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A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested.

Researchers, examining 30 years of data, said chinstrap and Adelie penguin numbers had been falling since 1986.

Warming waters, less sea-ice cover and more whale and seal numbers was cited as reducing the abundance of krill, the main food source for the penguins.

The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like creature that reach lengths of about 6cm (2in) and is considered to be one of the most abundant species on the planet, being found in densities of up to 30,000 creatures in a cubic-metre of seawater.

It is also one of the key species in the ecosystems in and aro...

The world

April 22 is Dive for Earth Day and is the beginning of a week of global marine conservation activities.

A new development for 2011 is that event organisers can enter a filmed account of their activity in an online video contest.

The winning entry in the Sea the Change competition will receive US$5000 in cash, while PADI will donate another US$5000 to a conservation cause of the winner

The Australian resort of Heron Island has announced that it will be launching its first annual dive festival later this year to tempt watersports-loving travellers taking flights to Australia.

From September 5th to 11th, the Great Barrier Reef resort will host a series of events including talks by acclaimed speakers, photographers and experts from the diving industry.

During the festival, guests will be able to enjoy two dives per day, as well as an additional night dive every evening to explore the region’s diverse underwater habitats.

Boats can be chartered for day trips to more remote diving sites, while you can also book a gourmet lunch on nearby Wilson Island.

Courses on offer during the six-day event include advanced photography techniques and a videographer’s workshop, which covers ...

Melting mountain glaciers are making sea levels rise faster now than at any time in the last 350 years, according to new research.

Universities at Aberystwyth, Exeter and Stockholm looked at longer timescales than usual for their study.

They mapped changes in 270 of the largest glaciers between Chile and Argentina since the “Little Ice Age”.

Studies showed glaciers have lost volume on average “10 to 100 times faster” in the last 30 years.

The rapid melt rate is linked to their contribution to global sea level.

The new research was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.

Their survey centred on remotely sensed images of outlet glaciers of the south and north Patagonian icefields, but used longer timescales than previous studies.

The glaciers straddle the Andes, on the border b...

Bali

The ocean is a vast place for animals and dumping garbage, so what is one to do about the latter issue? Turn that plastic trash into a self-sustainable island!

“Recycled Island” is the brainchild of Dutch architect Ramon Knoester. The idea to use plastic floating around in the Pacific Ocean’s “Great Garbage Patch” was conceived in 2009, but Knoester’s design firm, Whim Architecture is now making it a reality with a grant from the Netherlands Archictecture Fund.

The entire island is about the size of Hawaii with roughly 3,860 square miles for sunset romping. Knoester’s prototype island calls for a single family home with a solar roof, compost toilets, blue energy from wave motion and a farming system to create food and fertilizer from seaweed.

I never thought I would say this, but living on...

The great sweep of water around Planet Earth has been captured from space in greater detail than ever before.

New observations from Europe’s Goce gravity mapping satellite have allowed scientists to plot ocean currents with unprecedented precision.

Understanding gravity is fundamental to being able to track the direction and speed of water across the globe.

The data should improve the climate models which need to represent better how oceans move heat around the planet.

Very strongly represented in the new map is the famous Gulf Stream, the most intense of all the currents where water zips along at velocities greater than one metre per second in places.

“The Gulf Stream takes warm water from the tropics and transports it to higher latitudes, and that warmth is released to the atmosphere and...

Scientists have found an organism that may be eating plastic in the ocean, according to a report in Nature News. But whether the bug is green or mean remains to be seen, a scientist told CNN on Wednesday.

It has been proven that microbes can degrade plastic, said marine microbiologist Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. What’s significant is that the plastic is being degraded in a nutrient-poor area of the sea, an “ocean desert,” Mincer said.

The bacteria, found in a region of the North Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea, is clearly breaking down the plastic, but scientists don

Statistics on the protection of New Zealand’s marine environment appear to show that the Government has been fudging to meet international promises.

At a recent United Nations conference, New Zealand said it had already protected more than 8% of its marine area from exploitation and was on track to protect 10%.

But Department of Conservation figures released to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) show that only about a third of a per cent of the total marine area under New Zealand’s control has any significant protection, as in marine reserves.

The amount of land under significant protection is about 19%.

The WWF says New Zealand’s seas are home to about 80% of all biological life but have much less protection than the land does.

Source: radionz.co.nz