Toothed whales use sound to find their way around, detect objects, and catch fish. They can investigate their environment by making clicking sounds, and then decoding the “echoic return signal” created when the clicking sounds bounce off objects and return to their ears. This "biosonar," called echolocation, is rare in the animal kingdom. Now, a new study by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, New College of Florida, UC Berkeley, and Oxford University, and published in PLOS ONE, brings us closer to understanding how dolphin brains have evolved to support echolocation.

This year marks the opening of the United Nations Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences, an international initiative focused on the rapid changes occurring in glaciers, snow cover, ice sheets, sea ice, and permafrost and their impacts on the planet. MBARI’s advanced technology will play a critical role in this effort, providing important data about the Arctic seafloor and the Southern Ocean. MBARI research is answering fundamental questions about polar environments and other components of the cryosphere. This information can help resource managers and policymakers make decisions about the future of this important ecosystem.

As decreasing sea ice allows ships to enter previously inaccessible regions, cruise ships and other vessels are now advancing into the most remote waters. When anchors are dropped, seafloor marine life is impacted. In the Antarctic Peninsula, ocean scientists have recorded crushed sponge colonies, disturbed soft sediment, and striations caused by anchor chain movement for the first time. Recognizing anchor damage as a pressing conservation issue is critically important to protect ocean life and develop mitigation strategies, the team said. 

Research by Edith Cowan University (ECU) and the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) has put a spotlight on the feeding frenzy that newly hatched turtles face. Trapped and gripped by the neck, decapitations, and feeding on severed heads. These nightmarish visions are a grim reality for loggerhead turtle hatchlings.

Coral reefs are creeping away from the tropics in response to warming oceans, but the pace is too slow to beat the heat and escape impacts of climate change, according to a breakthrough study published June 6 in Science Advances. The study, authored by researchers at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) Marine Ecological Theory Lab, also offers a hopeful alternative: immediate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can significantly improve the future outlook for coral reefs globally.

Giant viruses play a role in the survival of single-celled marine organisms called protists. These include algae, amoeba, and flagellates, that form the base of ocean food webs. And since these protists form an important part of the food chain, these large DNA viruses are often responsible for various public health hazards, including harmful algal blooms. 

A new study, led by Bigelow Laboratory scientists, examines the ecological consequences of the shift from kelp forests to turf algae, illuminating profound changes to the energy and trophic interactions that shape the food web.

Villefranche-sur-Mer, France - June 6, 2025 - In the frame of the United Nations Ocean Conference 2025, a high-level side event hosted on June 3rd at the Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV) culminated in the signing of the Declaration of Commitment to Scientific Ocean Drilling.