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A rapidly-spreading coral disease along Kaua

Two years ago, the Australian state of Queensland was hit by the worst flooding in living memory. Since then homes have been rebuilt and life on shore is back to normal.

But out to sea the legacy of the deluge is yet another threat to the Great Barrier Reef, one of Earth

Coral reefs are vocal, says Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mark Hay.

The professor and his team discovered that coral polyps known as Acropora nasuta emit chemcial signals to goby fish when seaweed encroaches on their territory, according to Planet Save report.

The Paragobidon enchinocephalus and Gobidon histrio goby species rush to the scene and remove the deadly growth in return for protection from predators within the reef.

Hay states, “The symbiotic relationship between the fish and the coral on which they live is the first known example of one species chemically signally a consumer species to remove competitors.

It is similar to the symbiotic relationship between Acacia trees and mutalist ants in which the ants receive food and shelter while protecting the trees from both compet...

Researchers from Australia and Saudi Arabia launched a project Thursday which they hope will help them understand the genetic makeup of corals and how they react to climate change.

Reefs around the world are under threat from bleaching due to climate change, as well as storms and predatory starfish, and scientists want to learn more about coral resilience to help head off further destruction.

To help achieve this, they have launched an international sequencing project, Sea-quence, backed by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, which will explore the genomes of 10 coral species.

It hopes to uncover core genetic data for Great Barrier Reef and Red Sea corals and use the information to help protect them from climate change.

“Climate change places coral reefs at risk through warmer water t...

The Primeiras and Segundas have been approved as a marine protected area in Mozambique making this diverse ten-island archipelago Africa

The world’s rarest whale has been identified – two years after two of them washed up in New Zealand.

An adult female spade-toothed beaked whale and her calf were found beached in 2010, but they were mistaken for a more common type of whale and buried.

When tests were done about six months later on samples taken from the mammals, they showed they were actually the rare spade-toothed beaked kind.

The whales are so rare that nobody has ever seen one alive.

This year scientists returned to dig out the skeletons of the two whales, so they could study them.

It wasn’t an easy task and they found the mother’s skull had been washed out to sea.

Previously, only skull fragments have been discovered and that’s only happened three times.

The spade-toothed beaked whale gets its name because males have ...

The study, published in this month’s Environmental Science and Policy, looked at 27 countries that depend significantly on coral reef fisheries for food and ranked them according to their exposure and sensitivity to the effects of climate change and man-made disturbances, as well on their capacity to adapt to changes.

Coral reefs are globally valued for their high biodiversity. For millions of people, they are a productive source of food. An average Indonesian gets almost 60 per cent of its animal protein from fish, while in Pacific island countries this figure is between 50 to 90 per cent.

However, coral reef fisheries are expected to decline with climate change and other human caused disturbances.

In the new study, a higher sensitivity indicates that a country is highly dependent on cora...

Conservation groups expressed outrage after resistance led by China and Russia stymied efforts to carve out new marine sanctuaries and protect thousands of species across Antarctica.

Hopes were high that a reserve covering 1.6 million square kilometres (640,000 square miles) would be green-lighted for the pristine Ross Sea, the world’s most intact marine ecosystem.

Nations led by Australia and the European Union also wanted 1.9 million square kilometres of critical coastal area in the East Antarctic safeguarded.

But two-week long talks at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), made up of 24 countries and the European Union, at Hobart in Australia ended without resolution.

Instead, CCAMLR will hold an intercessional meeting in Germany in July afte...

Hysteria over an unprecedented spate of fatal shark attacks in Western Australia over the past year is endangering efforts to learn more about great whites, a conservation group says.

The Conservation Council of WA today calls for calm after two tagged great whites less than 3m long were detected 29 times by a shark monitor off Ocean Reef in Perth’s north yesterday, sparking explosive headlines.

CCWA marine co-ordinator Tim Nicol said it would be “stupid” to kill tagged sharks – a possibility recently flagged by the WA government – because they provided useful information about the species and increased public-safety awareness.

“Killing tagged sharks is the worst thing we could do right now,” Mr Nicol said in a statement.

“We need to learn more about white sharks and these are the sharks g...

When people hear the word “Antarctica,” they might think about penguins or towering icebergs.

But the Southern Ocean makes up 10 percent of the world’s ocean and is home to almost 10,000 species