A Brown ecologist has found that coastal “dead zones” may not be so dead after all. In a paper published this month in the journal Ecology, Andrew Altieri has found that the commercially valuable quahog clam thrives in hypoxic waters in Narragansett Bay – partly because the clam’s predators flee the low-oxygen areas.

Ammonia emissions from seabirds have been shown to be a significant source of nitrogen in remote coastal ecosystems, contributing to nutrient enrichment (eutrophication) and acidification in ecosystems.

Coastlines are the most dynamic feature on the planet. In the March issue, Geotimes magazine looks into the risks of increased development along our coastlines and what that means for erosion, flooding and future development.

Louisiana’s coastal fisheries produce approximately 25 percent of the total catch by weight in the lower 48 states. With such a substantial portion of the nation’s economy dependant on the state of these waters – particularly the Gulf of Mexico region – it comes as no surprise that these fisheries are heavily monitored and scrutinized by researchers across the globe.

The preservation of coastal ecosystem services such as clean water, storm buffers or fisheries protection does not have to be an all-or-nothing approach, a new study indicates, and a better understanding of how ecosystems actually respond to protection efforts in a “nonlinear” fashion could help lead the way out of environmental-versus-economic gridlock.

The January 2008 issue of BioScience includes a special section entitled “Managing for Resilience in Coastal Marine Ecosystems.”

Coastal science gospel states that eutrophication caused by elevated nutrient loadings has triggered major alterations of coastal ecosystem structure and function.

Forthcoming in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, a fascinating new selection of papers collects leading experimental research in evolution and artificial selection, providing insight into how organisms adapt to changing environmental conditions and fluctuations.