The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of northeastern Australia – considered the largest living organism on earth – is currently under threat from a floating layer of microplastic particles,…
Oceans not only provide important ecosystem services, including climate regulation and nutrient cycling, but they also serve as a major contributor to food and jobs. Yet human actions in the…
As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, so too do those in the sea, leading to ocean acidification that outpaces that of any other time in tens of millions of years. Some…
Sorting fish on an Malaysian fishing boat. Photo by Rhett A. Butler / mongabay.com Climate change is already having a severe impact on the atmosphere and oceans around the world.…
In the last 500 years, the oceans have suffered far fewer extinctions than on land—at least that we know of. According to a recent study in Science, 15 animals are…
If nothing done, extinction levels in the ocean could soon resemble those on land Bluefin tuna. Although most bluefin tuna species have been decimated by overfishing, they are still caught.…
Marrying religion and conservation could be key to making Fiji's fisheries sustainable Fijians appear to enter life with vocal cords prepped for singing. It's an ideal trait, because most are…
Catching older fish may impact a school's ability to migrate from spawning grounds to feeding areas, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.…
What's it Worth? Deepening pressure on Fiji’s coral protectors. Redfish, Greenfish, Blackfish. Pinkfish, Curryfish, Lollyfish. They sound like Dr. Seuss characters and certainly look like they should be. Yet these…
Mongabay.org, the non-profit arm of environmental science web site Mongabay.com, has selected winners of three environmental reporting prizes under its Special Reporting Initiatives (SRI) program. The three prizes, which were…
Small fragments of plastic waste are damaging the health of lugworms, putting a key cog in marine ecosystems at risk. Published in Current Biology, a new study by scientists at…
An assessment of ocean acidification, presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw in November 2013, starkly concluded that acidity is on track to rise 170 percent by the…
Increasing forest protection in the right areas could increase benefits up to 10.4 percent to coral reef condition, according to a recent study of Fiji's forests and reefs in Marine…
Resting near the bottom of the food chain, Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) underpin much of the Southern Ocean's ecosystem. But in a rapidly warming world, these hugely-abundant crustaceans could see…
An Australian sailor has described parts of the Pacific Ocean as "dead" because of severe overfishing, with his vessel having to repeatedly swerve debris for thousands of kilometers on a…
The oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years, due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, and a mass extinction of key…
As if ocean acidification and climate change weren't troubling enough (both of which are caused by still-rising carbon emissions), new research published in Nature finds that ocean acidification will eventually…
As the most pristine marine ecosystem on the planet, Antarctica's Ross Sea has become dubbed the world's "last ocean." Home to an abundance of penguins, whales, orcas, seals, and massive…
Scientists have long known that ocean acidification is leading to a decline in Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in the U.S.'s Pacific Northwest region, but a new study in the American…
Human-caused changes to our biosphere—the global total of the world's ecosystems—are now so great and alarmingly rapid that human lives and societies undoubtedly face epic challenges in the near future…
The bleached bones of seabirds are telling us a new story about the far-reaching impacts of industrial fisheries on today's oceans. Looking at the isotopes of 250 bones from Hawaiian…
A new short film, Viva la tortuga documents the struggle to save loggerhead and green sea turtles in Magdalena Bay, Mexico. Once a region for a massive sea turtle meat…
If you were to travel from the United States of America to Japan, you would most likely encounter what could be described as the world's largest waste dump: a 100,000…
Scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) off Cocos Island, Costa Rica. This species is up for protection by CITES this month if nations votes in its favor. Photo by: Barry Peters. While…
Marine snails, known as Limacina helicina antarctica, are seeing their shells dissolve due to carbon emissions. Photo by: Nina Bednarsek. Marine snails, also known as sea butterflies, are dissolving in…
This post is an expanded version of an article that appeared in August on Yale e360: Easing The Collateral Damage Fisheries Inflict on Seabirds.
Beach on Peucang Island overlooks the ocean. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A diverse array of institutions have come together to release a new, revolutionary ocean health assessment called the…
Outbreaks of the coral eating crown of thorns starfish have been responsible for 42 percent of the decline in coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef between 1985 and 2012.…
Fan coral off the coast of Belize. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Only 8 percent of the Caribbean's reefs today retain coral, according to a new report by the International…
Calcification rates by reef-building coral communities on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have slowed by nearly half over the past 40 years, a sign that the world's coral reefs are facing…
