EurekAlert! Marine Science - News Releases

News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 14-Oct-2025 02:11 ET (14-Oct-2025 06:11 GMT/UTC)

What climate change means for the Mediterranean Sea

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Climate change threatens marine and coastal ecosystems in the Mediterranean region. Warming, sea level rise, and ocean acidification are occuring there more intensely and rapidly than the global average. A recent study led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel investigated how strongly marine and coastal ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea are already at risk, even under comparatively moderate additional warming. For this purpose, 131 scientific studies were evaluated in a thorough meta-analysis. The results have now been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Journal: Scientific Reports

Plants, islands and climate change: Biologist Julian Schrader receives an ERC Starting Grant

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Grant and Award Announcement

Dr Julian Schrader has been awarded one of the European Research Council’s (ERC) coveted Starting Grants to study island plant life. The biologist will use the 1.5 million euros grant to investigate the interaction between climate change and the spread of plant species. To do this, he will relocate from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, to Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the German Centre for Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv). The ERC Starting Grant is one of Europe’s most prestigious research awards.

Funder: European Research Council

This common fish has an uncommon feature: Forehead teeth, used for mating

University of Washington
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New findings call into question one of the core assumptions about teeth. Adult male spotted ratfish, a shark-like species native to the eastern Pacific Ocean, have rows of teeth on top of their heads, lining a cartilaginous appendage called the tenaculum, in addition to those in their jaws. They used their tenaculum teeth to grip females while mating in water.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Ghost sharks grow forehead teeth to help them have sex

University of Florida
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Male “ghost sharks” — eerie deep-sea fish known as chimaeras that are related to sharks and rays — have a strange rod jutting from their foreheads, studded with sharp, retractable teeth. New research reveals these are not merely lookalikes, but real rows of teeth that grow outside the mouth.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Human impact on the ocean will double by 2050, UCSB scientists warn

University of California - Santa Barbara
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The rate at which human activity is impacting the ocean is accelerating with double the impacts — and in some places triple the impact — expected by in the next 25 years

Journal: Science

Seagrass swap could reshape Chesapeake Bay food web

Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study from researchers at William & Mary's Batten School & VIMS shows that an ongoing transition from eelgrass to widgeon grass as the dominant seagrass species in the Chesapeake Bay could have ecological impacts across food webs, fisheries and ecosystem functions.

Journal: Marine Ecology Progress Series

Fighting extinction, coral reefs show signs of adapting to warming seas

Ohio State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As coral reefs decline at unprecedented rates, new research has revealed that some coral species may be more resilient to warming temperatures than others.

Journal: Science of The Total Environment

Endocrine disruptors pose ecological risks to marine protected areas

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
Peer-Reviewed Publication

This study delved into the pollution levels and spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of 31 endocrine disrupting chemicals in three marine protected areas and the adjacent coastal areas, evaluating their partitioning patterns, estrogenic potency, and potential ecological risks they posed.

Journal: Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology
Funder: National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Foundation of Key Laboratory of Yangtze River Water Environment, Ministry of Education (Tongji University), China, Innovation Group Project of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) of the Hong Kong SAR Government which provides regular funding to State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), UN-endorsed Global Estuaries Monitoring (GEM) Programme led by KMYL

Oxygen came late to ocean depths during Paleozoic

University of Utah
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Research led by University of Utah and Stanford analyzed thallium isotopes to show oxygen was slow to reach Earth’s ocean depths during the Paleozoic. O2 levels rose and fell at the ocean floor long after marine animals appeared and diversified half billion years ago, according to study of ancient marine sediments exposed by river cuts in Canada's Yukon.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: NASA Astrobiology Institute, U.S. National Science Foundation

Paleontologists go back to the future, reconstruct fossilized functional diversity to inform conservation goals

Florida Museum of Natural History
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that functional diversity can be accurately inferred from the marine fossil record.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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