A move to protect the menhaden, an essential link in the food chain whose numbers have plummeted over the last half-century, is good news.
Read the full article in the New York Times.
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Florida divers capture 312 invasive lionfish during derby. (UnderwaterTimes.com)
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Research supports methane as cause of warming and mass extinctions 56 million years ago. (PhysOrg.com)
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NOAA and France’s Protected Areas Agency have signed a “sister sanctuary” agreement to support the protection of endangered humpback whales that migrate annually more than 3,000 miles between NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the Massachusetts coast and Agoa Marine Mammal Sanctuary in the Caribbean’s French Antilles.
NOAA National Marine Sanctuary News
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Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank today announced $102 million for three Louisiana projects in the Barataria and Terrebone basins, to restore deteriorated wetlands and barrier island habitats along the state’s coast.
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Researchers found that at least two snails made the journey from one side of the North American continent to the other in the last million years.
Read the full article in the New York Times…
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Lionfish, a venomous invasive marine species considered one of the top predators in many coral reef environments in the Atlantic, have been documented at NOAA’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary – the first instance of the invader in the sanctuary since the species spread to U.S. East Coast waters in 2000.
Read the full story at NOAA National Marine Sanctuary News…
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By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News
A number of penguin species found in western Antarctica are declining as a result of a fall in the availability of krill, a study has suggested.
Researchers, examining 30 years of data, said chinstrap and Adelie penguin numbers had been falling since 1986.
Warming waters, less sea-ice cover and more whale and seal numbers was cited as reducing the abundance of krill, the main food source for the penguins.
The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like creature that reach lengths of about 6cm (2in) and is considered to be one of the most abundant species on the planet, being found in densities of up to 30,000 creatures in a cubic-metre of seawater.
It is also one of the key species in the ecosystems in and around Antarctica, as it is the dominant prey of nearly all vertebrates in the region, including chinstrap and Adelie penguins.
Read the rest of the story at BBC.co.uk…
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Arctic sea ice extent in January is lowest in recorded history. (ENN.com)
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By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
Samples of a marine creature collected during Captain Scott’s Antarctic trips are yielding data that may prove valuable in projecting climate change.
The expeditions in the early 1900s brought back many finds including samples of life from the sea floor.
Comparing these samples with modern ones, scientists have now shown that the growth of a bryozoan, a tiny animal, has increased in recent years.
They say this means more carbon dioxide is being locked away on the ocean bed.
The tiny bryozoan, Cellarinella nutti, looks like a branching twig that has been stuck into the sea floor.
It grows during the period in the year when it can feed, drawing plankton from the water with its tentacles.
The length of the feeding season is reflected in the size of the annual growth band – just as with tree rings
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