In the longest running study on how fish populations in coral reef systems recover from heavy exploitation, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and others have found that the fish can recover, but they need lots of time – decades in some cases. The study appears in a recent edition of the journal Ecological Applications.

The first analysis of the genome of the sea anemone shows it to be nearly as complex as the human genome, providing major insights into the common ancestor of not only humans and sea anemones, but of nearly all multi-celled animals.

In the July/August 2007 issue of BioScience, Mark D. Spalding of The Nature Conservancy and fourteen colleagues from around the world describe a new biogeographic classification of the world’s marine coastal and shelf areas, Marine Ecoregions of the World, that is expected to be a valuable tool for conservation planning.

Scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have just completed a successful test of new robotic vehicles designed for use beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean. The multidisciplinary research team will now use those vehicles to conduct the first search for life on the seafloor of the world's most isolated ocean.

Undersea habitats supporting rare and potentially valuable organisms are at risk from seafloor mining scheduled to begin within this decade, says a new study led by a University of Toronto Mississauga geologist.

Coral reef fish hatchlings dispersed by ocean currents are able to make their way back to their home reefs again to spawn, says a groundbreaking study published today in the journal Science.

US and Mexican conservation efforts may have boosted the number of marine turtles visiting UK waters, according to University of Exeter biologists.

Lizards gave rise to legless snakes. Cave fishes don't have eyeballs. In evolution, complicated structures often get lost. Dollo's Law states that complicated structures can't be re-evolved because the genes that code for them were lost or have mutated. A group of sea snails breaks Dollo's law, Rachel Collin, Staff Scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and colleagues from two Chilean universities announce in the April, 2007, Biological Bulletin.

A new "black smoker"-an undersea mineral chimney emitting hot springs of iron-darkened water-has been discovered at 8,500-foot depths by an expedition funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore the Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica.Scientists from Duke University, the Universities of New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts have named their discovery the Medusa Hydrothermal Vent Field.

A new "black smoker" - an undersea mineral chimney emitting hot, iron-darkened water that attracts unusual marine life -- has been discovered at about 8,500 feet underwater by an expedition currently exploring a section of volcanic ridge along the Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica.

Researchers say over 300 kilometers of coastline heaved more than a meter upwards, exposing - and killing - corals in unprecedented numbers. Townsville 12 April 2007: Scientists have reported what is thought to be one of the world's greatest mass death of corals ever recorded as a result of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia on 28 March 2005.

Scientists have reported what is thought to be one of the world's greatest mass death of corals ever recorded as a result of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia on 28 March 2005.