Oceanic Defense

'Shocking' state of seas threatens mass extinction, say marine experts

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:41:00 +0000

Overfishing and pollution putting fish, sharks and whales in extreme danger – with extinction 'inevitable', study finds

Fish, sharks, whales and other marine species are in imminent danger of an "unprecedented" and catastrophic extinction event at the hands of humankind, and are disappearing at a far faster rate than anyone had predicted, a study of the world's oceans has found.

Mass extinction of species will be "inevitable" if current trends continue, researchers said.

Overfishing, pollution, run-off of fertilisers from farming and the acidification of the seas caused by increasing carbon dioxide emissions are combining to put marine creatures in extreme danger, according to the report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (Ipso), prepared at the first international workshop to consider all of the cumulative stresses affecting the oceans at Oxford University.

The international panel of marine experts said there was a "high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history". They said the challenges facing the oceans created "the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in Earth's history".

"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, scientific director of Ipso. "As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised. This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children's and generations beyond that."

The flow of soil nutrients into the oceans is creating huge "dead zones", where anoxia - the absence of oxygen - and hypoxia - low oxygen levels - mean fish and other marine life are unable to survive there.

Hypoxia and anoxia, warming and acidification are factors present in every mass extinction event in the oceans over the Earth's history, according to scientific research. About 55m years ago, as much as half of some species of deep-sea creatures were wiped out when atmospheric changes created similar conditions.

In recent years, human effects on the oceans have increased significantly. Overfishing has cut some fish populations by more than 90%. Pollutants, including flame-retardant chemicals and detergents are absorbed into particles of plastic waste in the sea, which are then ingested by marine creatures. Millions of fish, birds and other forms of life are choked or suffer internal ruptures from ingesting plastic waste.

During 1998, record high temperatures wiped out about 16% of the world's tropical coral reefs.

The scientists called on the United Nations and governments to bring in measures to conserve marine ecosystems. Dan Laffoley, of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said: "The world's leading experts on oceans are surprised by the rate and magnitude of changes we are seeing. The challenges for the future of the oceans are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen. The time to protect the blue heart of our planet is now, today and urgent".

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/20/marine-life-oceans-extinction-threat#

About Oceanic Defense
We are an international organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

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ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news and science breakthroughs -- updated daily Science News Share Blog Cite Print Bookmark

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:25:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — The present rate of greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions through fossil fuel burning is higher than that associated with an ancient episode of severe global warming, according to new research. The findings are published online this week by the journal Nature Geoscience.

Around 55.9 million years ago, Earth experienced a period of intense global warming known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which lasted for around 170,000 years. During its main phase, average annual temperatures rose by around 5°C.

Scientists believe that the warming may have been initially triggered by an event such as the baking of organic-rich sediments by igneous activity that released the potent greenhouse gas, methane. This initial temperature increase warmed ocean bottom waters which allowed the break down of gas hydrates (clathrates), which are found under deep ocean sediments: this would have greatly amplified the initial warming by releasing even more vast volumes of methane. As the methane diffused from the seawater into the atmosphere it would have been oxidised to form carbon dioxide, another potent and longer-lived greenhouse gas.

Adam Charles and his PhD supervisor, Dr Ian Harding, both palaeoceanographers at the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, co-authored the report. Dr Harding said: "The PETM has been seen by many as a natural test bed for understanding modern human-made global warming, despite it not being a perfect analogy. However, the total amount of carbon released during this climatic perturbation and its rate of release have been unclear."

To help fill this gap in knowledge, the researchers measured carbon isotope ratios of marine organic matter preserved in sediments collected in Spitsbergen. The sedimentary section is important because it records the entirety of the PETM, from its initiation to through the recovery period, and as such is the most complete record of the warming event so far known in high northern latitudes.

Based on their carbon isotope measurements and computer simulations of Earth system, the researchers estimated that the rate of carbon emissions during the PETM peaked at between 300 million and 1,700 million metric tonnes per year, which is much slower than the present carbon emission rate.

"Our findings suggest that humankind may be causing atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase at rates never previously seen on Earth, which would suggest that current temperatures will potentially rise much faster than they did during the PETM," concluded Dr Harding.

This research was supported by The Worldwide Universities Network, Pennsylvania State University, and the US National Science Foundation.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110607121525.htm

Florida may limit soft coral harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Divers who collect fish and coral off South Florida's coast for the domestic and international aquarium trade face potential limits on the number of sea fans, sea whips and other soft corals they can harvest — potentially curbing business for the divers and the availability for consumers' aquariums.

Soft corals, also known as octocoral or gorgonian, are marine animals shaped like flowers, feathers and fans. Spread across the ocean floor like grass in a field, they consist of tiny polyps that use tentacles to catch prey. They are rarely eaten by sea animals, because they produce chemicals that taste bad to other marine organisms.

Divers explore the reefs off South Florida for octocorals, and transport them to aquarium supply shops and private customers all over the world. Octocorals are very popular in reef aquariums, because they bring diversity to the environment.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, 62 commercial harvesters landed octocorals last year; the number of harvesters is capped at 167.

The 25 or so species of most commonly harvested include purple sea blades and sea whips, with prices ranging from $15 to $69.99.

"The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council intends to remove octocoral from its Coral and Coral Reef Fishery Management Plan," said Martha Bademan, of the FWC, which is planning to put restrictions on octocoral harvests. "So the FWC has agreed to manage the fishery in both state and federal waters."

Currently, there is a 50,000 colony quota in place for federal waters, the measure used in keeping track of how much is harvested, and no quota for state waters. The FWC is considering a quota of 70,000 colonies for state and federal waters combined. The FWC staff working on the proposal will present recommendations to June 8 and 9.

A final public hearing will be held in September at the FWC meeting in Naples, after which the agreed-upon harvest quota will take effect.

What impact would the limit have on divers?

"None as long as it is not lowered," said Tom Scaturro, owner of Tom's Caribbean Tropicals of Tavernier in the Florida Keys. "They are trying to lower the limit because we have never reached the limit before. We do not want that."

Michael Helmholtz, who works as a gorgorian collector at the Florida Marine Life Collectors, argues that with an estimated 8 billion to 28.8 billion octocoral colonies in the Florida Keys alone, the supply of octocoral cannot be exhausted.

"If you divide the number of divers by gorgonians, you discover that there are lots more than we can collect in one year," he said.

Henry Feddern, a commercial marine-life collector with 50 years of experience, thinks an octocoral harvest of 70,000 colonies is not out of place.

"This would be more than enough for the foreseeable future and not appreciably affect the octocoral population," he said. "Catching 70,000 colonies a year probably has the same effect on the octocoral population as plucking a few blades of grass has on a large lawn."

Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-coral-harvest-20110514,0,3748310.story

xcxsadeoye@sun-sentinel.com, 954-300-9761

Water hazard: Floating golf course being planned off shores of the Maldives

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:26:00 +0000

Dutch developers are giving a new meaning to the term "water hazard."

Three corporations -- Waterstudio.NL, Dutch Docklands and Troon Golf -- will be building the world's first floating golf course in the Maldives -- a small group of islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to Business Insider.

Underwater tunnels will connect the 18 holes and facilities together, while allowing golfers to experience the reef. Luxurious accommodations overlook the fairways and the surrounding reef. The course itself will be built on floating platforms, making it the world's first floating golf course.

Let them know how you feel about them destroying some of the most beautiful reef systems in the world. (Please be respectful in all communications.)

contact the following:

Waterstudio.NL:

Gen. Berenschotlaan 211
2283 JM Rijswijk
The Netherlands
e info@waterstudio.nl
www.twitter.com/koenolthuis
f +31 70 3944 234

Principal Architect
Ir J.K. (Koen) Olthuis
e j.olthuis@waterstudio.nl
m +31 6 5515 0091

Dutch Docklands Offices:

THE NETHERLANDS
Oude Delft 142
NL-2611 CG Delft
The Netherlands
T +31 (0)15 212 66 88
F +31 (0)15 213 16 56

Troon Golf Hong Kong

21st Floor ICBC Tower, CITI Bank Plaza
3 Garden Road, Central
Hong Kong
China
Phone: +852.2166.8190
Fax: +852.2166.8999
Email: info@troongolfchina.com

President of the Maldives:

http://www.presidencymaldives.gov.mv/Index.aspx?lid=6

Source: Click Here

Nuclear Plant to Release Contaminated Water Into Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:41:00 +0000

Tokyo's main electric power company plans to release thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. The move comes as the company continues to try locate the source of a leak of highly radioactive water.

The water, which is about 100 times more radioactive than Japan's legal limit, is collected in several areas inside the plant. Its presence is preventing workers from carrying out essential work, so Tokyo Electric plans to expel it into the sea.

The plant operator says it will dump around 11,500 tons of water into the ocean on Tuesday. The Japanese government says this poses no major health risk.

The move comes as Tokyo Electric continues its attempts to stop the release of radioactive water that is about 1,000 times over the legal limit.

On Monday the company used colored dye to trace the source of the leak. Tokyo Electric suspected the water was escaping through several cracks it had earlier found in concrete.

After several hours, the dyed water had not appeared, leading Tokyo Electric to suspect it might be coming from somewhere else. The company is continuing the search for the source of the leak.

Meanwhile in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, announced government plans to increase restrictions on the sale of vegetables.

Edano says the government will halt the sale of vegetables from several areas of Chiba prefecture, which borders Tokyo to the east and is about 200 kilometers to the south of Fukushima.

The vegetables, including spinach, celery and parsley, have tested above the legal limit for radiation.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/east-pacific/Japan-Nuclear-Plant-to-Release-Contaminated-Water-Into-Ocean-119169659.html

CO2 killing our coral reefs, say experts

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:46:00 +0000

London - The world's coral reefs are in danger of dying out in the next 20 years unless carbon emissions are cut drastically, warns a coalition of scientists led by Sir David Attenborough.

The delicate ecosystems, known as the “rainforests of the sea'', support huge amounts of marine life. But as oceans absorb CO2 they become more acidic, making it impossible for structures such as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to survive.

Reefs are also at greater danger of bleaching as sea temperatures warm. Scientists gathered at the Royal Society in London to call for tougher target cuts in emissions. Sir David, who co-chaired the meeting, said the collapse of coral reefs meant the death of marine ecosystems. “We must do all that is necessary to protect the key components of the life of our planet as the consequences of decisions made now will likely be forever as far as humanity is concerned,'' he said. Open water absorbs around a third of the CO2 in the air. At present, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 387 parts per million (ppm).

Alex Rogers, the scientific director of the International Programme on the State of the Oceans, says the figure will reach 450ppm in the next 20 years if the world continues to burn fossil fuels at the present rate, and once that figure was reached the ocean would become too acidic for coral to survive. “The kitchen is on fire and it's spreading round the house. If we act quickly and decisively we may be able to put it out before the damage becomes irreversible,'' he said.

Coral reefs are living organisms that rely on calcium minerals, called aragonite, in the water to build and maintain their external skeletons. But when the oceans absorb CO2, it mixes with the seawater to make carbonic acid, reducing the aragonite levels. Mr Rogers said that once CO2 levels in the atmosphere reached the 600ppm mark, other organisms - such as plankton and sea snails - would start to die and whole marine ecosystems could collapse.

“Five hundred million people depend on coral reefs for livelihoods, food and culture,'' he said. “The economic implications of the loss of coral reefs are absolutely huge.'' Alongside other scientists from the Royal Society and Zoological Society of London, Mr Rogers wants world leaders to agree to much tougher targets to cut emissions as part of any climate change deal decided in Copenhagen at the end of this year.

“Essentially, coral reefs are on death row and Copenhagen is one of the last opportunities for a reprieve,'' he said. “If we carry on business as usual collapse is inevitable.'' - The New Zealand Herald

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/co2-killing-our-coral-reefs-say-experts-1.1046850

About Oceanic Defense
We are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

Join us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/OceanicDefense
Visit our official website:www.oceanicdefense.org
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Conservationists Develop Coral 'Stress Test' to Identify Reefs More Likely to Survive Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:51:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have developed a "stress test" for coral reefs as a means of identifying and prioritizing areas that are most likely to survive bleaching events and other climate change factors. The researchers say that these "reefs of hope" are priorities for national and international management and conservation action.

The test is a model that looks at environmental factors that stress corals -- mainly from rising sea temperatures -- and how these stresses affect overall coral and fish diversity. The results will help conservationists and managers identify reef systems most likely to survive over the next 50 years.

The study appears in the online edition of Global Change Biology. The authors include Tim R. McClanahan, Joseph M. Maina, and Nyawira A. Muthiga of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The model uses layers of historical data, satellite imagery, and field observations to produce a composite map on the status of reefs in the western Indian Ocean, in addition to an index of coral communities, their diversity, and their susceptibility to bleaching.

The study encompasses a wide swath of the western Indian Ocean, ranging from the Maldives to South Africa, an area already heavily impacted by bleaching events and coral mortality.

The model identified the coastal regions stretching from southern Kenya to northern Mozambique, northeastern Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, and the coastal border of Mozambique and South Africa as having the most promising characteristics of high diversity and low environmental stress.

The authors say these biologically diverse and hardy reefs are therefore a priority for implementing management that will reduce human impacts and stresses, while alternative strategies for adaptation are necessary in areas with lower chances of long-term survival.
"The future is going to be more stressful for marine ecosystems, and coral and their dependent species top the list of animals that are going to feel the heat of climate warming," said Dr. McClanahan, the study's lead author and WCS Senior Conservationist. "The study provides us with hope and a map to identify conservation and management priorities where it is possible to buy some time for these important ecosystems until the carbon emissions problems have been solved."

The coral reefs of the western Indian Ocean represent a significant portion of the overall biodiversity of tropical reef systems worldwide.

The western Indian Ocean also represents a crucial testing ground for management responses to climate-driven events such as coral bleaching. For instance, an estimated 45 percent of living coral was killed during 1998's warm temperature anomaly.

Caleb McClennen, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Marine Program, said: "Reducing human impacts to minimize the multiple stressors on these globally important reefs will give corals a fighting chance in the age of global climate change. These results reveal a window of opportunity for the future conservation of the ocean's most biodiverse ecosystem."

From Fiji to Glover's Reef, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Tiffany & Co. Foundation have provided critical support for Dr. McClanahan's research, which examines the climate change effects, ecology, fisheries, and management of coral reefs at key sites throughout the world.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110322151302.htm

Costa Rica Creates Giant Marine Reserve

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:47:00 +0000

Two weeks ago the Costa Rican government announced formation of one of the biggest marine protected areas in the eastern Pacific Ocean—a move that will help protect habitat for sharks, tuna, sea turtles, and other tropical marine species. The new Seamounts Marine Management Area surrounds Cocos Island, a tiny tropical island more than three hundred miles off the western shore of Costa Rica. The area is home to thirty forms of marine life found only in the waters off Costa Rica, and supports one of the largest concentrations of big sharks found anywhere in the world.

“This new protected area gives us a better chance to ensure that these species will thrive for future generations to marvel at for many decades to come,” said Dr. Bryan Wallace of Conservation International, one of the groups that pushed to create the new reserve.

The Seamounts Marine Management Area covers close to a million hectares (a hectare is about two and a half acres), and dramatically expands the boundaries of an existing protected area in the waters of Cocos Island National Park. The protected area gets its name from a cluster of seamounts, or underwater mountains, located within its boundaries. Seamounts are among the least-explored but most vulnerable ecosystems in the oceans, making protection of the ones near Cocos Island particularly important. The tops of many seamounts are home to a vast diversity of slow-growing invertebrates such as corals and sea lilies.

Some seamount species are unique to a particular cluster of seamounts, having evolved in isolation over millions of years. Unfortunately many of these ecosystems have been severely damaged by ocean trawling, a fishing practice that involves scraping the ocean floor to catch bottom-dwelling fish. Fishing trawls break, bury, and otherwise damage corals and other life forms that live on seamounts, devastating marine habitats that will take centuries to recover. Luckily seamounts near Cocos Island have never been trawled so far, and the new protected area should help keep them safe for the future.

“Creating a protected seamount area sets an important precedent,” said Marco Quesada from Conservation International. “Seamounts host endemic species, and the deep water that upwells along their sides brings nutrients that support rich feeding grounds for sea life on the surface. Seamounts serve as stepping stones for long-distance migratory species, including sharks, turtles, whales and tuna.”

In addition to preserving important seamounts, the new protected area excludes certain types of fishing within its boundaries. At the same time long-line fishing will still be allowed in parts of the protected area—a decision that has already drawn criticism from environmentalists. Conservation groups say all types of fishing should be banned in the protected area, providing a fully protected sanctuary where large fish populations can recover.

Even with the continued practice of long-line fishing, establishment of the Seamounts Marine Management Area is a big leap forward for threatened sea life. The protected area is home to large but vulnerable fish species like the white-tipped reef shark, scalloped hammerhead shark, whale shark, and tuna. It also provides habitat for the critically endangered leatherback turtle. Sharks and other large fish are concentrated in the area near Cocos Island partly because the cluster of now-protected seamounts provides habitat for the smaller fish they feed on.

The Marine Seamounts Management Area is bigger than Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and is the second largest protected area in the eastern tropical region of the Pacific Ocean. If protections for the area can be successfully implemented by the Costa Rican government, it could serve as a model for other countries looking to protect their own marine resources.

Source: http://featured.matternetwork.com/2011/3/costa-rica-creates-huge-marine.cfm

Shifting spring: Arctic plankton blooming up to 50 days earlier now

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:36:00 +0000

Climate researchers have long warned that the Arctic is particularly vulnerable to global warming. The dramatic shrinking of sea ice in areas circling the North Pole highlights those concerns.

A new report finds that the disappearing ice has apparently triggered another dramatic event - one that could disrupt the entire ecosystem of fish, shellfish, birds and marine mammals that thrive in the harsh northern climate.

Each summer, an explosion of tiny ocean-dwelling plants and algae, called phytoplankton, anchors the Arctic food web.

But these vital annual blooms of phytoplankton are now peaking up to 50 days earlier than they did 14 years ago, satellite data show.

"The ice is retreating earlier in the Arctic, and the phytoplankton blooms are also starting earlier," said study leader Mati Kahru, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Drawing on observations from three American and European climate satellites, Kahru and his international team studied worldwide phytoplankton blooms from 1997 through 2009. The satellites can spot the blooms by their color, as billions of the tiny organisms turn huge swaths of the ocean green for a week or two.

The blooms peaked earlier and earlier in 11 percent of the areas where Kahru's team was able to collect good data. Kahru said the impacted zones cover roughly 1 million square kilometers, including portions of the Foxe Basin and the Baffin Sea, which belong to Canada, and the Kara Sea north of Russia.

In the late 1990s, phytoplankton blooms in these areas hit their peak in September, only after a summer's worth of relative warmth had melted the edges of the polar ice cap. But by 2009 the blooms' peaks had shifted to early July.

"The trend is obvious and significant, and in my mind there is no doubt it is related to the retreat of the ice," said Kahru, who published the work in the journal Global Change Biology.
"A 50-day shift is a big shift," said plankton researcher Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. "As the planet warms, the threat is that these changes seen closer to land may spread across the entire Arctic."

Ecologists worry that the early blooms could unravel the region's ecosystem and "lead to crashes of the food web," said William Sydeman, who studies ocean ecology as president of the nonprofit Farallon Institute in Petaluma, Calif.

When phytoplankton explode in population during the blooms, tiny animals called zooplankton - which include krill and other small crustaceans - likewise expand in number as they harvest the phytoplankton. Fish, shellfish and whales feed on the zooplankton, seabirds snatch the fish and shellfish, and polar bears and seals subsist on those species.

The timing of this sequential harvest is programmed into the reproductive cycles of many animals, Sydeman said. "It's all about when food is available." So the disrupted phytoplankton blooms could "have cascading effects up the food web all the way to marine mammals."
But the Arctic food web is poorly studied, and so any resulting decline in fish, seabirds and mammals will be difficult to spot.

As the Arctic Ocean north becomes less and less icy, commercial fisherman have begun eyeing these vast, untapped waters as an adjunct to the famously rich fishing grounds of the subarctic Bering Sea, west of Alaska.

But in 2009, the U.S. body overseeing fishing in the region, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, banned commercial fishing in the Arctic Ocean, citing a lack of knowledge about how many - or even what kind - of fish live there.

"There are no catches authorized because we don't know enough about the fish populations there to set a quota," said Julie Speegle, a spokeswoman for the Alaska office of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Last week, that service reported results from the first fish survey in 30 years of the Beaufort Sea, an arm of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. The survey found sizeable populations of several commercially valuable species, including pollock, Pacific cod and snow crab.

How these populations will respond to the ever-earlier plankton blooms is a big unknown, Sydeman said. But other research has shown that northern Atlantic cod populations crash when plankton blooms in that region shift in time.

Last week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, in Boulder, Colo., reported that in February, Arctic sea ice covered a smaller area than ever seen in that month, tying with February 2005 as the most ice-free February since satellites began tracking Arctic ice in 1979.

The annual average Arctic sea ice coverage has decreased about 12 percent since then, a trend that appears to be accelerating, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the center. Summer ice coverage has declined even more dramatically, he said, with the Arctic losing almost a third of its late-summer ice over the past 30 years.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030603417.html

By Brian Vastag
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2011

Dolphins Save Stranded Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:38:00 +0000

A Pennsylvania woman on vacation in Florida took a tip from two dolphins to save a lost Doberman Pinscher that got stranded on a sandbar.

When Audrey D'Alessandro and her husband, Sam, walked out of their home on Marco Island, near Naples, Fla., to go fishing, "we saw these two dolphins, and they were splashing and making this big commotion" in a canal behind their vacation home, she said.

Although it is not uncommon to see dolphins swimming through the canal on their way to the Gulf of Mexico, Audrey D'Alessandro said that this time, "they were just there, in one place, splashing water against the canal wall."

When the D'Alessandros went to investigate, they saw that an 80-pound Doberman Pinscher was standing on a sandbar, half-submerged even at low tide. The dog, which disappeared from a nearby home some 12 hours before, was too weak to bark, she added, and could not get back onto land because of a several-foot-high canal wall.

By the time the nurse lowered herself into the canal to get onto the sandbar, the dutiful dolphins were gone, but her husband called firefighters, who helped Audrey D'Alessandro hoist the dog out of the water. Turbo, who was shaking and unable to stand after being rescued, was quickly reunited with his owner -- who got the happy news while putting up lost-dog posters.

A few days later, a thankful Turbo and his owner made the eight-block trip to visit the D'Alessandros, who have a yellow Labrador of their own.

But Audrey D'Alessandro brushed off the island-wide praise the couple received afterward, saying that while "people pulled up to us when were driving and said, 'You're the couple that saved that dog,' I said, 'Yeah, sure.' But I think it was really those dolphins."

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/02/dolphins-save-stranded-dog-family-vacation/

Migrating Sea Turtles Have Magnetic Sense for Longitude

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:18:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — From the very first moments of life, hatchling loggerhead sea turtles have an arduous task. They must embark on a transoceanic migration, swimming from the Florida coast eastward to the North Atlantic and then gradually migrating over the course of several years before returning again to North American shores. Now, researchers reporting online on February 24 in Current Biology have figured out how the young turtles find their way.

"One of the great mysteries of animal behavior is how migratory animals can navigate in the open ocean, where there are no visual landmarks," said Kenneth Lohmann of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"The most difficult part of open-sea navigation is determining longitude or east-west position. It took human navigators centuries to figure out how to determine longitude on their long-distance voyages," added Nathan Putman, a graduate student in Lohmann's lab and lead author of the study. "This study shows, for the first time, how an animal does this."

It appears that the turtles pick up on magnetic signatures that vary across Earth's surface in order to determine their position in space -- both east-west and north-south -- and steer themselves in the right direction. Although several species, including sea turtles, were known to rely on magnetic cues as a surrogate for latitude, the findings come as a surprise because those signals had been considered unpromising for determining east-west position.

The loggerheads' secret is that they rely not on a single feature of the magnetic field, but on a combination of two: the angle at which the magnetic field lines intersect Earth (a parameter known as inclination) and the strength of the magnetic field.

Near the Equator, the field lines are approximately parallel to Earth's surface, Putman and Lohmann explained. As one travels north from the Equator, the field lines grow progressively steeper until they reach the poles, where they are directed straight down into Earth. The magnetic field also varies in intensity, being generally strongest near the poles and weakest near the equator. Both parameters appear to vary more reliably from north to south than east to west, which had led many researchers to conclude that the magnetic field is useful only for latitudinal information.

"Although it is true that an animal capable of detecting only inclination or only intensity would have a hard time determining longitude, loggerhead sea turtles detect both magnetic parameters," Putman said. "This means that they can extract more information from the Earth's field than is initially apparent."

What had been overlooked before is that inclination and intensity vary in slightly different directions across Earth's surface, Putman added. As a result of that difference, particular oceanic regions have distinct magnetic signatures consisting of a unique combination of inclination and intensity.

The researchers made the discovery by subjecting hatchlings to magnetic fields replicating those found at two locations, both along the migratory route but at opposite ends of the Atlantic Ocean. Each location had the same latitude but different longitude. The turtles were placed in a circular water-filled arena surrounded by a computerized coil system used to control the magnetic field and tethered to an electronic tracking unit that relayed their swimming direction.

Turtles exposed to a field like one existing on the west side of the Atlantic near Puerto Rico swam to the northeast. Those exposed to a field like that on the east side of the Atlantic near the Cape Verde Islands swam to the southwest.

The findings may have important implications for the turtles, the researchers say.

"This work not only solves a long-standing mystery of animal behavior but may also be useful in sea turtle conservation," Lohmann said. "Understanding the sensory cues that turtles rely on to guide their migrations is an important part of safeguarding their environment."

The discovery may also lead to new approaches in the development of navigational technologies, the researchers added.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110224121855.htm

Former SeaWorld Trainers Speak Out

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:52:00 +0000

One year after the horrific death of a SeaWorld trainer, the popular Orlando, Fla. theme park is getting set to launch a new killer whale show with revamped safety measures.

But critics say there isn't enough being done to prevent another tragedy.

CBS News correspondent Whit Johnson reports the park announced it plans to allow trainers back in the water - something that hasn't happened since the attack on Dawn Brancheau last year.

Brancheau, a 40-year-old trainer, was attacked and drowned by a 12-ton killer whale named Tillikum. Tillikum is still at SeaWorld, but is kept at a safe distance from the public and the trainers.

Since Brancheau's death, trainers have been subject to a new set of rules. Johnson reported the days are over of high flying "rocket hops," in which trainers are propelled into the sky by the whale. In fact, even though they'll be going back in the water, it will only be during training sessions. Workers will also have access to safety bars, and pony tails must be wrapped into a tight bun.

Chuck Tompkins, corporate curator of SeaWorld, said, "We've always said that we're gonna work to try and get back in the water. We're not there yet."

No date has been set for in-water training, but critics the safety precautions still ignore the heart of the problem.

John Jett, a former SeaWorld trainer, told CBS News, "They're certainly masking the issue that the whales are really bored. You deprive them of all the social stimulation, environmental stimulation and expect him to do well. You know, it seems to me to be a recipe for disaster."

In April, Johnson said, SeaWorld plans to fight a number of safety violations that could keep killer whale trainers out of the water for good.

SeaWorld and Brancheau's family, Johnson reported, are teaming up to create a foundation in her memory.

Dr. Jeffrey Ventre, who spent four years as a trainer with SeaWorld's killer whales and knew Brancheau, said this is a "predictable response" from the company.

"This is a multibillion dollar corporation that makes its money through the exploitation of orcas and trainers," he said on "The Early Show." "Trainers are grossly underpaid. And as Dr. Jett just mentioned in the previous segment, these animals are highly understimulated. Tillikum chose to pull Dawn into the water by her left arm, and it got ugly after that. So this is a predictable response. But I think the key point in history is going to start on April 25, when OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) takes a close look at the safety issues associated with swimming in the water with killer whales, and I think that's going to determine whether this will actually happen or not."

Co-anchor Chris Wragge noted Ventre is a key witness in government hearings about SeaWorld. What does he plan to say about the industry?

Ventre explained, "Well, first of all, Tillikum did a counterclockwise spin move using an arm bar and rolled Dawn into the water and killed her in probably just a couple of minutes. It really became a recovery operation soon after she got into the water. He broke her sternum; he bit off her left arm. She was scalped. She had a lot of internal bleeding. The posterior elements of three ribs were broken, and he simply wouldn't give her up. It took an additional 30 minutes just to pry his jaws open and get her out of him. And I think that these are the reasons why ... SeaWorld doesn't want to open these hearings up. Because the details are horrific."

Ventre added, "I just wrote a paper with Dr. Jett that describes the increased mortality and morbidity associated with the whales themselves. For example, we now know that killer whales in captivity typically don't live to even 10 years once they enter that environment. We also know that they break their teeth on the horizontal steel bars that separate them for training sessions. And if you take a look at their teeth, this might be the reason why they're dying at such an early age."

Source: CBSNews

Baby dolphin deaths spike on Gulf Coast

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:20:00 +0000

Connie Chevis, DVM, left, and Dr. Joey Kaletsch, DVM, take samples while performing a necropsy on a dolphin calf at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport on Monday, February 21 2011. The calf, who is believed to be about four days old, was killed by trauma. Mobi Salangi, executive director for the institute, says there is an unusually high number of dolphin calf deaths for this time of year. They have recovered 17 calves and are performing necropsies to determine the causes of death.

GULFPORT -- Baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines at 10 times the normal rate of stillborn and infant deaths, researchers are finding.

The Sun Herald has learned that 17 young dolphins, either aborted before they reached maturity or dead soon after birth, have been collected along the shorelines.

The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies is doing necropsies, animal autopsies, on two of the babies now.

Moby Solangi, director of the institute, called the numbers an anomaly and told the Sun Herald that they are significant, especially in light of the BP oil spill throughout the spring and summer last year. Millions of barrels of crude oil containing toxins and carcinogens spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil worked its way into the Mississippi and Chandeleur sounds and other bays and shallow waters where dolphins breed and give birth.

This is the first birthing season for dolphins since the spill.

Dolphins breed in the spring and carry their young for 11 to 12 months, Solangi said.

Typically in January and February, there are one or two babies per month found in Mississippi and Alabama, then the birthing season goes into full swing in March and April.

“For some reason, they’ve started aborting or they were dead before they were born,” Solangi said. “The average is one or two a month. This year we have 17 and February isn’t even over yet.”

Deaths in the adult dolphin population rose in the year of the oil spill from a norm of about 30 to 89, Solangi said.

Solangi is gathering tissue and organs for a thorough forensic study of the infant deaths and is cautious about drawing conclusions until the data is in within a couple of weeks.

“We shouldn’t really jump to any conclusions until we get some results,” Solangi said. “But this is more than just a coincidence.”

The institute told the Sun Herald that it has collected 14 infant dolphins in the last two weeks and three in Mississippi today.

The Sun Herald will update this story with more details as they become available.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com/2011/02/20/2881134/baby-dolphin-deaths-spike-on-gulf.html

UN agency sounds alarm over impact of fertilizer and plastic pollution on oceans

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:36:00 +0000

17 February 2011 – Large amounts of phosphorus, a crucial fertilizer, are discharged into oceans as result of inefficiencies in farming and a failure to recycle wastewater, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says in its 2011 Year Book released today, which also voices concern over plastics pollution.

Experts cited in the Year Book, released ahead of the annual gathering of the world’s environment ministers that opens on Monday, says that both phosphorus discharge and new concerns over plastics underline the need for better management of the world’s wastes and improved patterns of consumption and production.

“The phosphorus and marine plastics stories bring into sharp focus the urgent need to bridge scientific gaps but also to catalyze a global transition to a resource-efficient Green Economy in order to realize sustainable development and address poverty,” said Achim Steiner, the UNEP Executive Director.

“Whether it is phosphorus, plastics or any one of the myriad of challenges facing the modern world, there are clearly inordinate opportunities to generate new kinds of employment and new kinds of more efficient industries,” he added.

The UNEP Year Book 2011 has highlighted phosphorus, demand for which has rocketed during the 20th century, in part because of the heated debate over whether or not finite reserves of phosphate rock will soon run out.

An estimated 35 countries produce phosphate rock with the top ten countries having the highest reserves being Algeria, China, Israel, Jordan, Russia, South Africa, Syria and the United States.

New phosphate mines have been commissioned in countries such as Australia, Peru and Saudi Arabia and countries and companies are looking further afield, including on the seabed off the coast of Namibia.

The Year Book calls for a global phosphorus assessment to more precisely map phosphorus flows in the environment and predict levels of economically viable reserves.

“While there are commercially exploitable amounts of phosphate rock in several countries, those with no domestic reserves could be particularly vulnerable in the case of global shortfalls,” the Year Book notes.

Further research is also needed on the way phosphorus travels through the environment to maximize its use in agriculture and livestock production and cut waste while reducing environmental impacts including on rivers and oceans, according to the Year Book.

It also points to the enormous opportunity of recycling wastewater. Up to 70 per cent of this water is laden with nutrients and fertilizers such as phosphorus, which is discharged untreated into rivers and coastal areas.

Other measures to reduce discharges include cutting erosion and the loss of topsoil where large quantities of phosphorus are associated with soil particles and excess fertilizers are stored after application.

The Year Book highlights a new and emerging concern termed “persistent, bio-accumulating and toxic substances” associated with plastic marine waste.

Research indicates that small and tiny pieces of plastic are adsorbing and concentrating from the seawater and sediments a wide range of chemicals from polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) to the pesticide DDT.

“Many of these pollutants including PCBs cause chronic effects such as endocrine disruption, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity,” according to the Year Book.

Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37555&Cr=UNEP&Cr1

Men rescue tangled orca

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:47:00 +0000

A juvenile orca that got tangled in cray pot ropes was "on its last legs" before being rescued off the coast of Kaikoura yesterday.

One of the rescue team, Ian Croucher, described an "amazing scene" when he and three Department of Conservation staff arrived at the point south of Kaikoura, near a landmark known as Barney's Rock, about 3pm.

"When we got there the whole pod was nursing it [the baby] along. They were cradling it, it was really amazing they were holding it up.

"I've never see them acting like that."

As the rescuers arrived the whole pod disappeared, including the baby, he said.

Mr Croucher, the owner of South Bay Fishing Charters, said the team had to search the area in his boat. When the floats of the cray pots appeared they managed to grab the ropes and pull them, with the juvenile orca, alongside the boat.

"It was pretty distressed, it was hanging upside down when we found it."

As the baby orca came to the surface the rest of the pod lined up.

"The pod was happy to have us. I think they realised we were helping and this big male swam right up to the boat and alongside the little guy."

DOC worker Dave Walford used a hook and knife system he designed and made to cut the ropes that had wound around the tail of the young orca a couple of times.

"When it was released it, it gave a couple of kicks and shot the gap. It went away happily with the rest of the pod and they cruised off," Mr Walford said.

"It was an amazing experience. It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. It's a real success story."

DOC staff member Ian Surgenor, who was part of the rescue team, said it was straightforward and done very calmly.

"The whole pod was in a line observing and they were very calm.

"They sort of seemed to know," he said.

As they lifted the baby orca towards the surface there was a lack of resistance, Mr Walford said.

"It was on its last legs, it would have definitely drowned but the pod seemed to have been bringing it to the surface," he said.

Keith Dunlop was the fourth member of the rescue team.

DOC South Marlborough area manager Dave Hayes said cray pot tangles were usually more common with humpback whales.

"It's often younger animals that are playing with the floats that get tangled."

The incident highlighted the need for crayfishermen to make sure there was as little slack as possible in the craypot lines at all times of the year, not just during winter when the humpbacks were migrating, Mr Hayes said.

Mr Hayes thanked Mr Croucher for letting them use his boat for the rescue.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/4675407/Men-rescue-tangled-orca

Rising seas threaten 180 U.S. cities by 2100

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:35:00 +0000

(Reuters) - Rising seas spurred by climate change could threaten 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, a new study says, with Miami, New Orleans and Virginia Beach among those most severely affected.

Previous studies have looked at where rising waters might go by the end of this century, assuming various levels of sea level rise, but this latest research focused on municipalities in the contiguous 48 states with population of 50,000 or more.

Cities along the southern Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico will likely be hardest hit if global sea levels rise, as projected, by about 3 feet (1 meter) by 2100, researchers reported in the journal Climate Change Letters.

Sea level rise is expected to be one result of global warming as ice on land melts and flows toward the world's oceans.

Using data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the scientists were able to calculate in detail how much land could be lost as seas rise, said study author Jeremy Weiss of the University of Arizona.

Rising coastal waters threaten an average of nine percent of the land in the 180 coastal cities in the study.

Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Florida, and Virginia Beach, Virginia could lose more than 10 percent of their land area by century's end, the study found.

New York City, Washington DC and the San Francisco Bay area could face lesser impacts, according to the study.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The effects of higher seas can range from erosion to permanent inundation, and the severity of the damage depends in great measure on where the cities are, Weiss said by telephone on Wednesday.

"In Miami, it's not just strictly along their coastal edge. They have to worry about the issue in all directions," because much of the area around Miami is relatively flat, making it more vulnerable to encroaching waters, Weiss said.

By contrast, he said, people in the New York metropolitan area can concentrate their efforts along the shorelines because the land rises quickly away from the coast.

Sea level rise is expected as a consequence of continuing climate change, which is spurred by human activities including the burning of fossil fuels.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated global average temperature will rise by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) by 2100. However, Weiss and his colleagues put the warming at more like 8 degrees F (4.4 degrees C).

Weiss said the lesser degree of warming projected by the IPCC reflects a moderate scenario. The study's higher temperature estimate is based on the idea that greenhouse emissions will continue along the current trajectory through the century.

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-climate-usa-cities-idINTRE71F7HQ20110216

Whale tracked in 5,300-mile ocean voyage

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:27:00 +0000

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say a 13-year-old gray whale dubbed "Flex" has been tracked by satellite in a migration that's covered more than 5,300 miles.

Tagged in October in Russian waters off Sakhalin Island with a transmitter that reports his location to scientists each day, Flex was tracked past the central California coast on the weekend, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday.

Researchers have calculated his average swimming speed at around 4 mph and say he travels about 100 miles each day.

"These whales swim 24 hours a day," Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, said. "It's not an 8-hour shift. They don't feed during their migration, and they're really moving along."

Flex is a western gray whale and with only 130 known individuals the species is second only to the North Atlantic right whale in terms of large marine mammals approaching extinction.

Little is known of their behavior except that they summer off the Russian coast to feed.

Flex has so far journeyed more than 5,300 miles, almost directly across deep, open ocean waters from Russia to Alaska before turning south.

Though Flex is providing some first clues to the western gray's habits, researchers say they still don't know where he is going, whether long journeys such as his are normal or if he is traveling with other whales.

"That's the wonderful thing about tagging studies," Mate said. "You put the instruments on the animals and they tell their own stories. They go where they go."

Source: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/02/14/Whale-tracked-in-5300-mile-ocean-voyage/UPI-49621297710449/

New Way to Estimate Global Rainfall and Track Ocean Pollution

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:07:00 +0000

University of Miami (UM) scientists have found a new way to estimate global rainfall and track ocean pollution. A portion of the precipitation sampling for the study was carried out at this site, located on the extreme west end of Bermuda, and at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS). The site was erected in the late 1980s by UM Professor Joe Prospero's aerosol research group as part of the Atmosphere-Ocean Research Program. The station is now operated by BIOS. (Credit: UM/RSMAS)

ScienceDaily — A study by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science suggests a new way to estimate how much of the ocean's pollution is falling from the sky. The new findings can help improve scientific understanding of how toxic airborne chemicals, from the burning of fossil fuels and industrial power plants emissions, are impacting the oceans globally.

By measuring Beryllium-7 (⁷Be) isotope concentrations in the ocean, which is found naturally throughout Earth's atmosphere, Rosenstiel School scientists David Kadko and Joseph Prospero were able to provide a method to accurately estimate rainfall in remote regions of the ocean. The two-year study measured ⁷Be deposited in rain collectors at two sites in Bermuda and compared these estimates to those observed in the nearby Sargasso Sea.

"Over vast areas of the oceans the only rainfall data available are those made by using conventional rain collectors placed on islands," said Prospero, professor of marine and atmospheric chemistry at the UM Rosenstiel School. "However, rainfall on the island is not necessarily representative of that which falls in the surrounding ocean. Our paper shows that properly placed rain collectors on Bermuda do yield rainfall rates that agree with those determined through the ⁷Be measurements."

Rainfall is a major pathway by which man-made airborne pollutants and other naturally occurring chemicals enter the oceans. Berrylium-7, like man-made pollutants and other naturally occurring chemicals, attaches itself to atmospheric dust particles and enters the ocean during rain events. By understanding this process, scientists can establish new ways to quantify airborne pollutants deposited to the ocean.

"The accumulation of ⁷Be in the upper ocean provides a means of assessing ⁷Be deposition to the ocean on regional and global scales," said Kadko, professor marine and atmospheric chemistry of at the Rosenstiel and lead author of the study. "This then can be used to assess the deposition of other chemical species."

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110215111849.htm

Got Iron? Even the Ocean Recycles!

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:22:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — In the vast ocean where an essential nutrient -- iron -- is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the ocean food web survives by using a remarkable biochemical trick: It recycles iron.

By day, it uses iron in enzymes for photosynthesis to make carbohydrates; then by night, it appears to reuse the same iron in different enzymes to produce organic nitrogen for proteins.

The bacterium, Crocosphaera watsonii, is one of the few marine microbes that can convert nitrogen gas into organic nitrogen, which (just as it does on land) acts as fertilizer to stimulate plant growth in the ocean. So the ocean's productivity is limited by nitrogen, which in turn is limited by scanty supplies of iron for the enzymes needed to make organic nitrogen.

This newfound capacity to conserve precious iron and use it in day-night shifts to satisfy two different metabolic demands reveals a surprising key to life on our planet, say scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). They reported their findings Jan. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists call the strategy "hot bunking," referring to ships that sail with fewer bunks than sailors on board. The bunks are kept continuously hot, as sailors finishing night shifts hop into bunks newly emptied by sailors arising for day shifts.

Crocosphaera uses iron-containing nitrogenase enzymes to convert dissolved nitrogen gas into organic nitrogen (a process called nitrogen "fixing"). As the sun comes up, the bacterium breaks down these enzymes, releasing iron that can be used to make photosynthetic enzymes needed to convert dissolved carbon dioxide into carbohydrates. When the sun goes down, many of the photosynthetic enzymes are broken down, releasing the iron again to be recycled into nitrogenase.

Crocosphaera belongs to a subgroup of bacteria called cyanobacteria. "They have a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lifestyle: photosynthetic by day and nitrogen-fixing by night," said Mak Saito, a WHOI biogeochemist and lead author of the PNAS paper. Scientists previously knew cyanobacteria had this unusual dual-metabolic capacity, but they did not know how they could accomplish it with meager iron supplies.

The bacterium pays a price in energy needed to destroy and rebuild enzymes each day, but it's worth it to maximize the use of scarce iron. The scientists estimate that by using the hot bunking strategy, the organism can survive with about 40 percent less iron than it would otherwise need. It allows Crocosphaera to thrive and produce life-sustaining organic nitrogen in iron-poor waters that would otherwise be less productive.

The surprising abundance of cyanobacteria in the ocean was discovered in the 1970s by WHOI microbiologist Stanley Watson and his colleagues Frederica Valois and John Waterbury and, who later continued their pioneering research to elucidate cyanobacteria's critical ecological roles for the ocean and the planet. Crocosphaera watsonii is named after the late Dr. Watson.

Cyanobacteria have been notoriously difficult to culture in the laboratory. At WHOI, Waterbury, Valois and colleagues established methods to culture cyanobacteria routinely and reliably, and they maintain a collection of cyanobacteria cells in a new building called the Stanley W. Watson Laboratory. The collection is a sort of lending library of cells that provide cultures for scientists all over the world to study, including new generations of WHOI scientists working in the Watson Lab: Saito, graduate student Erin Bertrand, and lab associates Vladimir Bulygin and Dawn Moran.

They applied new biomedical research techniques to the study of the ocean: proteomics. As genomics studies the genes in an organism (its genome), proteomics studies the proteins made from instructions encoded in genes (its proteome).

"We wanted to know not only what could potentially be made from Crocosphaera's genome, but also what proteins Crocosphaera actually did make," Saito said.

A key part of the technique involves using mass spectrometers that distinguish and measure the various proteins in an organism by the infinitesimal differences in their masses. The researchers measured the inventory of iron-containing proteins during periods of dark and light. Nitrogen-fixing enzymes were largely absent during the day and present at night; iron-containing photosynthetic enzymes decreased during dark periods and reappeared during light periods. Thus, at any time of day, Crocsophaera required only about half the iron it would need if it maintained both sets of enzymes throughout the day.

To explore the implications of Crocosphaera's hot bunking ability, scientists at MIT -- Stephanie Dutkiewicz, Fanny Monteiro and Mick Follows -- used a numerical model that simulates global ocean circulation, biochemistry, and ecosystem dynamics. The model showed that Crocosphaera's ability to reduce its iron requirements allowed it to inhabit ocean regions with low levels of iron. It also allowed the same iron supply to support more growth of the cyanobacteria and more nitrogen fixation that supports other marine life higher up on the food chain.

Funding for the research came from the National Science Foundation, an Environmental Protection Agency Star Fellowship, the WHOI Ocean Life Institute, the NSF-funded Center for Microbial Research and Education, and the Center for Environmental Bioinorganic Chemistry at Princeton University. The paper was dedicated to co-author Vladimir Bulygin, who passed away in June 2010.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110110154649.htm

2010 Tied for Warmest Year on Record, NASA Research Finds

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:45:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Jan. 12, 2011 by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie. In the new analysis, the next warmest years are 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009, which are statistically tied for third warmest year. The GISS records begin in 1880.

The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.34 F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. To measure climate change, scientists look at long-term trends. The temperature trend, including data from 2010, shows the climate has warmed by approximately 0.36 F per decade since the late 1970s.

"If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long," said James Hansen, the director of GISS.

The analysis produced at GISS is compiled from weather data from more than 1000 meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperature and Antarctic research station measurements. A computer program uses the data to calculate temperature anomalies -- the difference between surface temperature in a given month and the average temperature for the same period during 1951 to 1980. This three-decade period acts as a baseline for the analysis.

The resulting temperature record closely matches others independently produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.

The record temperature in 2010 is particularly noteworthy, because the last half of the year was marked by a transition to strong La Niña conditions, which bring cool sea surface temperatures to the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

"Global temperature is rising as fast in the past decade as in the prior two decades, despite year-to-year fluctuations associated with the El Niño-La Niña cycle of tropical ocean temperature," Hansen and colleagues reported in the Dec. 14, 2010, issue of Reviews of Geophysics.

A chilly spell also struck this winter across northern Europe. The event may have been influenced by the decline of Arctic sea ice and could be linked to warming temperatures at more northern latitudes.

Arctic sea ice acts like a blanket, insulating the atmosphere from the ocean's heat. Take away that blanket, and the heat can escape into the atmosphere, increasing local surface temperatures. Regions in northeast Canada were more than 18 degrees warmer than normal in December.

The loss of sea ice may also be driving Arctic air into the middle latitudes. Winter weather patterns are notoriously chaotic, and the GISS analysis finds seven of the last 10 European winters warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980. The unusual cold in the past two winters has caused scientists to begin to speculate about a potential connection to sea ice changes.

"One possibility is that the heat source due to open water in Hudson Bay affected Arctic wind patterns, with a seesaw pattern that has Arctic air downstream pouring into Europe," Hansen said.

For more information about GISS's surface temperature record, click here

A Warming World

Click here to view: Global Temperatures Animation

Source

Epic Journeys of Turtles Revealed Via Satellite Tracking

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:28:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — The epic ocean-spanning journeys of the gigantic leatherback turtle in the South Atlantic have been revealed for the first time thanks to groundbreaking research using satellite tracking.

Experts at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation (Cornwall) at the University of Exeter led a five-year study to find out more about these increasingly rare creatures and inform conservation efforts.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has shed new light on the little-known migration behaviour of these animals -- following their movement from the world's largest breeding colony in Gabon, Central Africa, as they returned to feeding grounds across the South Atlantic.

The research has been carried out with the help of Parcs Gabon, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), PTMG (Marine Turtle Partnership for Gabon), the Trans-Atlantic Leatherback Conservation Initiative (TALCIN) -- a multi-partner effort coordinated by WWF, and SEATURTLE.org

Out of 25 females studied in the new research, three migratory routes were identified -- including one 7,563km (4,699 mile) journey straight across the South Atlantic from Africa to South America.

Other routes still involved large distances, as they moved from Gabon to food-rich habitats in the southwest and southeast Atlantic and off the coast of Central Africa. They will stay in these areas for 2-5 years to build up the reserves to reproduce, when they will return to Gabon once again.

Dr Matthew Witt said: "Despite extensive research carried out on leatherbacks, no-one has really been sure about the journeys they take in the South Atlantic until now. What we've shown is that there are three clear migration routes as they head back to feeding grounds after breeding in Gabon, although the numbers adopting each strategy varied each year. We don't know what influences that choice yet, but we do know these are truly remarkable journeys -- with one female tracked for thousands of miles travelling in a straight line right across the Atlantic."

In the Pacific ocean, leatherback turtles have seen a precipitous decline over the past three decades -- with one nesting colony in Mexico declining from 70,000 in 1982 to just 250 by 1998-9*. The exact cause of the dramatic fall-off in numbers is not clear, but turtle egg harvesting, coastal gillnet fishing, and longline fishing have been identified as potential factors.
In the Atlantic, population levels have been more robust but, due to variations in numbers at nesting sites each year, it's not clear whether they are in decline. Conservationists are keen to take action now to avoid a repeat of the Pacific story.

Dr Brendan Godley said the new research would be vital for informing this conservation strategy: "All of the routes we've identified take the leatherbacks through areas of high risk from fisheries, so there's a very real danger to the Atlantic population. Knowing the routes has also helped us identify at least 11 nations who should be involved in conservation efforts, as well as those with long-distance fishing fleets. There's a concern that the turtles we tracked spent a long time on the High Seas, where it's very difficult to implement and manage conservation efforts, but hopefully this research will help inform future efforts to safeguard these fantastic creatures."

Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Ocean Giants Program, said: "This important work shows that protecting leatherback turtles -- the ancient mariners of our oceans -- requires research and conservation on important nesting beaches, foraging areas and important areas of the high seas. Armed with a better understanding of migration patterns and preferences for particular areas of the ocean, the conservation community can now work toward protecting leatherbacks at sea, which has been previously difficult."

The research was carried out with the financial support of a range of donors, including the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, UK), the Darwin Initiative, the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC, USA) Competitive Grants Program, and the European Association of Zoos & Aquaria (EAZA) Shellshock Campaign.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110104193045.htm

Officials see steady stream of offshore wind projects for city terminal

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:11:00 +0000

NEW BEDFORD — State and local officials Wednesday said the newly announced offshore wind leasing area will likely provide a pipeline of potential projects for the planned New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, in partnership with state officials, released a "request for interest" Tuesday to determine where in the 3,000-square-mile area developers might want to build projects.

The multimillion-dollar terminal, which was announced earlier this year, is designed specifically to support the installation of offshore wind projects; Cape Wind, the nation's first offshore wind farm, will use the terminal as its staging port.

"We've got a comprehensive strategy to make sure Massachusetts is the leader in this area," said state Secretary for Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles.

"Governor (Deval) Patrick's made the New Bedford port a real priority, and it would certainly be something that is top of mind for us."

While the leasing process will ultimately be handled at the federal level, limiting the state's ability to put conditions on the process, Bowles said he thinks the New Bedford terminal will be a natural fit for any projects built in the leasing area.

Additionally, the announcement of the leasing area signals Massachusetts' commitment to and support of the offshore wind industry beyond just the Cape Wind project, Bowles said.
That commitment is critical in helping attract to the state companies in the broader offshore wind supply chain, such as Siemens, according to Bowles.

"What we have always felt about this opportunity is that it is the catalyst for other opportunities," said Matthew Morrissey, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council.

Negotiations to secure the final parcel needed for the approximately 20-acre terminal are on track, Morrissey said, and construction on the terminal is expected to start in June.

Source: http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101230/NEWS/12300372/-1/NEWSMAP

Brazil to replace oil rigs with 'underwater cities'

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:58:00 +0000

Traditional oil rigs will be replaced with “underwater cities” within a decade under ambitious plans being drawn up by Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned energy group.

Petrobras plans to turn science fiction into reality to extract oil from the vast pre-salt oil fields discovered off the south east coast of Brazil.

The plan is to construct 'cities’ more than 2,000 metres under water, containing machines, giant pieces of equipment and robots that could inspect the systems being used to extract millions of barrels of oil. Many operations would be fully automated while others would be controlled by humans at a distance.

“Our target is that we won’t need platforms in ten years from now,” said Carlos Tadeu Fraga, executive manager of the Petrobras Research Centre.

Petrobras already owns virtual reality laboratories where engineers can inspect 3D images of oil fields. But now they want to take a further technological leap by installing floating rig equipment on the sea bed.

The machinery under the sea would be capable of separating oil, gas, water and sand, compressing substances and generating enough energy to keep the operation functioning.

Petrobras will take the first step in turning its plans into reality when it installs machines to separate water and oil in the Marlim oil field in the Campos Basin.

It is having to ambitious to extract the huge reserves in the pre-salt fields, which lie below layers of sand, rock and salt as well as water .

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8228548/Brazil-to-replace-oil-rigs-with-underwater-cities.html

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Human Noise Pollution in Ocean Can Lead Fish Away from Good Habitats and Off to Their Death

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:42:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — The growing amount of human noise pollution in the ocean could lead fish away from good habitat and off to their death, according to new research from a UK-led team working on the Great Barrier Reef.

After developing for weeks at sea, baby tropical fish rely on natural noises to find the coral reefs where they can survive and thrive. However, the researchers found that short exposure to artificial noise makes fish become attracted to inappropriate sounds.

In earlier research, Dr Steve Simpson, Senior Researcher in the University of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences discovered that baby reef fish use sounds made by fish, shrimps and sea urchins as a cue to find coral reefs. With human noise pollution from ships, wind farms and oil prospecting on the increase, he is now concerned that this crucial behaviour is coming under threat.

He said: "When only a few weeks old, baby reef fish face a monumental challenge in locating and choosing suitable habitat. Reef noise gives them vital information, but if they can learn, remember and become attracted towards the wrong sounds, we might be leading them in all the wrong directions."

Using underwater nocturnal light traps, Dr Simpson and his team collected baby damselfish as they were returning to coral reefs. The fish were then put into tanks with underwater speakers playing natural reef noise or a synthesised mix of pure tones. The next night the fish were put into specially designed choice chambers (long tubes with contrasting conditions at each end in which fish can move freely towards the end they prefer) with natural or artificial sounds playing. All the fish liked the reef noise, but only the fish that had experienced the tone mix swam towards it, the others were repelled by it.

Dr Simpson said: "This result shows that fish can learn a new sound and remember it hours later, debunking the 3-second memory myth."

His collaborator, Dr Mark Meekan added: "It also shows that they can discriminate between sounds and, based on their experience, become attracted to sounds which might really mess up their behaviour on the most important night of their life."

In noisy environments the breakdown of natural behaviour could have devastating impacts on success of populations and the replenishment of future fish stocks.

Dr Simpson said: "Anthropogenic noise has increased dramatically in recent years, with small boats, shipping, drilling, pile driving and seismic testing now sometimes drowning out the natural sounds of fish and snapping shrimps. If fish accidentally learn to follow the wrong sounds, they could end up stuck next to a construction site or follow a ship back out to sea."

The study is published in Behavioral Ecology and was carried out at Lizard Island Research Station. The work was supported with a fellowship for Dr Simpson from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and by the Australian Institute of Marine Science for Dr Mark Meekan.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100803212015.htm

Drifting Fish Larvae Allow Marine Reserves to Rebuild Fisheries

noreply@blogger.com (Oceanic Defense) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:56:00 +0000

ScienceDaily — Marine ecologists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that tiny fish larvae can drift with ocean currents and "re-seed" fish stocks significant distances away -- more than 100 miles in a new study from Hawaii.

The findings add credibility to what scientists have believed for some time, but until now been unable to directly document. The study also provides a significant demonstration of the ability of marine reserves to rebuild fishery stocks in areas outside the reserves.

The research appears in PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.

"We already know that marine reserves will grow larger fish and some of them will leave that specific area, what we call spillover," said Mark Hixon, a professor of marine biology at OSU. "Now we've clearly shown that fish larvae that were spawned inside marine reserves can drift with currents and replenish fished areas long distances away.

"This is a direct observation, not just a model, that successful marine reserves can sustain fisheries beyond their borders," he said. "That's an important result that should help resolve some skepticism about reserves. And the life cycle of our study fish is very similar to many species of marine fish, including rockfishes and other species off Oregon. The results are highly relevant to other regions."

The findings were based on the creation in 1999 of nine marine protected areas on the west coast of the "big island" of Hawaii. They were set up in the face of serious declines of a beautiful tropical fish called yellow tang, which formed the basis for an important trade in the aquarium industry.

"This fishery was facing collapse about 10 years ago," Hixon said. "Now, after the creation of marine reserves, the fishery is doing well."

The yellow tang was an ideal fish to help answer the question of larval dispersal because once its larvae settle onto a reef and begin to grow, they are not migratory, and live in a home range about half a mile in diameter. If the fish are going to move any significant distance from where they are born, it would have to be as a larva -- a young life form about the size of a grain of rice -- drifting with the currents for up to two months before settling back to adult habitats.

Mark Christie, an OSU postdoctoral research associate and lead author of the study, developed some new approaches to the use of DNA fingerprinting and sophisticated statistical analysis that were able to match juvenile fish with their parents, wherever they may have been from. In field research from 2006, the scientists performed genetic and statistical analyses on 1,073 juvenile and adult fish, and found evidence that many healthy juvenile fish had spawned from parents long distances away, up to 114 miles, including some from marine protected areas.

"This is similar to the type of forensic technology you might see on television, but more advanced," Christie said. "We're optimistic it will help us learn a great deal more about fish movements, fishery stocks, and the genetic effects of fishing, including work with steelhead, salmon, rockfish and other species here in the Pacific Northwest."

This study should help answer some of the questions about the ability of marine reserves to help rebuild fisheries, the scientists said. It should also add scientific precision to the siting of reserves for that purpose, which is just one of many roles that a marine reserve can play. Many states are establishing marine reserves off their coasts, and Oregon is in the process of developing a limited network of marine reserves to test their effectiveness. The methods used in this study could also become a powerful new tool to improve fisheries management, Hixon said.

"Tracking the movement of fish larvae in the open ocean isn't the easiest thing in the world to do," Hixon said. "It's not like putting a radio collar on a deer. This approach will provide valuable information to help optimize the placement of reserves, identify the boundaries of fishery stocks, and other applications."

The issue of larval dispersal is also important, the researchers say, because past studies at OSU have shown that large, fat female fish produce massive amounts of eggs and sometimes healthier larvae than smaller fish. For example, a single two-foot vermillion rockfish produces more eggs than 17 females that are 14 inches long.

But these same large fish, which have now been shown to play key roles in larval production and fish population replenishment, are also among those most commonly sought in fisheries.

The study was done in collaboration with the University of Hawaii, Washington State University, National Marine Fisheries Services and the Hawaii Department of Natural Resources. It was funded by Conservation International.

"The identification of connectivity between distant reef fish populations on the island of Hawaii demonstrates that human coastal communities are also linked," the researchers wrote in their conclusion. "Management in one part of the ocean affects people who use another part of the ocean."

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101222173105.htm