Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council.

No-take marine reserves, in which fishing is completely banned, can lead to very rapid comebacks of the fish species most prized by commercial and recreational fisheries, reveals a new study of Australia's Great Barrier Reef published in the June 24th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

Queen's University Belfast is appealing for help from the public in looking at ways to detect and stop the spread of marine aliens.

New evidence that chemical contaminants are finding their way into the deep-sea food web has been found in deep-sea squids and octopods, including the strange-looking “vampire squid". These species are food for deep-diving toothed whales and other predators.

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University have discovered what may be a clue to the mystery of why marine mammals around the world are succumbing to a parasite that is typically only associated with cats. The key may just be the lowly anchovy, according to research presented today at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston.

Brown University marine conservation scientist Heather Leslie will explain how the fast-growing field of resilience science can produce more effective ocean protection policies at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.

More than 40% of the world’s oceans are heavily affected by human activities, and few if any areas remain untouched, according to the first global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems.

Using a remotely operated submersible vehicle the international research team captured images of life found on deep-sea pinnacles and valleys up to three kilometres beneath the Ocean’s surface.

In an article published in the January 16 issue of PLoS ONE, Joan B. Company and colleagues at the Institut de Ciencies del Mar (CSIC) in Spain describe a mechanism of interaction across ecosystems showing how a climate-driven phenomenon originated in shelf environments controls the biological processes of a deep-sea living resource.

A team of biologists have developed a model mapping the control circuit governing a whole free living organism. This is an important milestone for the new field of systems biology and will allow the researchers to model how the organism adapts over time in response to its environment.

Professional fishery is in many sea areas a serious ecological threat to the maritime environment. On the other hand, changes in the environment, e.g. the increase of fish-eating animals like seals and cormorants, may impact the fisheries.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found a new and substantial pathway for mercury pollution flowing into coastal waters. Marine chemists have detected much more dissolved mercury entering the ocean through groundwater than from atmospheric and river sources.