Blog Archives

A new study finds that the presence of sharks can change coral reef ecosystems. Such research is becoming more important as both a top ocean predator and a crucial habitat decline. To humans, sharks are mythic and beautiful and terrifying – they can both clear the beach and inspire passionate conservation campaigns. It’s surprising, then, that scientists don’t actually agree on the extent to which sharks influence and shape their own ecosystems.

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports wades into this issue and provides evidence that, just like humans, fish are afraid of sharks, and in some reef habitats, this fear actually changes the structure of coral communities...

An American tourist was fatally mauled by a tiger shark while scuba diving on an island off the coast of Costa Rica, local authorities said Friday.

The woman, identified by her friends as 49 year-old Rohina Bhandari, a director at a New York City private equity firm, died after an early morning attack Thursday on Cocos Island National Park, more than 340 miles off the Costa Rican coast. Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy identified her in a news release only by her last name.

Bhandari was ascending to the surface at the Manuelita dive site when her 26-year-old diving guide noticed the shark, which he described as a female tiger shark. The guide, identified only by his last name Jiménez, tried to scare the shark off, but it was too late...

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters lauded on Thursday the set-up of Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Southern Ocean.

The Ross Sea region MPA, which comes into effect on Dec. 1, is the result of a joint New Zealand-United States initiative, and will protect an area of the Southern Ocean that is teeming with life, Peters said.

“The Southern Ocean is one of the world’s most pristine marine environments. It has an unbroken food-chain and still has a full suite of top-level predators such as whales, seals and penguins,” Peters said, adding that the Ross Sea region MPA is 1.55 million square km, or six times the size of New Zealand.

“Getting unanimous agreement to create this marine protected area is a significant achievement,” he said.

New Zealand will continue to work with ...

Coral is growing on the Great Barrier Reef after first being grown in tanks, say researchers. Sperm and eggs were taken from the wild to grow larvae which was then delivered to damaged areas of reef.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-42159469/breakthrough-in-coral-restoration-say-researchers

Since the 1970s, more than 93% of excess heat captured by greenhouse gases has been absorbed by the oceans. To understand how much heat that is, think of it this way: If the oceans weren’t absorbing it, average global temperatures on land would be far higher—around 122°F, according to researchers on the documentary Chasing Coral. The global average surface temperature right now is 59°F.

A 122°F world, needless to say, would be unlivable. More than 93% of climate change is out of sight and out of mind for most of us land-dwelling humans, but as the oceans continue to onboard all that heat, they’re becoming unlivable themselves.

Ocean temperatures are the highest since record-keeping began, and hundreds of marine species are suffering because of it...

Fishes’ fear of sharks helps shape shallow reef habitats in the Pacific, according to new research by a scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.  The study is the first clear case of sharks altering a coral reef ecosystem through an indirect effect – creating an atmosphere of fear that shifts where herbivores feed and seaweeds grow. Referred to as a trophic cascade, these complex relationships exist throughout nature but the linkages are often hard to identify.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, looked at reefs located along the coast of Fiji. Many of its islands are surrounded by shallow, intertidal reefs that are commonly found in the Pacific...

Mexico’s government has created the largest ocean reserve in North America around a Pacific archipelago regarded as its crown jewel. The measures will help ensure the conservation of marine creatures including whales, giant rays and turtles. The protection zone spans 57,000 sq miles (150,000 sq km) around the Revillagigedo islands, which lie 242 miles (390 km) south-west of the Baja California peninsula.

Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced the decision in a decree that also bans mining and the construction of new hotels on the islands.

He said on Saturday that the decree reaffirmed the country’s “commitment to the preservation of the heritage of Mexico and the world”.

The four volcanic islands that make up the Revillagigedo archipelago, called the Galapagos of No...

Some 95% of the ocean is completely unexplored, unseen by human eyes. That naturally means that there are many marine environments that we don’t know much about, but that we’re still putting at risk from damaging activities such as bottom trawling. Meadows of seagrass – flowering plants that live in shallow, sheltered areas – are a prime example of such a habitat.

Knowing the location and value of environments such as seagrass meadows, which are a nursery for fish, is key if we are to tackle our biodiversity crisis. With 70% of the Earth covered by ocean, exploring it all presents an enormous challenge. Thankfully, seagrass meadows are restricted to the shallow waters (less than 90 metres deep), but finding them still isn’t easy.

From charismatic and endangered species like seahorse, t...

The island nation of Fiji hosted the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn last week, bringing attention to the plight of small islands under climate change. Fiji is already facing migration of its people, loss of coral reefs, and more intense cyclones such as the one last year that wiped out a third of its GDP.  Fiji is also home to the Great Sea Reef, the third longest continuous barrier reef in the world.

All the countries in the world except the U.S. have now backed the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to keep climate change below 2 degrees of warming and strive for 1.5 degrees.  However, to save coral reefs the world needs to meet the more ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees, a level at which around a third of coral reefs may survive...

How much of your lifetime, I asked Sylvia Earle, have you spent underwater? It was a glorious morning in Mexico and we were on a small boat, bobbing on a gentle swell in the Gulf of California, a few hundred yards off the coast from the village of Cabo Pulmo. Setting out from shore to the dive site, we had spied a group of dolphins leaping in the distance.

We had cut the engine close by an outgrowth of rocks, where three pelicans circled, riding upwards before corkscrewing their bodies and plummeting into the water, their gullets palpitating with their catch, before rising up to circle, twist and plummet again.  Earle observed the scene thoughtfully, considering my question. ‘Not enough,’ she replied with a laugh.

At 82, Earle is America’s most distinguished oceanographer and marine b...