EurekAlert! - Science News: Marine Science Portal

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

PLOS ONE
Coral scientists use new model to find where corals are most likely to survive climate change
Marine conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society working with other coral reef experts have identified heat-tolerant coral species living in locations with continuous background temperature variability as those having the best chance of surviving climate change, according to a new simplified method for measuring coral reef resilience.

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

PLOS ONE
Eyeless Australian fish have closest relatives in Madagascar
Researchers from Louisiana State University and the American Museum of Natural History has discovered that two groups of blind cave fishes on opposite sides of the Indian Ocean are each other's closest relatives. Through comprehensive DNA analysis, the researchers determined that these eyeless fishes, one group from Madagascar and the other from similar subterranean habitats in Australia, descended from a common ancestor before being separated by continental drift nearly 100 million years ago.

Constantine S. Niarchos Expedition Fund

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

Biology Letters
Climate change could increase levels of avian influenza in wild birds
Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more intense rainstorms and more frequent heat waves are among the planetary woes that may come to mind when climate change is mentioned. Now, two University of Michigan researchers say an increased risk of avian influenza transmission in wild birds can be added to the list.

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
URI oceanographers find there is one-third less life on Earth
Estimates of the total mass of all life on Earth should be reduced by about one third, based on the results of a study by a team of scientists at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography and colleagues in Germany. The new estimate is based on revisions to the amount of carbon stores in subseafloor microbes.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

Nature
New Nature study illuminates 55 million years of the carbon cycle and climate history
A study in the August 30 issue of Nature provides, in unprecedented detail, the history of a crucial indicator of the relationship between the carbon cycle and climate processes over the past 55 million years.

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

Nature
Climate change stories from the abyss
A team of scientists including those from the University of Southampton have shed new light on the world's history of climate change.

Public Release: 29-Aug-2012

PLOS ONE
Southern elephant seals likely detect prey bioluminescence for foraging
Bioluminescence may play a key role in successful foraging for southern elephant seals, a deep-sea predator, according to research published Aug. 29 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Public Release: 28-Aug-2012

Ecology Letters
Male snails babysit for other dads
Pity the male of the marine whelk, Solenosteira macrospira. He does all the work of raising the young, from egg-laying to hatching -- even though few of the baby snails are his own. Throw in extensive promiscuity and sibling cannibalism, and the species has one of the most extreme life histories in the animal kingdom.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 28-Aug-2012

Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Less is more for reef-building corals
Researchers at the University of Hawaii made a discovery that challenges a major theory in the field of coral reef ecology. The general assumption has been that the more flexible corals are, regarding which species of single-celled algae they host in coral tissues, the greater ability corals will have to survive environmental stress. However, scientists documented that the more flexible corals are, the more sensitive to environment disturbances they are.

National Science Foundation

Contact: Marcie Grabowski
mworkman@hawaii.edu
808-956-3151
University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012

PLOS ONE
New maps may reduce tourism impacts on Hawaiian dolphins
Over-eager eco-tourists intent on seeing spinner dolphins up close may inadvertently be disturbing the charismatic animals' daytime rest periods and driving them out of safe habitats in bays along Hawaii's coast. Scientists at Duke and Stony Brook universities have developed a promising new tool that may help to limit repeated human disturbances and help reduce their negative impacts on the dolphins.

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012
University of Tennessee Team receives NSF support to study toxic water in China
More than 12 million Chinese rely on Lake Taihu for drinking water but about 20 years ago the once pristine lake turned pea green. It had become overrun with toxic blue-green algae which can damage the liver, intestines and nervous system.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012
BioOne announces 2013 Collections
We are proud to welcome five new titles and their respective not-for-profit publishers to the 2013 BioOne Collections: Marine Resource Economics, published by the Marine Resource Foundation; Cryptogamie, Algologie, Cryptogamie, Bryologie, and Cryptogamie, Mycologie, three journals from France's Association des Amis des Cryptogames; and Applications in Plant Sciences, a new, open access, online only publication from the Botanical Society of America.

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012

Molecular Ecology
Darwin discovered to be right: Eastern Pacific barrier is virtually impassable by coral species
Coral from the eastern Pacific rarely crosses a deep-ocean barrier to reach the west coast of the Americas, according to research that will be published in the journal Molecular Ecology. The finding has important implications for climate-change research, species-preservation efforts, and the economic stability of the eastern Pacific region, including the Galapagos, Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012
Arctic sea ice reaches lowest extent ever recorded, says CU-Boulder research team
The blanket of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean melted to its lowest extent ever recorded since satellites began measuring it in 1979, according to the University of Colorado Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center.

NASA

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012

Biological Sciences
MBL scientists discover nerves control iridescence in squid’s remarkable 'electric skin'
In a new study, MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory) researchers Paloma Gonzalez Bellido and Trevor Wardill and their colleagues report that nerves in squid skin control the animal's spectrum of shimmering hues--from red to blue--as well as their speed of change. The work marks the first time neural control of iridescence in an invertebrate species has been demonstrated.

Office of Naval Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Public Release: 27-Aug-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
One third less life on planet Earth
Previous estimates about the total mass of all life on our planet have to be reduced by about one third.

Public Release: 26-Aug-2012

Nature Geoscience
How ocean currents affect global climate is a question oceanographer may be close to answering
Florida State University oceanographer Kevin Speer has a "new paradigm" for describing how the world's oceans circulate -- and with it he may help reshape science's understanding of the processes by which wind, water, sunlight and other factors interact and influence the planet's climate. Speer and a colleague recently published a significant paper in the respected journal Nature Geoscience. With it, they have created what Speer calls a new paradigm in the study of ocean currents on a global scale.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 24-Aug-2012
Professor's Antarctica research shows potential king crab invasion
Dr. Aronson's research finds predatory crabs poised to return to warming Antarctic waters and disrupt the primeval marine communities that have lived there for millions of years.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012
Good news from the bad drought: Gulf 'Dead Zone' smallest in years, says Texas A&M expert
The worst drought to hit the United States in at least 50 years does have one benefit: It has created the smallest "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico in years, says a Texas A&M University researcher who has just returned from gulf waters. Oceanography professor Steve DiMarco, one of the world's leading authorities on the dead zone, says he and other Texas A&M researchers and graduate students analyzed the Gulf Aug. 15-21.

NOAA/Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012
New survey of ocean floor finds juvenile scallops are abundant in Mid-Atlantic
NOAA researchers are getting a comprehensive view of the ocean floor using a new instrument, and have confirmed that there are high numbers of young sea scallops off of Delaware Bay.

NOAA Fisheries Service

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012

Science
Video-gaming fish play out the advantages of groups
Princeton University researchers designed a video game for predatory fish that has unraveled some lingering evolutionary questions about group formation and movement in animals.

Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, US Army Research Office

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012

Geology
Geology's 'Mystery Interval,' the 'Great Deepening,' and the largest kill-off in Earth history
New Geology postings include understanding the "Mystery Interval" during the last deglaciation in the Northern Hemisphere; examining topographic change and recovery after the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami; asking whether self-mutilation or self-amputation in sea lilies was an adaptive response during the Paleozoic; discovering that powerfully erosive behavior can occur even on the lee side of a topographic barrier; and demonstrating for the first time that the PTB biotic crisis was probably triggered by enormous Plinian eruptions.

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Past tropical climate change linked to ocean circulation, says Texas A&M team
A new record of past temperature change in the tropical Atlantic Ocean's subsurface provides clues as to why the Earth's climate is so sensitive to ocean circulation patterns, according to climate scientists at Texas A&M University.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012

Atmospheric Science Letters
Cloud control could tame hurricanes, study shows
They are one of the most destructive forces of nature on Earth, but now environmental scientists are working to tame the hurricane. In a paper, published in Atmospheric Science Letters, the authors propose using cloud seeding to decrease sea surface temperatures where hurricanes form. Theoretically, the team claims the technique could reduce hurricane intensity by a category.

Public Release: 23-Aug-2012
Farmer-led irrigation schemes could alter food security in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia
As food prices escalate globally due to the failed monsoon season in Asia and the "super drought" in the US, a new study finds that small-scale irrigation schemes can protect millions of farmers from food insecurity and climate risks in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The International Water Management Institute, a CGIAR consortium research center, released the paper ahead of Stockholm World Water Week.