A recent study focusing on how offshore wind farms in Massachusetts waters could affect endangered right whales does not call for slowing the projects, but says monitoring will be critical.
Muttonbird ‘wrecks’ are becoming more common. Despite speculation about many possible causes, the evidence points to changes in the Arctic ocean ecosystem from where the birds migrate to Australia.
Marine life known as zooplankton might be the biggest problem with getting carbon cycling right in climate models. The potential variations in carbon uptake are greater than global transport emissions.
Deonie Allen, University of Birmingham; Melanie Bergmann, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, and Steve Allen, Dalhousie University
Arctic sea ice algae contaminated with microplastics have serious consequences for ecosystems and the climate.
We need to advance our understanding of the effects of microplastics on aquatic ecosystems, especially on small animals at the base of food webs that might be ingesting more of these particles.
DNA sequencing is making it possible for scientists to identify thousands of species of zooplankton – drifting animals that are key links in ocean food webs.
Fish are a key food source for millions of people worldwide. But a recent study finds long-term warming over the next 200 years could starve tiny plankton, with impacts that would ripple up food chains.
Young African penguins are following the usual cues to feeding grounds only to find that the sources of food in these places is no longer available. This is devastating for their numbers.
They ‘engulf living prey, suck out their innards, poison them, harpoon them, make them explode, and steal and reuse body parts’. And we ignore them at our peril.
Meet a parasite that can create its own mobile nursery for its young, a parasite that is thought to be the inspiration behind the chest-bursting xenomorph in the film Alien. Meet Phronima, the pram-pushing…