Weekly Newsletter | | Other topics

News articles on oceans

---

Mongabay.com news articles on oceans in blog format. Updated regularly.

Coral susceptibility to bleaching due to small differences in symbiotic relationship

(07/22/2008) Coral reefs are now considered the second most threatened group of animals in the world, with nearly one-third of corals listed as endangered (amphibians retain the dubious honor of being number one). Although corals face many threats, the greatest is bleaching caused by warming oceans due to climate change. However, some coral populations are more susceptible to bleaching than others, even including corals of the same species. New research has uncovered that the reason lies in small differences in the symbiotic relationship between corals and their symbionts, small marine animals and protozoa. Such differences, however miniscule, have a huge impact on the likelihood of a coral's ability to survive warming oceans.


Mangroves are key to healthy fisheries, finds study

(07/21/2008) Mangroves serve as a critical nursery for young marine life and therefore play an important role in the health of fisheries and the economic well-being of fishermen, report researchers writing in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Shell Oil funds "open source" geoengineering project to fight global warming

(07/21/2008) Shell Oil is funding a project that seeks to test the potential of adding lime to seawater as a cost-effective way to fight global warming by sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans, reports Chemistry & Industry magazine.


Moving species may be only way to save them from climate change

(07/17/2008) Desperate times call for desperate measures, according to a new paper in Science. conservation scientists from the US, the UK, and Australia are calling for the consideration of a highly controversial conservation technique: assisted migration. According to the policy piece, species would be relocated to sites "where they do not currently occur or have not been known to occur in recent history".


Marine no-take zones are succeeding beyond expectations

(07/16/2008) Two recent reports show that marine no-take zones, where fishing is completely prohibited, are helping to rejuvenate commercial species faster than expected.


Discovery of new leatherback migration route may help save species

(07/15/2008) Scientists have discovered a new migration route for the world's largest turtle, the leatherback. The route takes the 2,000-pound marine turtle from the Playa Grande beaches in Costa Rica to an area deep in the South Pacific.


U.S. dead zones may reach record levels this summer

(07/15/2008) "Dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay will likely expand to record levels this summer due to rising rising agricultural runoff in part triggered by large-scale flooding in the Midwest, according to a forecast by a researcher from the University of Michigan.


Madagascar villagers vote to protect sea turtles, see first hatchlings

(07/15/2008) The first hatching of Green Turtles recorded as a direct result of efforts to protect the species in southwest Madagascar has been witnessed by marine conservationists working for British charity, Blue Ventures conservation.


Oceans hold vast potential for wind power

(07/09/2008) The North Pacific, Tasmania, New Zealand, Tierra del Fuego in South America, and the mid-latitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are potential locations for wind power generation, according to new satellite data from NASA.


Volunteering with Leatherback Sea Turtles in Galibi, Suriname

(07/08/2008) The northern coast of Suriname is one of the best places in the world to view the largest turtle, the marine Leatherback. Watching the turtle rise out of the tides onto the beach gives one the sense of meeting something ancient, rare, and more sea-monster than marine turtle. Yet, if I call it a sea-monster, I do not mean that it is frightening or ugly: far from it. But it is mysterious, terrible, and wondrous.


U.S. coral reefs in trouble

(07/07/2008) Nearly half of U.S. coral reefs are in "poor" or "fair" condition according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


Whale biomimicry inspires better wind turbines

(07/07/2008) By studying and mimicking the characteristics of the flippers, fins and tails of whales and dolphins, engineers have devised more a efficient way to generate wind power, reports a researcher presenting at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Marseille, France.


Good news for reefs: giant coral structure found off Brazil

(07/07/2008) Amid a series of dire reports on the status of coral reefs, scientists announced the discovery of a reef off the southern coast of Brazil's Bahia state that doubles the size of the Southern Atlantic Ocean's largest and richest reef system, the Abrolhos Bank.


CO2 emissions could doom fishing industry

(07/03/2008) Aside from warming climate, rising carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to ocean acidification, threatening sea live, warn researchers writing in the journal Science. This trend makes it all the more important to reduce emissions, argue the authors.


Census of marine life opens with 122,000 species

(07/01/2008) Discovering a new species can be the highlight of a biologist's career. Yet once a species enters the formal literature, complications may develop. The systen has been especially problematic because for centuries biologists have lacked the tools to construct a full and flexible list of the world's innumerable species. Using the Internet and hundreds of scientists around the world, the Census of Marine Life is attempting to take on this monumental task.


Caribbean Monk Seal is officially declared extinct

(06/10/2008) The NOAA fish service has officially declared the Caribbean Monk Seal extinct. The seal--the first to go extinct by human causes--has not had a confirmed sighting for fifty-six year. Many scientists believe sightings that have followed the last confirmation were probably of Hooded Seals and not the Caribbean Monk.


Dried-up Colorado takes toll on giant Mexican fish

(06/08/2008) The Colorado River vanishes before it reaches the Sea of Cortez in all but the wettest years. Companies in California and the southwestern U.S. have diverted its once-vibrant flow to quench their thirst for water and power. Now, a new study in the April 2008 issue of the journal Biological conservation reports that the dwindling of this major artery has changed the way some marine fish in the Gulf of California grow and develop.


Scientists aim to catalogue tropical island from mountaintops to seafloor

(06/04/2008) Scientists are launching an effort to catalogue a complete tropical ecosystem, the first time anyone has attempted such an ambitious undertaking. Led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, a U.S.-French team plans to collect DNA "barcodes" for every animal, plant, and fungus on the small island of Moorea in the South Pacific, scouring habitats from coral reefs to high-reaching cloud forests. The island could eventually serve as a model for how ecosystems respond to stresses such as climate change, invasive species, and pollution.


Diversity in streams may brace Chinook salmon for climate change

(06/03/2008) Chinook salmon face a one-two punch. They have disappeared from several rivers in the western U.S. largely because of human interventions and some populations are threatened or endangered. Numbers of Chinook in California's Central Valley have dwindled by 88 percent in the past five years, a loss that closed fisheries for 2008 and may cost California's economy $167 million, according to the state Department of Fish and Game. On top of all this looms a second impact: These salmon will be in hotter water still because of climate change.


Greenpeace ship attacked by Turkish tuna fishermen during protest

(05/30/2008) Members of a Turkish tuna fishing boat attacked the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise while the ship was engaged in a protest against overfishing. The incident occurred Friday in the Cypriot Channel and was reported to the Turkish Iskenderun Gulf Port Authorities.


50 years after the blast: Recovery in Bikini Atoll's coral reef

(05/27/2008) Fifty years after atomic bombs rocked Bikini Atoll and pulverized its coral reef, the lagoon again boasts a flourishing coral community. Scientists diving in the two-kilometer-wide Bravo Crater, created in 1954 by a blast 1,000 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, found a thriving habitat with treelike corals 30 centimeters (one foot) thick. The study shows that coral reefs can recover from profound damage?when humans leave them alone.


2008 hurricane forecast: storm activity will be above normal

(05/22/2008) The U.S. government's weather agency predicts an above average Atlantic hurricane season this year.


Ocean acidification worse than expected, threatens sea life

(05/22/2008) Increasing ocean acidification along the continental shelf of North America will likely have negative impacts on marine ecosystems, including the corrosion of calcium carbonate exoskeletons in many organisms, warn researchers writing in the journal Science.


Humpback whale population is recovering

(05/21/2008) The number of humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean has increased substantially since international and federal protections were put into place in the 1960s and 70s, according to a new study involving more than 400 whale researchers throughout the Pacific region.


Global warming harming plant-eating animals in the Arctic

(05/21/2008) Climate change is making it more difficult for plant-eating animals in highly seasonal environments like as the Arctic to locate food, according to a new study published in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.


Global warming will produce fewer hurricanes

(05/18/2008) Global warming will produce fewer Atlantic hurricanes, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience by a U.S. government meteorologist.


Nitrogen pollution harming ecosystems and contributing to global warming

(05/15/2008) Nitrogen pollution of the world's oceans is harming marine ecosystems and contributing to global warming, report two reviews published in the journal Science.


Global warming to worsen ocean dead zones, hurt fisheries

(05/01/2008) Warming oceans will worsen oxygen-deficient or hypoxic dead zones, affecting ecosystems and fisheries, warn researchers writing in the journal Science.


Photos - researchers study largest squid ever captured

(04/29/2008) Marine biologists in New Zealand are thawing the corpse of the largest squid ever caught in order to learn more about one of the ocean's most mysterious creatures.


The Arctic's most threatened marine mammals due to climate change

(04/25/2008) A recent study has measured the sensitivity to Arctic marine mammals to climate change. The study found that the three species most vulnerable to climate change are the hooded seal, the polar bear, and the narwhal: the common thread between these species being the loss of sea ice.


Fatal San Diego Shark Attack a Rare Event

(04/25/2008) Friday morning a 66-year-old swimmer was attacked and killed by a shark off Solana Beach in San Diego county. It was the first fatal shark attack in San Diego since 1994.


Shark-repelling fishing gear in the works

(04/23/2008) Fishing gear that produces an electric field in sea water could help prevent sharks from becoming accidental bycatch, say scientists at NOAA.


Ocean dead zones have nearly quadrupled since 1994

(04/03/2008) Coastal areas worldwide are suffering from over-enrichment of their waters by nitrogen and phosphorus, finds a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI). This over-enrichment, known as eutrophication, causes numerous environmental problems, eventually devastating coastal environments. In overly nutrient-rich waters phytoplankton, micro- and macroalgae grow to excessive portions; these 'algal blooms' diminish subaquatic vegetation, damage coral reefs, and deplete populations of fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and sea birds. In the worst case scenarios the massive algal blooms form hypoxic or dead zones due to loss of oxygen in the water, essentially condemning the ecosystem.


Microbes could be the key to coral death

(04/02/2008) Coral reefs could be dying out because of changes to the microbes that live in them just as much as from the direct rise in temperature caused by global warming, according to scientists speaking today at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.


Squid beaks may revolutionize engineering

(03/27/2008) When scientists dissect the stomachs of sperm whales, they find the super-hard beaks of squids, the only part of them that is indigestible. Scientists can tell the diet of a whale by the variety of beaks left behind, sometimes numbering in the thousands. But how does a squid, whose body is soft and supple, have a beak that is considered one of the hardest organic materials in natures? Scientists have long pondered this question.


Giant sea creatures discovered in Antarctica

(03/21/2008) An eight week long survey of New Zealand's Antarctic waters has turned up giant creatures including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish, as well as up to eight previously undiscovered species of mollusc, reports the Associated Press (A.P.).


Perennial ice disappearing in the Arctic receives little attention from the media

(03/19/2008) A big story came out on the loss of perennial ice in Arctic from NASA on Wednesday — and was mostly ignored by the media. Despite a colder winter than usual, the Arctic is losing its perennial ice (ice that lasts longer than a season) making the region even more susceptible to global warming. Perennial ice used to cover 50-60 percent of the Arctic. Results from this year's satellites show that perennial ice has decreased to less than 30 percent. In addition ice older than six years has declined from 20 percent in the eighties to six percent today.


Dams mask sea level rise

(03/13/2008) Water held in man-made reservoirs is masking the true extent of sea level rise from melting ice and thermal expansion, report scientists writing in the journal Science. The researchers, from the National Central University in Taiwan, calculate that sea levels would be 30 mm (1.2 inches) higher without water stored behind dams.


Fast-growing coral may help reefs survive global warming

(03/13/2008) Two fast-growing coral species may hold the key to Caribbean reefs surviving global warming, report researchers writing in the journal Science.


Humans are appropriating 20% more resources than Earth can provide

(03/10/2008) Mankind is appropriating 20 percent more resources each year than Earth can produce, according to a report from environmental group WWF.


Corn ethanol is worsening the Gulf dead zone

(03/10/2008) Proposed legislation that will expand corn-ethanol production in the United States will worsen the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and hurt marine fisheries, report researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


Cretaceous sea levels were 550 feet higher than today

(03/06/2008) Sea levels were 550 feet (170 m) higher in the late Cretaceous period, about 80 million years ago, than today, shows a new reconstruction of historic ocean basins published in the journal Science. The authors say the work may help model current global warming-driven sea level change.


New 'red list' seeks to stave off global seafood collapse

(03/03/2008) Over-fishing and destructive fishing practices have had a considerable effect on oceanic ecosystems. In 2006 a highly-reported study found that without drastic measures all wild seafood will disappear from the oceans in 50 years. Greenpeace, working against such a crash, has started a campaign that highlights 'red fish'. The twenty-two 'red' species are seafood that consumers and suppliers (including supermarkets) should avoid due to their plummeting populations and/or the damage caused by harvesting them.


Expedition finds inverted pyramid where sharks dominate marine ecology

(02/25/2008) A survey of a remote Pacific archipelago turned up pristine coral reefs that could offer a "baseline" for measuring the human impact on reefs worldwide, report researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California at San Diego.


Deep-sea krill discovered in Antarctica

(02/25/2008) Antarctic krill have been found living at depths up to 3000 meters near the Antarctic Peninsula, a finding that changes scientists' understanding of a fundamental part of the ocean food chain. Previously researchers believed that krill lived only in the upper ocean.


Rainforest logging threatens endangered sea turtles

(02/25/2008) Logging is having an unexpected impact on endangered sea turtles in Central Africa, reports a new study published in Oryx. Aerial surveys in Gabon reveal that logs lost during transport are clogging beaches, preventing critically endangered leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) from nesting.


Amazon rainfall linked to Atlantic Ocean temperature

(02/25/2008) Climate models increasingly forecast a dire future for the Amazon rainforest. These projections are partly based on recent research that has linked drought in the Amazon to sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic. As the tropical Atlantic warms, the southern Amazon -- the agricultural heartland of Brazil -- may see higher temperatures and less rainfall.


Widespread butterflyfish may go extinct due to global warming, pollution

(02/24/2008) The Chevroned Butterflyfish, a colorful fish found in tropical oceans around the world, faces extinction due to overexploitation, pollution and climate change, report researchers writing in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology. Despite its widespread distribution, the species could be doomed by its specialized feeding habitats: the Chevroned Butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifascialis) feeds on only one type of coral.


Large-scale Amazon deforestation or drying would have dire global consequences

(02/21/2008) A new study shows that large-scale degradation of the Amazon, either through drying or continued deforestation, would have global consequence, including worsening climate change, causing regional vegetation shifts, and increasing dust in the atmosphere.


Global warming - not el Nino - drove severe Amazon drought in 2005

(02/20/2008) One of the worst droughts on record in the Amazon was caused by high temperatures in the Atlantic rather than el Nino. The research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggests that human-driven warming is already affecting the climate of Earth's largest rainforest.



Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11

home | archives | news | XML / RSS feeds


XML / RSS / Syndication options

mongabay.com features more than 250 RSS feeds to meet your specific area of interest

All mongabay.com news
Only rainforest news
Only Brazil news
Only Biodiversity news
Only Climate Change news
Only Madagascar news

more XML feeds