Feature Channels: Marine Science

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One would assume that since humans and many animals tend to get stiffer and perhaps tougher as they reach adulthood, the same would be true for sharks. A new study finds the opposite in these swift-swimming marine predators. The youngest sharks were stiffer and tougher than older sharks. Another key finding is that while scientists have historically looked at alternating patterns of mineralization on sharks’ vertebrae to determine their age, these patterns are not related to time.

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Female Magellanic penguins are more likely to die at sea as juveniles, which has caused a skewed sex ratio of nearly three adult males to every female, as well as population decline of more than 40 percent since 1987 at one of their largest breeding colonies — Punta Tombo in Argentina.

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People, animals, and even vehicles face the problem of tradeoffs – being good at one thing often means being bad at others. Circumventing tradeoffs can be a key to success. Some swimming turtles have solved this problem and are both highly stable and maneuverable in water – tasks usually at odds.

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Nearly five hundred years later, the fleet’s final resting place remains undiscovered. But an international collaboration of underwater archaeologists is conducting the first modern-day search for the scuttled vessels, as well as 16 others that Cortés sank a year later.

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In humans, different social groups, cities, or regions often have distinct accents and dialects. Those vocal traits are not unique to us, however. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has found that short-finned pilot whales living off the coast of Hawai'i have their own sorts of vocal dialects, a discovery that may help researchers understand the whales' complex social structure. The study was published on Dec. 14, 2018, in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

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University of Iowa Assistant Professor in Printmaking Terry Conrad joined scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on a research cruise to study foraminifera, single-celled organisms that live in the ocean, and to create related art as part of a Science-Through-Art effort funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Argonne researchers have helped Puerto Rico’s long-term recovery by bolstering the planning for its critical infrastructure systems.

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New research shows that the powerful sense of smell Pacific salmon rely on for migration, finding food and avoiding predators might be in trouble as carbon emissions continue to be absorbed by our ocean.

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LAWRENCE -- Stay-at-home dads might find their spirit animal in the smooth guardian frog of Borneo. A new pair of research papers authored by an investigator at the University of Kansas shows the male of the smooth guardian frog species (Limnonectes palavanensis) is a kind of amphibian "Mr. Mom" -- an exemplar of male parental care in the animal kingdom.

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The ghosts of harvesting can haunt today’s conservation efforts. Conserving or overharvesting a renewable resource like fish or other wildlife is often determined by habits and past decisions, according to a Rutgers-led study that challenges conventional expectations that the collapse of fast-growing natural resources is unlikely.

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A "gold rush" of seabed mining could lead to unprecedented damage to fragile deep-sea ecosystems, researchers have warned.

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Texas State University researchers have contributed to groundbreaking research that has identified the formation of a new sex chromosome in Xiphophorus fish.

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After going missing on Christmas Day five years ago, deep ocean measuring equipment belonging to the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has just been found on a beach in Tasmania by a local resident after making an incredible 14,000 km journey across the ocean.

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Researchers from FSU’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science suggest that projected increases in air temperatures, rainfall inundation and blistering solar radiation could significantly reduce hawksbill hatching success at a selection of major nesting beaches.

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New research finds that the combined effects of land use and climate change are resulting in increased salinity levels in rivers and streams, further highlighting an emerging threat to freshwater resources, biodiversity and ecosystem functions across the United States.

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Choosing a place to call home is one of the most consequential choices a coral can make. In the animal's larval stage, it floats freely in the ocean--but once it settles down, it anchors itself permanently to the rocky substrate of a reef, and remains stuck there for the rest of its life. Exactly how these larvae choose a specific place to live, however, is largely unclear.

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The Government of Argentina has created two massive offshore marine parks in the southwest Atlantic that will help protect the diverse marine life of the Patagonian Sea, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) and a host of other partners who have worked for years to protect these biodiverse seascapes.

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Many fish produce sounds for courtship and mating, navigation, and defending their territories. Scientists analyze these sounds to study their behavior such as reproduction. Since grouper spawning is brief and it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity, they are vulnerable to overfishing. “Eavesdropping” on them is key to their survival. Researchers have developed a novel acoustic monitoring technique to classify grouper species by their sounds or “grouper calls,” with accuracy of about 90 percent.

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The ammonia oxidizing archaea, or Thaumarchaeota, are amongst the most abundant marine microorganisms. Yet, we are still discovering which factors allow them to thrive in the ocean: A new publication reveals that marine Thaumarchaeota have a broader metabolism than previously thought.

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Inhabiting a vast network of estuaries along the Atlantic coast, blue crabs are ecologically important and represent one of the valuable and prized fisheries in the United States. Blue crabs spawn in estuaries at a time of year when water-quality issues such as low dissolved oxygen (hypoxia) and low pH (acidification) can be the most persistent and severe. A group from the lab of Christopher Gobler, a professor in the School of Marine Science (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, investigated the effects of these individual and combined stressors on early life stages of the blue crab. Their study, recently published in PLoS One, provides evidence that larval blue crabs experience increased mortality when exposed to low oxygen and/or low pH conditions at levels routinely found in degraded estuaries.

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The largest extinction in Earth’s history marked the end of the Permian period, some 252 million years ago. Long before dinosaurs, our planet was populated with plants and animals that were mostly obliterated after a series of massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia. Fossils in ancient seafloor rocks display a thriving and diverse marine ecosystem, then a swath of corpses.

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An update for an internationally vital sea-ice computer model developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory with several collaborating groups, called CICE version 6.0, is being released this week, a timely tool that supports more accurate forecasting of ice occurrence and global climate modeling.

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Climate change must no longer be viewed as a "tragedy of the commons", researchers say. December marks the 50th anniversary of the paper that popularized the concept of tragedy of the commons: it argued that individuals will always take advantage of a common resource and so degrade it. A new paper argues that the theory limits the way climate change is viewed.

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On 3 December 2018, the laboratory of Professor Axel Meyer, University of Konstanz published new findings of an experimental evolutionary project that ran for 30 years on the genomic mechanisms of sex determination in swordtail fish in the journal "Nature Communications". Dr Paolo Franchini, evolutionary biologist and Junior Research Group Leader at the University of Konstanz is the lead author of this collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Manfred Schartl of the University of Würzburg

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When the tiny and invasive spiny water flea began appearing in UW–Madison researchers’ nets in 2009, scientists began to wonder how Lake Mendota, one of the most-studied lakes in the world, went from flea-free to infested seemingly overnight, undetected by trained technicians. A new report published in the journal Ecosphere says Lake Mendota’s story may be the rule, rather than an exception.

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New research shows that mussels readily take in microplastic pollution fibers from the ocean but quickly flush most of them out again, according to a study by researchers from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. The findings were published in December's Marine Pollution Bulletin.

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Salt-adapted freshwater zooplankton grow 65 percent slower than regular zooplankton. Their slow growth cascades down the food chain in environments polluted with the most commonly found salt, triggering algal blooms.

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If you ever find yourself staring down a manta ray, you'll probably notice two things right away: the massive, flapping fins that produce the shark cousin's 20-foot wingspan and the two fleshy growths curling out of its head that give it the nickname "devil ray." A new San Francisco State University study shows that these two very different features have the same origin -- a discovery that reflects an important lesson for understanding the diversity of life.

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Researchers have discovered a new compound that helps us better understand how microbes keep the sulfur cycle turning, making it possible for us to enjoy ocean views and survive near the water.

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Predators have been identified as the shaping force behind mutually beneficial relationships between species such as clownfish and anemones. The finding results from a University of Queensland and Deakin University-led study.

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The fish killer and the fish live in harmony: But how the clownfish thrive in the poisonous tentacles of the anemone remains a mystery. A new study tackles the iconic conundrum from the microbial side.

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In a study published Nov. 22 in Nature Communications, scientists at the University of Washington Bothell, Pennsylvania State University and Oregon State University report that coral bacteria are surprisingly diverse and that different sections of the coral body host unique communities of bacteria.

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Increased oil and gas activities could combine with ocean warming and acidification to have a significant negative impact on marine organisms, a new study suggests.

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Bowling Green State University doctoral biology student Audrey Maran was chosen for the highly competitive John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship. She will serve for a year as a communication specialist in the National Sea Grant office, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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A partnership between a UGA professor and the creator of the “Sherman’s Lagoon” comic strip has resulted in a new short film series, “The Adventures of Zack and Molly,” which highlights the Gulf of Mexico and the importance of healthy oceans.

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Researchers have mapped the regions of the brain in mormyrid fish in extremely high detail. Their new measurements can help illuminate longstanding questions in neuroanatomy. As brains get bigger, do all regions of the brain scale up in a predictable way? Or does natural selection act independently on separate regions of the brain — such that certain parts of the brain become enlarged in animals that have extra reasons to use them?

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What if we could observe genes firing off signals to cause some behaviors? We're getting closer. Researchers were able to directly match gene regulation with ritual mating behavior in fish. Their research field may also give some insight into autism spectrum disorder.

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Two ESF scientists are part of a research team that recently discovered an unusual molecule that is produced in the oceans by planktonic microalgae and bacteria.

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Marine fishes rely on their sensory systems to survive. A study is the first to quantify the physiological effects of whole crude oil on the olfactory function of a marine vertebrate – the Atlantic stingray. Results confirm that exposure to crude oil, at concentrations mimicking those measured in coastal areas following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, significantly impaired olfactory function in the Atlantic stingray after just 48 hours of exposure.

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NSU joins a short list of institutions of higher learning taking the step to eliminate use of plastic straws - other ways to reduce plastics on campus are being reviewed

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Following three years of highly-advanced technological mapping of the Black Sea floor, an international team scientists led by experts from the University of Southampton have confirmed that a shipwreck lying intact has been officially radiocarbon dates back to 400BC.

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Research is showing how Magellanic penguins fare during the winter months when they spend months at sea feeding. Oceanographic features are more likely to negatively impact the body conditions of Magellanic penguin females, but not males, when the penguins return to their nesting grounds in spring.

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A first-of-its-kind study shows that the sea star microbiome is critically important to the progression of a disease that is killing millions of sea stars from Mexico to Alaska—and that an imbalance of microbes might be the culprit.