How well ocean reefs recover from the growing damage caused by warming sea temperatures depends both on how much the tiny coral polyps can eat, and how healthy they can keep the microscopic algae that live inside their bodies.

Outbreaks of the notorious crown of thorns starfish now threaten the “coral triangle,” the richest center of coral reef biodiversity on Earth, according to recent surveys by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

In response to the need for localized efforts to protect and recover the surviving populations of the threatened staghorn coral, Diego Lirman, Ph.D., and James Herlan, researchers from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) have established an underwater nursery dedicated to the propagation of staghorn corals.

Tel Aviv University Professor (and alumnus) Hudi Benayahu, head of TAU's Porter School of Environmental Studies, has found that soft corals, an integral and important part of reef environments, are simply melting and wasting away. And Prof. Benayahu believes this could mean a global marine catastrophe.

An international team of Australian and Israeli researchers has discovered what could be the aphrodisiac for the biggest moonlight sex event on Earth.

A team of coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious ‘engine’ that drives Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world over.

A modest new lab at the Rosenstiel School is the first of its kind to tackle the global problem of climate change impacts on corals. Fully operational this month, this new lab has begun to study how corals respond to the combined stress of greenhouse warming and ocean acidification.

Greenpeace: Our good ship Esperanza is currently out in the Bering Sea, one of the world's wildest oceans.

Corals in the central and western Pacific ocean are dying faster than previously thought, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found. Nearly 600 square miles of reef have disappeared per year since the late 1960s, twice the rate of rainforest loss.

Phenotypic flexibility enables multicellular organisms to adjust morphologies to variable environmental challenges. Such plastic variations are also documented in reef corals. Coral colonies are made of multiple genetically identical physiologically integrated modules (polyps).

The research vessel, Polarstern leaves Bremerhaven for its 22nd Arctic expedition with a new shine, to begin its first work in the International polar year.