Achilles Tang

Cute! Now's where the green tea icecream?

Since 1983, sports fishermen from the Drammen River in Norway have been saving the scales of Atlantic salmon, caught as they return from years at sea to spawn in fresh water. Researchers are using these scales to solve the mystery of why most of these endangered fish never survive their ocean stay. Climate change may be one of several factors affecting this temperature sensitive species, bringing warmer water to the nursery areas and decreasing the numbers of small fish that salmon depend on for food. View the full article

In a decision that could jeopardize already imperiled sturgeons, more caviar will be exported from Caspian Sea and Amur River states this year as a result of unacceptably permissive new trade quotas announced by CITES, according to the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. These quotas will further damage this ancient fish's chance of recovery and survival, since sturgeon must be killed to harvest their eggs which are then processed into caviar, the group says. View the full article

Biologists studying tropical tuna fisheries aimed to establish if the use of drifting fish aggregation devices, a technique employed increasingly for industrial-scale tuna fishery, could act as just such an ecological trap for these species. Examination revealed that the tuna species caught from under the floating objects had less plumpness and were therefore less healthy than those taken from free schools. View the full article

A new study helps explain a cyclic increase and decrease of jellyfish populations, which transformed parts of the Bering Sea -- one of the United States' most productive fisheries -- into veritable jellytoriums during the 1990s. View the full article

Throughout the overlooked depths of Lake Michigan and other Great Lakes, a small but important animal is rapidly disappearing. Until recently, the animal -- a shrimplike, energy-dense creature called Diporeia -- was a major food source for commercially important species like lake whitefish and many prey fish upon which salmon, trout and walleye rely. View the full article

Seafloor bacteria are more abundant and diverse than previously thought, appearing to "eat" the planet's oceanic crust, according to a new study in Nature. The findings pose intriguing questions about ocean chemistry and the co-evolution of Earth and life, such as 'where do these bacteria find their energy?' View the full article

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that are the base of the food chain in oceans and lakes. Some phytoplankton can produce toxins that are harmful to other marine organisms, including fish. Researchers have studied the DNA of phytoplankton in order to identify and quantify different types of harmful phytoplankton species. New work forms a key piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding when and how harmful phytoplankton species, such as e.g. the "killer algae" become dominant and threaten to kill off fish. View the full article

New research into gigantic flying reptiles has found they weren't all gull-like predators grabbing fish from the water but that some were strongly adapted for life on the ground. Pterosaurs lived during the age of dinosaurs 230 to 65 million years ago. A new study on one particular type of pterosaur, the azhdarchids, claims they were more likely to stalk animals on foot than fly. View the full article

In 2003, haddock on Georges Bank experienced the largest baby boom ever documented for the stock, with an estimated 800 million new young fish entering the population. With typical annual averages of 50 to 100 million new fish in the last few decades, fisheries biologists have been puzzled by the huge increase and its ramifications for stock management. They have been looking for answers and may have found one -- healthy adults. View the full article

The diversity of species increases from the poles to the tropics, but until now bacteria were thought to be an exception. A new study shows that bacteria follow the same pattern and provides new insight in a long debate about the relative importance of temperature and sunlight in driving biodiversity. View the full article

Emissions of carbon dioxide through human activities have a well known impact on the Earth's climate. What is not so well known is that the absorption of this carbon dioxide by the oceans is causing inexorable acidification of sea water. But what impact is this phenomenon having on marine organisms and ecosystems? View the full article

Looks like sticky threads to secure itself to the glass.

A new report, Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Habitats of the Chesapeake Bay, shows in vivid detail the dramatic effects of sea-level rise on the largest estuary in the US, which sustains more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals including great blue herons and sea turtles. If global warming continues unabated, projected rising sea levels will significantly reshape the region's coastal landscape, threatening waterfowl hunting and recreational saltwater fishing in Virginia and Maryland, according to the report by the National Wildlife Federation. View the full article

Many lao jiaos still around lurking but not posting. Anyway... these topics are evergreen. Many use the old threads for research for information that are still very relevant today.

The first study to determine the global threat status of 21 species of wide-ranging oceanic pelagic sharks and rays reveals serious overfishing and recommends key steps that governments can take to safeguard populations. Sharks and rays are particularly vulnerable to overfishing due to their tendency to take many years to become sexually mature and have relatively few offspring. These findings are published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. View the full article

The nitrogen cycle plays a major role in seagrass fields. A Dutch researcher studied the nitrogen dynamics of seagrasses in Indonesia. He discovered that the interaction between seagrasses, animals and microorganisms results in an efficient nitrogen cycle in tropical seagrass fields. Consequently the nitrogen lost from seagrasses is still retained. View the full article

Following a three-year legal battle to protect the polar bear from extinction due to global warming, three environmental groups won protection for the species with the announcement May 14 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is listing the polar bear as a federally "threatened" species. While the polar bear listing is one of the administration's clearest acknowledgments to date of the urgent threat posed by global warming, the administration is simultaneously attempting to reduce the protections the bear will receive under the Act. View the full article

The number of humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean has increased since international and federal protections were enacted in the 1960s and 70s, according to a new study conducted by more than 400 whale researchers throughout the Pacific region. However, some humpback populations still slow to recover. View the full article

Jimm, You don't get the point! It looks like the fish is smiling! That's the whole point!! Beautiful shot, imppie!

Sandy Sutherland looks through the lens of the microscope at tiny sections of fish earbones, known as otoliths, each showing annual bands of growth. She carefully counts the bands to determine the age of the fish, then moves on to the next sample. Known as an age reader, Sutherland is one of a small team at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center whose aging work is critical to stock assessments needed to manage the nation's fishery resources in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. View the full article

High temperatures will increase metabolic rates and shorten the lifespans of livestock. Temperature also affects the level of dissolved oxygen in the water plus increase the effect of certain toxens. Best to keep your termperature to below 30 if possible for FOWLR tanks with sensitive livestock.

First identified in 1899, y-larvae have been one of the greatest zoological mysteries for over a century. No one has ever found an adult of these puzzling crustaceans, despite the plethora of these larvae in plankton, leading generations of marine zoologists to wonder just what y- larvae grow up to be. A new study reports the transformation of the larvae into a previously unseen, wholly un-crustacean-like, parasitic form. View the full article

Largely unexplored deep-sea coral reefs, some perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old, off the coast of the southeastern US are not only larger than expected but also home to commercially valuable fish populations and many newly discovered and unusual species. Results from a series of NOAA-funded expeditions to document these previously unstudied and diverse habitats and their associated marine life have revealed some surprising results. View the full article

Scientists, plumbing the secrets of a vast underwater mountain range south of New Zealand, captured the first images of a novel "Brittlestar City" that colonized against daunting odds the peak of a seamount. Millions of starfish-like creatures catch passing food in 4 km/h current and cod shelter from 'rattling' current in folds of huge bubblegum coral in this marine metropolis. View the full article