Using state-of-the-art, high resolution micro-CT scanning, FAU researchers have scanned a full skeleton of a very rare vaquita specimen from the 1960s. The objective of scanning this rare specimen for display purposes is to facilitate the creation of replicas to be commercially available to further education and conservation efforts of this critically endangered species. The completed scans, which required approximately 165 hours, resulted in a total of three terabytes of data.

Life on the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing big changes in the face of climate change and other human-caused pressures, a new study reveals.  

From food security to controlling seaweed and even making sand for beaches, reef fish are a hugely important part of marine ecosystems providing a range of benefits to humans and coral reef ecosystems.

New research from an international team of marine scientists from the UK and Australia and led by researchers at Lancaster University, published today in the journal Nature Communications, reveals significant transformations in fish communities on the Great Barrier Reef, the World’s largest coral reef ecosystem.

The intensity of offshore wind farm operational noise was significantly lower compared to pile driving noise. By employing a sound propagation model and referring to established noise exposure metrics, we estimated an impact zone of 12.8 m for fishes imposed by the pile driving noise. For the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, the permanent (PTS) and temporary threshold shift (TTS) zones were predicted to be 32.4 m and 580.9 m, respectively.

To help rare elkhorn corals survive in Florida waters, coral researchers should place them in shallow ocean locations with fast currents, scientists at the University of Miami NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science explained in a recent publication.