EurekAlert! - Science News: Marine Science Portal

Public Release: 28-Mar-2013

Current Biology
Sustainable fishing practices produce local rewards
Communities that act locally to limit their fish catches will reap the rewards of their action, as will their neighbors. That's the conclusion of a study reported on Mar. 28 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on the highly sought-after fish known as squaretail coral grouper.

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Nature
University of Tennessee professor discovers how microbes survive at bare minimum
Beneath the ocean floor is a desolate place with no oxygen and sunlight. Yet microbes have thrived in this environment for millions of years. Scientists have puzzled over how these microbes survive, but today there are more answers.

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Journal of Geophysical Research -- Biogeosciences
CU study provides new evidence ancient asteroid caused global firestorm on Earth
A new look at conditions after a Manhattan-sized asteroid slammed into a region of Mexico in the dinosaur days indicates the event could have triggered a global firestorm that would have burned every twig, bush and tree on Earth and led to the extinction of 80 percent of all Earth's species, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Geology
Understanding Earth processes and human impacts, plus another look at Mars
New Geology articles cover using the architecture of ancient lava-fed deltas to estimate paleo-water levels and past ice thicknesses; bubbles and bubble haloes in lava; iron-silicate microgranules; the importance of durable, biomineralized hard parts; the link between wastewater disposal and earthquakes; shells, ocean pH, and atmospheric CO2; a SWEET hypothesis for mound-building on Mars; marine oxygenation may have preceded oxygenation on land; analysis of fossil plant tissues from Pakistan; and imaging the Transition fault.

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Ecological Engineering
New system to restore wetlands could reduce massive floods, aid crops
Engineers have developed a new interactive system to create networks of small wetlands in Midwest farmlands, which could help the region prevent massive spring floods and also retain water and mitigate droughts in a warming climate.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
Dusting for prints from a fossil fish to understand evolutionary change
In 370 million-year-old red sandstone deposits in a highway roadcut, scientists have discovered a new species of armored fish in north central Pennsylvania. Studying and describing this fish's anatomy, they took advantage of a technique that may look like it was stolen from crime scene investigators.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
New fossil species from a fish-eat-fish world when limbed animals evolved
Scientists who famously discovered the lobe-finned fish fossil Tiktaalik roseae, a species with some of the clearest evidence of the evolutionary transition from fish to limbed animals, have described another new species of predatory fossil lobe-finned fish fish from the same time and place. By describing more Devonian species, they're gaining a greater understanding of the "fish-eat-fish world" that drove the evolution of limbed vertebrates.

National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Genome Biology
Getting under the shell of the turtle genome
The genome of the western painted turtle one of the most widespread, abundant and well-studied turtles in the world, is published this week in Genome Biology. The data show that, like turtles themselves, the rate of genome evolution is extremely slow; turtle genomes evolve at a rate that is about a third that of the human genome and a fifth that of the python, the fastest lineage analyzed.

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Nature
Scripps scientists image deep magma beneath Pacific seafloor volcano
Since the plate tectonics revolution of the 1960s, scientists have known that new seafloor is created throughout the major ocean basins at linear chains of volcanoes known as mid-ocean ridges. But where exactly does the erupted magma come from? Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego now have a better idea after capturing a unique image of a site deep in the earth where magma is generated.

National Science Foundation, Seafloor Electromagnetic Methods Consortium at Scripps

Public Release: 27-Mar-2013

Journal of Experimental Biology
Sea hares outsmart peckish lobsters with sticky opaline
Sea hares don't like being eaten. To ward off attacks from peckish lobsters they squirt the attackers with purple ink and a whitish substance called opaline. While we know that ink contains noxious chemicals that are repellent how does opaline work? Charles Derby and colleagues from Georgia State University, USA find out that opaline is so sticky that it gunges up the lobster's antennules effectively plugging their nostrils.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 26-Mar-2013
Hope for Galapagos wildlife threatened by marine invaders
UK scientists are investigating the spread of invasive non-native marine species around the Galapagos Islands. This work has been funded by a grant from the UK Government's Darwin Initiative, which aims to protect biodiversity and promote sustainability around the world.

Darwin Initiative

Public Release: 26-Mar-2013
Explorer James Cameron gives DEEPSEA CHALLENGER sub to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Explorer and filmmaker James Cameron and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have formed a partnership to stimulate advances in ocean science and technology and build on the breakthroughs of the 2012 Cameron-led DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition exploring deep-ocean trenches. The announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of Cameron's unprecedented solo dive to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the vehicle he and his team engineered, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible system and science platform.

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013

Journal of Fish Biology
Scientists confirm first 2-headed bull shark
Scientists have confirmed the discovery of the first-ever, two-headed bull shark.

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013

Conservation Biology
New study analyzes the risk to endangered whales from ships in southern California
Researchers have identified areas off southern California with high numbers of whales and assessed their risk from potentially deadly collisions with commercial ship traffic in a study published in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
NCEAS research sheds light on achieving conservation's holy grail
Solutions that meet the broad, varied, and often competing priorities of conservation are difficult to come by. Research published in the March 28 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes a hard look at why, in an effort to find ways to resolve the issue.

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013
Researchers issue forecast for 'moderate' New England red tide in 2013
New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The "red tide" is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year's outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as "moderate."

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Predictions of climate impacts on fisheries can be a mirage
In the early 1940s, California fishermen hauled in a historic bounty of sardine that set the backdrop for John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row" novel. But by the end of the decade the nets came up empty and the fishery collapsed. Where did they all go? According to a new study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the forces behind the sardine mystery are a dynamic and interconnected moving target.

Public Release: 25-Mar-2013
An animal to feed your eco-car
Researchers at the University of Bergen and Uni Research have found that a certain type of tunicate -- Ascidiacea -- can be used as a renewable source of biofuel and fish food. This is particularly good news for the growing aquaculture industry, which for years has struggled to find enough quality feed for its fish. There also is the prospect of reducing emissions from traffic.

Sparebanken Vest, Bergen Teknologioverføring

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013

ICES Journal of Marine Science
Acoustic monitoring of Atlantic cod reveals clues to spawning behavior
For decades researchers have recorded sounds from whales and other marine mammals, using a variety of methods including passive acoustic monitoring to better understand how these animals use sound to interact with each other and with the environment. Now, for the first time, researchers report using this technology to record spawning cod in the wild.

NOAA's Ocean Acoustics Program

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013

Ecology Letters
Invasive species: Understanding the threat before it's too late
Catching rides on cargo ships and fishing boats, many invasive species are now covering our shorelines and compromising the existence of our native marine life. In a study published in Ecology Letters, Northeastern University Prof. David Kimbro and his team examine what factors allow some invasive species to survive in their new environments and others to fail.

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013

Nature
Scientists discover layer of liquified molten rock in Earth's mantle
Scientists have discovered a layer of liquified molten rock in Earth's mantle that may be responsible for the sliding motions of the planet's massive tectonic plates.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013
NSF response to external panel's recommendations for streamlining scientific logistics in Antarctica
The National Science Foundation has issued a summary response to the recommendations of an external panel of experts that was charged with advising the agency on how to improve and streamline its logistical capabilities to more efficiently support world-class Antarctic science in coming decades.

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013
Scientists awarded £3M to study the way Northwest European seas absorb carbon
Scientists at the University of Liverpool are embarking on a series of research cruises to understand the impact of climate warming on the ecosystems of the seas surrounding Northwest Europe.

Natural Environment Research Council

Public Release: 22-Mar-2013
Live tracking of vulnerable South Atlantic seabirds
Real-time information showing the locations of the threatened frigatebird is now available online thanks to a new Darwin Initiative funded study led by the University of Exeter and Ascension Island Government Conservation Department. Researchers fitted satellite transmitters to several wild frigatebirds on Ascension Island and the live map of locations is now freely available to view online.

Darwin Initiative

Public Release: 21-Mar-2013

DOE Joint Genome Institute's 8th Annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting
DOE Joint Genome Institute 8th Annual Meeting on March 26-28, 2013
The 8th Annual Genomics of Energy and Environment Meeting of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute will be held at the Marriott in Walnut Creek on March 26-28, 2013.