision, and the bearing of live offspring came to be.

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Researchers developed a virus-mining pipeline to investigate the potential threat of food from aquatic animals.

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Hydrothermal vents are an unlikely environment for animals to flourish, characterized by rapid changes in temperature and a challenging chemistry: acidic pH, rich in sulfur and methane.

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At night in the Cerrado, Brazil’s savanna and second-largest biome, larvae of the click beetle Pyrearinus termitilluminans, which live in termite mounds, display green lanterns to capture prey attracted by the bright light.

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Microplastics, which are minute plastic particles under 5mm in size, are becoming ever more ubiquitous in marine and freshwater ecosystems around the globe.

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A team of researchers documented complete genomes, transcriptomes, and proteomes, and several iron-uptake strategies for two species of Dunaliella algae that need little iron to survive.

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With the rise in machine learning applications and artificial intelligence, it's no wonder that more and more scientists and researchers are turning to supercomputers. Supercomputers are commonly used for making predictions with advanced modeling and simulations. This can be applied to climate research, weather forecasting, genomic sequencing, space exploration, aviation engineering and more.

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ASU's Ying-Cheng Lai and team sought to find the probability of rate-induced tipping in the whole state space, then used the corresponding data to build a mathematical theory that could be applied generally to systems in the ecological and biological realms.

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Some coral species can be resilient to marine heat waves by “remembering” how they lived through previous ones, research by Oregon State University scientists suggests.

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Most modern ocean models focus on two categories of waves: a barotropic system, which has a fast wave propagation speed, and a baroclinic system, which has a slow wave propagation speed. To help address the challenge of simulating these two modes simultaneously, a team from DOE’s Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new solver algorithm that reduces the total run time of the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Ocean, or MPAS-Ocean, E3SM’s ocean circulation model, by 45%.

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Global Navigation Satellite System-Acoustic (GNSS-A) positioning has become an essential tool for seafloor geodesy and studying crustal deformation in submarine regions.

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Researchers have shown that the effects of wildfires are not limited to terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems are also undergoing rapid changes. The study found that fire debris transforms lakes and other aquatic ecosystems, with implications for fisheries and water quality.

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The Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) announced the launch of a new online guide to Gulf of Mexico Beaches: “All Things Beaches,” a one-stop-shop for information beachgoers need to have a fun, safe day at a Gulf of Mexico beach.

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Did you know that the oceans hold more uranium than can be found on land? Seawater could become another source of nuclear fuel, and researchers in ACS Central Science report a way to capture it effectively.

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Around Anchorage, communications among the critically endangered population of Cook Inlet beluga whales may be masked by ship noise in their core critical habitat, accordingly to the first repertoire of their calls.

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Record breaking marine heatwaves will cause devastating mass coral bleaching worldwide in the next few years, according to a University of Queensland coral reef scientist.

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As sea level continues to rise, threatening ecosystems, communities and infrastructure, experts are searching for ways to better understand how coastal environments may change in the future.

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Undergraduates are invited to apply for a six-month fellowship sponsored by the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System

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The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Caterpillar Inc. have entered into a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, to investigate using methanol as an alternative fuel source for four-stroke internal combustion marine engines. The collaboration supports efforts to decarbonize the marine industry, a hard-to-electrify transportation sector.

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FAU's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute are seeking additional participants in Cape Coral for a study evaluating potential impacts of exposure to harmful algal blooms.

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New research, led by the University of Portsmouth in England, estimates 55 million marine organisms worth $2.15bn are sold in the marine aquarium trade each year.

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A team of sustainability scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in the journal PLOS ONE that they have developed a community-based framework, founded on extensive local and traditional knowledge, to help assess and respond to the kinds of ecological threats that are widely dispersed across a varied landscape and whose solutions are not immediately obvious.