Latest Biological oceanography Stories

Scientists are questioning whether jellyfish blooms are real or just perceived by media hype. The report, which appears in the journal BioScience, questions the validity of increased jellyfish populations being reported around the world. The report was issued by the Global Jellyfish Group, which is a consortium of around 30 experts on gelatinous organisms, climatology, oceanography, and socioeconomics from around the globe. Rob Condon, who led the study, says “Clearly, there are areas...

Ultraviolet radiation is the catalyst for cellular damage in phytoplankton The Bren School-based authors of a study published Jan. 20 in the journal PLoS ONE have observed toxicity to marine organisms resulting from exposure to a nanoparticle that had not previously been shown to be toxic under similar conditions. Lead author and assistant research biologist Robert Miller and co-authors Arturo Keller and Hunter Lenihan – both Bren School professors and lead scientists at the UC Center...

Might a penguin's next meal be affected by the exhaust from your tailpipe? The answer may be yes, when you add your exhaust fumes to the total amount of carbon dioxide lofted into the atmosphere by humans since the industrial revolution. One-third of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic and affecting marine life. A UC Santa Barbara marine scientist and a team of 18 other researchers have reported results of the broadest worldwide study of ocean...

New process for producing biodiesel from microalgae oil The available amount of fossil fuels is limited and their combustion in vehicle motors increases atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The generation of fuels from biomass as an alternative is on the rise. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, Johannes A. Lercher and his team at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have now introduced a new catalytic process that allows the effective conversion of biopetroleum from microalgae into diesel...

Sustainability of tropical corals in question, but some species developing survival mechanisms Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. ---Shakespeare, Macbeth Mo'orea, it's called--this island in French Polynesia that's been dubbed the most beautiful island in the world. Here Tahitian breezes dance across crystal blue waters and beneath the tropical seas lies a necklace of coral reefs that encircles Mo'orea like a string of brightly colored jewels....

In 1997, scientists at the Center for Neurodynamics at the University of Missouri - St. Louis demonstrated that special sensors covering the elongated snout of paddlefish are electroreceptors that help the fish detect prey by responding to the weak voltage gradients that swimming zooplankton create in the surrounding water. Now some of the same researchers have found that the electroreceptors contain oscillators, which generate rhythmical firing of electrosensory neurons. The oscillators...

Direct effects of climate warming on biodiversity pose a serious conservation challenge for marine life, according to new research published today in Science. Marine life may need to relocate faster than land species as well as speed up alterations in the timing of major life cycle events. This challenges previous thinking that marine life in the ocean would respond more gradually than species on land because of slower warming in the oceans. “Analyses of global temperature found that...

Increasing acidification in coastal waters could compromise the ability of oysters and other marine creatures to form and keep their shells, according to a new study led by University of Georgia researchers. Their findings will be published in the November 2011 issue of Nature Geoscience. The researchers determined the combined effects of fertilizer runoff carried by the Mississippi River to the northern Gulf of Mexico and excess atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels result...

During a summer expedition to the deepest region on the planet, the Mariana Trench, a team of researchers and engineers witnessed a breed of giant amoebas known as xenophyophores living at depths that had never been recorded before, various media outlets reported over the weekend. The team, which consisted of scientists representing the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers, used untethered landers known as dropcams, lights, and digital video...

The tiny phytoplankton Emiliania huxleyi, invisible to the naked eye, plays an outsized role in drawing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it deep in the seas. But this role may change as ocean water becomes warmer and more acidic, according to a San Francisco State University research team. In a study published this week in the journal Global Change Biology, SF State Assistant Professor of Biology Jonathon Stillman and colleagues show how climate-driven changes in nitrogen...