EurekAlert! Marine Science - News Releases

News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 18-Aug-2025 18:10 ET (18-Aug-2025 22:10 GMT/UTC)

New study shows how biomass changed over 500 million years

Stanford University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have long known that biodiversity has increased over geological time, but corresponding trends for the sheer abundance of living things have never been calculated, until now. The findings add to data suggesting that conserving biodiversity is essential for the health of humans and our planet.

Journal: Current Biology
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Loss of hard chorion: An evolutionary dead-end for parental egg-care fish

Institute of Science Tokyo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Parental egg-care in fish traps them in an evolutionary dead-end through the loss of the chorion-hardening system, find scientists from the Institute of Science Tokyo. Fish have diverse egg-caring strategies that have independently emerged multiple times across lineages. Comparative whole genome analysis of 240 fish species revealed a strong correlation between loss of the chorion-hardening system and parental egg-care, revealing the mechanisms behind the evolutionary bias that restricts egg-caring fish from becoming non-egg-carers.

Journal: Molecular Ecology
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan Science Society, Fujiwara Natural History Foundation, Yoshinori Ohsumi Award for Fundamental Research

An evolutionary trade-off has limited how fish catch their prey

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A trade-off between tooth size and jaw mobility has restricted fish evolution, Nick Peoples at the University of California Davis, US, and colleagues report June 24^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.

Journal: PLOS Biology

World’s soft coral diversity retains signature of an ancient, vanished sea

Florida Museum of Natural History
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of scientists have completed the world’s second and largest survey of soft corals, using more than 4,400 museum specimens collected over the past two decades. Their results indicate soft corals have two centers of diversity, one of which was unexpected.

Journal: Scientific Reports

New research identifies potential source populations of invasive red alga threatening Hawaii's protected coral reefs

PeerJ
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Study provides critical framework for tracking the origin of Chondria tumulosa, a rapidly spreading macroalga in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

Journal: PeerJ

Study reveals hidden hunting strategies of leopard seals, unraveling their impact on Antarctic ecosystems

Georgia Aquarium
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by researchers at Baylor University and University of Rhode Island and supported by a scientist with Georgia Aquarium has uncovered surprising details about leopard seals’ hunting habits, revealing that while the species is broadly considered a generalist predator, individual seals tend to specialize in their diets—sometimes with major consequences for other animals in the ecosystem.

Journal: Ecology and Evolution

Deep-sea mining could harm remote ocean ecosystems

University of Exeter
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Deep-sea mining in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean could harm ocean life including whales and dolphins, new research shows.

Journal: Frontiers in Marine Science

Study of ancient rocks helps predict potential for future marine anoxia

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team led by Prof. CHEN Jitao from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied ancient sedimentary rocks in Naqing, South China, to analyze their chemical compositions.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Study finds early signs of widespread coastal marsh decline

Colorado State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have revealed the declining health of coastal marshes several years before visible signs of decline, providing an early warning and opportunity to protect an ecosystem that serves as the first line of defense against coastal flooding.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Massive burps of carbon dioxide led to oxygen-less ocean environments in the deep past

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from UC Davis, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Texas A&M University reveals that massive emissions, or burps, of carbon dioxide from natural earth systems led to significant decreases in ocean oxygen concentrations some 300 million years ago.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, U.S. National Science Foundation

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