Category News

A team of marine scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has confirmed that southern Africa’s most threatened endemic shark – the Critically Endangered shorttail nurse shark (Pseudoginglymostoma brevicaudatum) – has been found to occur in Mozambique; a finding that represents a range extension of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles).

Publishing their findings in the journal Marine Biodiversity, the team said that the discovery was based on several records of the shark including underwater video surveys collected in 2019, recent photos of shore-based sport anglers’ catches, and the identification of a specimen collected in 1967.

The diminutive shorttail nurse shark reaches lengths of approximately 75 centimeters (30 inches)...

Submarine groundwater discharge — the flow of fresh water from land through the coastal seafloor into the ocean — is changing the metabolism of coral reef ecosystems, according to California State University, Northridge marine biologist Nyssa Silbiger, which can affect coastal economies around the world.

The findings by Silbiger and her fellow researchers, Megan Donahue with the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and Katie Lubarsky with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, have implications for understanding human impacts on marine ecosystems, as well as informing the decisions of policy makers as they consider coastal development or anticipate the impacts of sea-level rise.

“If we can understand how actions and decisions made miles away from the ocean affect marine ecosyste...

A new survey of ice loss around the globe suggests the rate at which the planet’s ice sheets and glaciers are melting is rapidly accelerating. According the new analysis, detailed Monday in the journal Cryosphere, Earth lost roughly 28 trillion tons of ice between 1994 and 2017. In 1994, Earth experienced an annual loss of 0.3 trillion tons of ice. By 2017, annual losses increased to 1.3 trillion tons.

To illuminate the full scope of the problem, researchers compiled decades of satellite data on ice losses happening in different parts of the world.

The survey combined data on 215,000 mountain glaciers, as well as polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. Scientists also accounted for sea ice losses, as well as melting along the ice shelves extending off the coast of Antarctica.

Long-lived banned industrial chemicals may be threatening the fertility of male porpoises living off the UK. Polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) were phased out decades ago, but can build up in whales, dolphins and porpoises. Scientists say harbour porpoises exposed to PCBs had shrunken testicles, suggesting an effect on sperm count and fertility.

They say that while these are preliminary findings, more must be done to clean up the oceans.

PCBs have been linked with a number of threats to whales and dolphins, but research has focused on mothers and their young.

A study led by scientists at the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) found high levels of PCBs were linked to smaller testicles in otherwise healthy animals.

They think this could have an impact ...

Make no mistake, returning to the Paris climate agreement is not mere symbolism – it is an act cloaked in powerful, political significance. While re-joining the pact involves the simple signing of a letter and a 30-day wait, there could be no more profound signal of intention from this incoming administration. Coming back to Paris means the US will have once again have to follow the rules.

Those rules mean that sometime this year the US will have to improve on their previous commitment to cut carbon made in the French capital in 2015. 

This new target, possibly for 2030, and President Biden’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, will be the guide rails for the US economy and society for decades to come.

Coming back to Paris really means it is no longer “America Fir...

Baby sharks will emerge from their egg cases earlier and weaker as water temperatures rise, according to a new study that examined the impact of warming oceans on embryos. About 40% of all shark species lay eggs, and the researchers found that one species unique to the Great Barrier Reef spent up to 25 days less in their egg cases under temperatures expected by the end of the century.

The extra heat caused embryonic epaulette sharks to eat through their egg yolks faster and when they were born, the rising temperatures affected their fitness.

“This is a huge red flag for us,” said Dr Jodie Rummer, an associate professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and a co-author on the study.

Weaker sharks were less efficient hunters, Rum...

A quarter of the carbon emissions that are warming the Earth dissolve into oceans, making them more acidic. Carbon emissions and warming are also causing ocean heat waves, which in turn is bleaching the world’s coral reefs.

Now, a UCLA-led study reveals how increased acidity and warming ocean temperatures can interact to threaten reef-building corals.

Acidification and warming are a one-two punch that impair corals’ ability to form exoskeletons and grow. The new study provides evidence for how both factors interact to harm the corals even more than the sum of their parts would suggest.

The paper, published in Science Advances, looked at two species: cauliflower coral and hood coral, which thrive primarily in tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans...

The breathtaking Whitsundays oasis is 34km northeast of Mackay in central Queensland, it is 80% national park. A cluster of 74 tropical islands positioned smack bang in the middle of Queensland’s iconic Great Barrier Reef.

Coral reefs are the rainforests of the sea and so important to life on earth. The Whitsundays even has a natural coral reef structure in the shape of a heart.

It’s called Heart Reef

But the heart might stop beating soon.

The island of Keswick in the Whitsundays is home to green sea turtles. These beautiful creatures return to the same place each year to lay their eggs. Often it is the same place where they too hatched. Females can lay clutches of 100 – 200 eggs, laying several clutches before returning to the sea...

Researchers have found a novel way to identify heat-stressed corals, which could help scientists pinpoint the coral species that need protection from warming ocean waters linked to climate change, according to a Rutgers-led study.

“This is similar to a blood test to assess human health,” said senior author Debashish Bhattacharya, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “We can assess coral health by measuring the metabolites (chemicals created for metabolism) they produce and, ultimately, identify the best interventions to ensure reef health. Coral bleaching from warming waters is an ongoing worldwide ecological disaster...

Coral reefs across the world may disappear by the 2040s, according to a new report. While it’s tempting to blame ‘humanity’ for this crisis, the truth is that it is the social formation called capitalism that is central to global warming.

With a recent report titled “Projections of Future Coral Bleaching Conditions,” published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in November, Leticia Carvalho—head of the Marine and Freshwater Branch of UNEP—said on December 21 that coral reefs are the “canary in the coalmine for climate’s impact on oceans.” The image of the canary in the coal mine is used over and over again to refer to many aspects of the climate catastrophe: reflecting on his studies of glacier decline in Greenland, glaciologist Ian Howat said that “Gr...