marine ecosystems

Analysis Suggests Marine Ecosystems Can Recover

harminka — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:15:08 -0500

An international team of scientists with divergent views on ocean ecosystems has found that efforts to rebuild many of the world’s fisheries are worthwhile and starting to pay off in many places around the world. Their study puts into perspective recent reports predicting a total collapse of global fisheries within 40 years.

Human impacts on coral reefs of Northwestern Hawaiian islands

harminka — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:15:41 -0500

Results of a new study shed light on how threats to the world's endangered coral reef ecosystems can be more effectively managed.

Major losses for Caribbean reef fish in last 15 years

harminka — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:54:54 -0500

By combining data from 48 studies of coral reefs from around the Caribbean, researchers have found that fish densities that have been stable for decades have given way to significant declines since 1995. The study appears online on March 19th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

Crafty Australian crayfish cheat

harminka — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:24:20 -0600

Nestled just off the east coast of Australia, picturesque North Stradbroke Island is a haven for local wildlife. Yet some of the inhabitants of the island's creeks and swamps are far from peaceful. Slender crayfish are aggressive territorial creatures, explains ecologist Robbie Wilson of the University of Queensland, Australia.

New tool for tracking sea-floor sediment movements

harminka — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:31:43 -0500

As the world looks for more energy, the oil industry will need more refined tools for discoveries in places where searches have never before taken place, geologists say.

Decline in Alaskan sea otters affects bald eagles' diet

harminka — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:53:59 -0500

Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle.

Going beyond furry and scaly megafauna

harminka — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:17:59 -0500

Globally, natural ecosystems are being lost to agricultural land at an unprecedented rate. This land-use often results in significant reductions in abundance and diversity of the flora and fauna as well as alterations in their composition.

Protected area slowly rebounding

harminka — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:31:24 -0500

Multi-agency effort a collaborative success in integrated ecosystem assessment

Engineering and invention on half-shell

harminka — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:48:14 -0500

Marine snails, sea urchins, and other animals from the sea are teaching researchers in UC Riverside’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering how to make the world a better place.

Shell-breaking crabs lived 20 million years earlier than thought

harminka — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:53:13 -0500

While waiting for colleagues at a small natural history museum in the state of Chiapas, Mexico last year, Cornell paleontologist Greg Dietl chanced upon a discovery that has helped rewrite the evolutionary history of crabs and the shelled mollusks upon which they preyed.

Crop management strategies key to a healthy Gulf, planet

harminka — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:16:07 -0500

Improved management of crops and perennials could go a long way toward alleviating the problem of hypoxia, which claims thousands of fish, shrimp and shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico each spring.

Coral's addiction to 'junk food'

harminka — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:58:17 -0500

Over two hundred million humans depend for their subsistence on the fact that coral has an addiction to ‘junk food’ - and orders its partners, the symbiotic algae, to make it.