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May 26th, 2008: Litterbugs a pest to wildlife!

Littering and throwing away garbage without thinking about it can affect wildlife. Be careful what you do with your garbage, especially plastics, our columnists write.

Last week we were in Monterey, Calif., for a conference and visited the Aquarium on Cannery Row. If you ever find yourself in Monterey, the Aquarium is excellent and well worth the price of admission, but that’s not the point of the story.

An injured albatross makes its home at the Aquarium, and its keepers were talking about some of the threats these magnificent birds face.

An albatross nesting on atolls in the middle of the Pacific may fly as far as the California coast foraging for food on the open ocean before returning to feed chicks. They scan the surface looking for food, any small fish or invertebrates. Unfortunately, what they often swallow is plastic.

There are several major gyres in the world’s oceans. These are areas where ocean currents form a vortex and the water at the centre of the vortex is relatively still. Trash that is carried to the centre of these gyres is retained and concentrated. According to a white paper prepared by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, in the North Pacific Central Gyre the quantity of plastic debris is more than six times greater than that of zooplankton (small animals that are eaten by birds, fish, and sea turtles).

While visiting the Aquarium, we were shown a bottle that contained the stomach contents of a dead albatross chick. Most of the contents were familiar — a few caps from plastic pop bottles, a cigarette holder, scraps of plastic bags, beads, etc. A study cited in the previously mentioned white paper estimated 40 per cent of all premature albatross chick deaths were related to ingestion of plastics collected by parents at sea.

But this isn’t just about the albatross. Oceanic gyres are naturally rich foraging areas for a variety of animals such as birds, fish, and sea turtles, and many species feeding in these areas of the ocean are affected by our waste. One study estimated more than 250 marine species are harmed by plastics, either through ingestion or entanglement.

This article is also not just about marine animals we do not encounter in central Canada. Watch a pigeon on the sidewalk and you will see it sampling a variety of different “foods” including cigarette butts and bits of plastic, especially if it is a food wrapper. Maybe pigeons don’t inspire much sympathy, but many animals, particularly visual feeders, are not good at distinguishing food from debris. Think about how easy it is to trick a fish into striking a plastic fly.

We need to be careful about what we do with our garbage, especially plastics. Overflowing trash bins, carelessly discarded garbage, or scraps that escape our recycling bins can all get into the environment and be mistaken for food (perhaps here or after it has been transported thousands of kilometres).

Minimize the chances for your garbage to escape. If you have street-side recycling and garbage pickup, take it out in the morning and give the raccoons and neighbourhood cats less time to tear open the bags. Cover your recycling bins so the wind doesn’t carry away the lighter scraps.

Enjoy the wildlife, but please do not feed the animals (your trash). Source

May 22nd, 2008: Rapid acidification puts marine life in grave danger
Photograph: Paul Humann/PA

James Randerson: Scientists conducting a major survey of the North American Pacific coast have found significant increases in acidity that could have a profound effect on sea life.

Rising ocean acidity has been predicted by scientists as a consequence of increased CO2 emissions, but the new research suggests that in some parts of the ocean these increases are happening much faster than predicted. The change seen in the surveys was not expected until 2050.

Experts predict that the changes could have a catastrophic effect on marine life. More acidic seawater means that species such as shellfish, plankton and coral will have much more difficulty making their shells and hard skeletons. That will seriously reduce the productivity of the entire food chain, changing ocean ecology and leading potentially to drastic reductions in fish stocks.

"It's very worrying," said Dr Carol Turley, at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. "The marine food web is extremely complex so [the effects are] very hard to predict. Whether it will support the kind of food web we are used to seeing and depending on in future is anyone's guess really."

She was an author of a major report from the Royal Society in 2005 on ocean acidification. It predicted that the impact would go beyond marine ecosystems and fisheries. "The socioeconomic effects of ocean acidification could be substantial. Damage to coral reef ecosystems and the fisheries and recreation industries that depend on them could amount to economic losses of many billions of dollars per year," the authors wrote.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also flagged up ocean acidification as a problem in its fourth assessment report in 2007. It said that human carbon emissions had already reduced average ocean pH by 0.1 units. By 2100 pH could fall by a further 0.5, equivalent to a tripling of the concentration of hydrogen ions.

Higher greenhouse gas emissions lead to more acid seas because around half the CO2 humans produce is soaked up by the oceans. Here it forms carbonic acid, altering the ocean chemistry and making carbonate ions less available to hard-shelled marine creatures. In the new research, Richard Feeley at the US government agency the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and his colleagues sampled ocean chemistry along 13 survey lines stretching from central Canada to northern Mexico. They found acidic water much closer to the surface than expected.

The results are reported today in the journal Science.

"This upwelling water is going to intermittently — once a year or so — flood in for a number of months into our productive shallow seas," said Turley. This would be corrosive to some marine creatures, she said, in effect dissolving the calcium carbonate in their shells.

That does not mean that species will immediately die, but it does mean they have to use huge amounts of energy just to maintain their shells. The great concern for scientists is the speed at which the changes are happening. "What it does indicate is that [marine species] may not have time to adapt as we might have hoped for," said Turley. Source

May 22nd, 2008: Shark fin soup threatens species
OVERFISHING driven in part by an insatiable appetite for shark-fin soup has threatened 11 species of the ocean-dwelling predators with extinction, according to a new report.

The first study to assess the worldwide status of 21 species of pelagic sharks and rays - those living and hunting in open seas - found that more than half are rapidly being fished out of existence.

Particularly vulnerable species include the short-finned mako, the thresher and the silky, said the report, to be published in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems.

"Despite mounting evidence of decline and increasing threats to these species, there are no international catch limits for oceanic sharks," said co-author Sonja Fordham, a researcher at the Ocean Conservancy and Shark Alliance in Brussels.

"Our research shows that action is urgently needed on a global level if these fisheries are to be sustainable."

Many big shark species have fallen prey to booming Asian economies where shark-fin soup is prized as a must-have delicacy at weddings and other banquet occasions. The fins are often sliced off of living fish which are then discarded in the sea.

Accidental "by-catch" by industrial fishing operations have also decimated shark populations, the study said.

Sharks and big rays are especially vulnerable to overfishing because they take many years to reach sexual maturity and have relatively few offspring.

"We are losing species at a rate 10 to 100 times greater than historic rates," said the study's lead author, Nicholas Dulvy, a professor at Sime Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

The report, presented at a major UN conference on biodiversity in Bonn, calls for the establishment and enforcement of science-based catch limits for sharks and rays, and a ban on the practice of "shark finning."

The 11-day Bonn conference seeks to prevent the destruction of countless plant and animal species.

It is the ninth of its kind of countries who signed up to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Source

May 19th, 2008: Humpback playtime a Sound idea
SOUNDS LIKE FUN: Two Humpback whales accompanied by a pod of dolphins frolic in Grove Arm in the Marlborough Sounds.

Two humpback whales heading to northern breeding grounds made a playful detour to the Marlborough Sounds at the weekend, delighting sightseers and researchers.
The adult and juvenile humpbacks were spotted from a water taxi in the Grove Arm of Queen Charlotte Sound - 10 minutes by boat from Picton - at 9am on Saturday.
Dan Engelhaupt, of Dolphin Watch Ecotours, caught up with the whales soon after and followed their leisurely progress up and down the sound.
At one point the pair stopped for a play, with the young whale popping its head out of the water to ‘‘watch the watchers'', said Engelhaupt. He and wife Amy are involved in an international whale research project.
He said the whales appeared to enjoy their stop-off, rubbing past each other, and at one stage sliding under the Dolphin Watch boat -an impressive sight in the clear water.
The pass showed the adult was 1m to 2m longer than the 13m boat.
The knobbly-headed whales drew a cluster of boats and a pod of dusky dolphins that shadowed their movements, riding in the whales' pressure wave.
Engelhaupt said that later in the day sightseers were treated to amore impressive sight, with the whales breaching - throwing their massive upper bodies out of the water.
The whales were last sighted on Saturday afternoon heading towards Cook Strait where they would continue their journey from Antarctic feeding grounds to warmer northern waters for breeding.
Engelhaupt took a skin biopsy from the whales, using an air-propelled dart. The samples will be analysed and compared with other DNA to help track their migration patterns.
Southern humpbacks were known to breed in Australian and New Caledonian waters.
Engelhaupt said the bulk of the whale migration north happened in mid-June when he and his wife would join former whalers in a Cook Strait tracking project. Source

May 19th, 2008: Marine Scientists Discover Millions of Starfish Inhabiting Undersea Volcano
Brittle stars swirl in the subantarctic current.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny starfish swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.

An expedition by 19 scientists, including five from Australia, studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts.

They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes — dormant for millions of years — that stretches 875 miles from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.

Expedition leader and marine biologist Ashley Rowden said starfish usually cover only slopes away from the top of the undersea mountains.

"It got us excited as soon as we saw it," Rowden said of the site, dubbed "Brittle Star City."

"It was unique in that it [the vast brittle star grouping] hasn't been found on the tops of sea mounts before ... [and] it was over a relatively large area" of about 60 square miles, he said.

The starfish are about 0.4 inch across, with arms about 2 inches long.

The sight of the starfishes' sweeping, mucus-coated arms in the strong current "was like herds of wildebeests sweeping majestically across the plains," Rowden said.

The expedition began March 26 and returned to port in New Zealand's capital Wellington on April 26. Commitments of key scientists in the group delayed discussion of the findings until now.

The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current — the Antarctic Circumpolar Current — amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean.

While the expedition's cameras found a wide range of corals, a high density of cardinal fish and the huge bubblegum coral, the vast collection of brittle stars was the highlight of the voyage.

"I've personally never seen anything like this — all these animals, the sheer volume — all waiting for food from the current," expedition member and marine biologist Dr. Mireille Consalvey said Monday. "It challenged what we as scientists thought we knew."

Melbourne-based marine biologist Tim O'Hara, a brittle star specialist, said the vast collection of brittle stars, or ophiuroid ophiacantha, is "like a relic of ancient times."

He said the find was like a flashback to 300 million years ago when there weren't many fish and the early relatives of brittle star used to carpet the sea floor.

"Normally fish would prey on them and eat them ... so for whatever reason there's a lack of fish predation there and it's seen this particular animal flourish," he said.

O'Hara, who was not part of the voyage, said the speed of the sea current in the area may partly explain why fish were not feeding on the tiny animals.

The Circumpolar Current merges the waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and carries up to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all the world's rivers, oceanographer Mike Williams said.

Australian oceanographer Steve Rintoul, who was not involved in the expedition, said there have been few measurements of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which "strongly influences regional and global climate" by carrying vast amounts of water and heat across oceans.

Fewer than 200 of the world's estimated 100,000 sea mounts that rise more than a half a mile above the sea floor have been studied in any detail. Source

May 13th, 2008: Wildlife populations 'plummeting'
Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.
Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, it says.
Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.
River dolphin
The Living Planet Index, compiled by the society in partnership with the wildlife group WWF, tracks the fortunes of more than 1,400 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, using scientific publications and online databases.

It said numbers had declined by 27% in the 35 years from 1970 to 2005. Some of the worst hit are marine species which saw their numbers plummet by 28% in just 10 years, between 1995 and 2005. Populations of ocean birds have fallen by 30% since the mid 1990s, while land-based populations have dropped by 25%.

Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply
James Leape
Director general, WWF UK

Among the creatures most seriously affected have been African antelopes, swordfish and hammerhead sharks.
Another, the baiji - or Yangtze River Dolphin - may have been lost altogether.
The findings were released ahead of a meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity in the German city of Bonn.
The convention was signed in 1992 with the aim of stabilising the loss of species. In 2002, member states pledged to achieve a "significant reduction" in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
But the Zoological Society said governments had since failed to put in place policies necessary to achieve that goal.
It said that while species' decline does appear to have flattened off in recent years, it is "very unlikely" that the 2010 target will be reached. Impact on humans

May 13th, 2008: Whale sightings 'quadrupled over last 10 yrs'

The New South Wales Government says daily sightings of whales off the east coast have quadrupled over the last decade. This week marks the start of the whale migration season, which runs until July.

Environment Minister Verity Firth says while whales are still hunted in some parts of the world, their numbers are increasing. "Hunting levels on the whole are down and this has seen a return of the species," she said.

"A recent study has shown that over the last decade numbers are now recovering strongly and have quadrupled over the last decade to more than 1,500 a year, so that's good news." Ms Firth says the state's coastline provides a sanctuary for whales to calve, mate and rest.

"What is good about NSW is that 34 per cent of our coastline is in marine park where we have protection for species, including sanctuary zones," she said. "There is a sense that NSW coastal waters are particularly protected for whales and other fish species." Source

May 12th, 2008: The Trouble with Tuna

Tuna is a popular food. More than one million tons of tuna are consumed annually in the United States and Japan, the world’s two largest tuna markets. Tuna is the most popular fish in the American diet and is second only to shrimp as the most popular seafood. The average American eats more than three pounds of tuna every year.
If you are a fish eater, there are good reasons to eat tuna. It is very healthy, with lots of protein and very little fat compared to other meats, and it is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. (Vegeterian sources include some seed oils, purslane, algae, and nut oils.)
There are also good reasons not to eat tuna. Like many other ocean fish, it contains mercury, which is toxic to humans. For this reason the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends limiting the amount you eat, especially if you are a pregnant woman.
Fish eaters and vegetarians alike also recognize that decades of overfishing of tuna throughout the world has caused some tuna populations to collapse and has pushed others to the brink of collapse. Eating a threatened or endangered species of tuna only serves to hasten the day when it becomes extinct.
Finally, the methods used by large commercial fishing vessels to remove tuna from the oceans in species-threatening numbers also result in the killing of countless numbers of other kinds of marine animals—such as dolphins and birds—as bycatch.
The best way to help ensure the recovery of tuna populations and to minimize the harm to other marine life caused by commercial tuna fishing is to avoid eating tuna altogether and to encourage others to do the same. Short of that, educating yourself about the choices you make at supermarkets and seafood restaurants can help to give tuna a fighting chance at a future. Truly conscientious tuna consumers will know what kind of tuna they eat, where it has been, and how it was caught. Know your tuna

May 10th, 2008: DoC all at sea on things marine
By Geoff Cumming: Marine life is under threat from coastal development, sediment and agricultural run-off, aquaculture and commercial fishing while biodiversity faces long-term threats from climate change.

Environmentalist Raewyn Peart loves darting like a guppy around our undersea realm, from fish of all shapes and sizes to colourful sponges, kelps and corals. She's keen to pass on her love of snorkelling to her daughter and, in late summer, headed for Matai Bay in the Far North, where the marine life was reputedly as scenic as the majestic, horse-shoe shaped bay. She was shattered by the degradation.

"It was appalling - just barren. There were no sea eggs and it had been stripped of seaweed. It was a site of devastation and, for me, that's incredibly upsetting."

Peart is doubly concerned at the Department of Conservation's plan to axe its specialist marine conservation unit in a bid to cut costs at head office.

"Our marine environment is in a terrible state," says the senior policy analyst with the Environmental Defence Society.

"We have a well-resourced and politically-powerful ministry [MFish] whose core focus is utilising and exploiting it. We don't have an effective organisation that can really counter-balance that in the policy-making area."

Under closely-guarded restructuring plans, director-general of conservation Al Morrison has proposed "mainstreaming" the marine unit's functions - asking staff in DoC's 13 conservancies to absorb the marine unit's work. The restructuring follows a ministerial directive to trim $8 million a year for the next three years - or 3 per cent of annual funding - from the department's budget.

Morrison signalled the need for savings in February and, by last month, the review he initiated had proposed 56 job losses - 30 from head office and 26 from the regions. Ten of the cuts will come from non-replacement of technical support staff who have left. Staff have until Monday to respond to the proposals.

Those in the firing line include not just marine scientists but biosecurity staff - whose jobs would transfer to Biosecurity New Zealand - and social scientists with archaeological and heritage expertise. But it is the loss of the marine policy unit which is causing most alarm at a time when, experts argue, the Government should be putting more resources, not less, into protecting our marine environment.

The marine unit has been pivotal to the Labour-led Government's drive to expand the number of marine reserves - a tortuous process which pits DoC against the fishing industry, MFish and recreational fishers. Its scientists also provide policy advice on biodiversity and protection for threatened species such as Hector's dolphin and the New Zealand (Hooker's) sea lion.

Mary Sewell, senior lecturer in marine biology at Auckland University, says the move follows the Government's shelving of efforts to develop an overarching Oceans Policy, while attempts to give DoC more clout to create marine reserves have taken six years to be brought before Parliament. Source

May 8th, 2008: Germany warns of economic risks from species loss
BERLIN (Reuters) - Nations must act to slow extinction rates, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday, arguing the loss of species threatened food supplies for billions of people.

Just 10 days before the start of a U.N. summit on biodiversity in the western city of Bonn, Gabriel told the German parliament that both industrialized and developing countries had to step up their efforts.

"When we talk about biodiversity, we are talking about an instruction manual for the planet," Gabriel said. "There are a huge number of examples to show this is about the survival of billions of people."

Gabriel, due to open the Bonn summit, pointed to marine life as an example.

"If we don't do anything, there won't be any more commercial fishing by 2050. Imagine what that means for the world's food supplies," Gabriel said, noting several billion people rely on protein from fish to survive.

U.N. experts say human activity, including the emission of greenhouse gases, threatens to cause the worst spate of extinctions on earth since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Some experts say three species disappear every hour.

Gabriel also pointed to a rice virus which wiped out many of the world's varieties of rice. He said scientists found one type of rice that was resistant to the virus.

"That stopped the destruction of rice stocks around the world and people dying of hunger. Imagine if we had destroyed this variety of rice through development," he said.

About 4,000 international experts and government ministers will try to agree on ways to slow the rate of loss of plants and animals at the Bonn Convention on Biological Diversity meeting. Source

May 6th, 2008: Scientists To Examine World’s Weirdest Whale

International Scientists To Examine Rare Pygmy Right Whale, The World’s Weirdest Whale, At Te Papa

Scientists from Australia, the United States and New Zealand have gathered at Te Papa for the dissection of a pygmy right whale Caperea marginata to study the anatomy and evolutionary relationships of this unusual species.

Despite having a head that looks like a tiny right whale, scientists do not believe that the pygmy right whale is closely related to its much larger namesake. One peculiarity is the number of ribs the species has - more numerous than other whale species, some of which are flattened and overlap. As there is no fossil record of this species, scientists are intrigued by the opportunity to explain where this species fits into whale evolution.

The pygmy right whale is the smallest baleen whale that grows up to 6.5m long. It is a southern hemisphere species, found most often around New Zealand and southern Australia. The specimen being examined this week (an infant whale about 2m long and weighing 141kg) was stranded in the Far North in May 2007 and sent to Te Papa with agreement by local iwi, Ngäti Kuri and Te Aupouri, and the Department of Conservation.

‘The first major anatomical examination of pygmy right whales was facilitated by Te Papa in 1996’, said Dr Carol Diebel, Te Papa’s Natural Environment director.

‘Twelve years on, there has been renewed interest in the species and this team of scientists will be focussing on questions raised during the first examination,’ Dr Diebel said.

Scientists will be completing a detailed examination of the pygmy right whale’s larynx that will add to the global scientific community’s understanding of low frequency sound production in baleen whales. The specimen’s musculature will be documented in detail to allow for comparisons with other species and a better understanding of the remarkable and unique anatomical features of this species.

Anton van Helden, Te Papa’s marine mammals collections’ manager will lead the dissection in Te Papa’s necropsy room in the Tory St facility starting on Tuesday 6 May. The detailed examination is likely to take three to four days.

‘This is an incredible opportunity for Te Papa to host an international collaboration of leading whale scientists in an investigation of such a rare and unusual species from this region,’ said Mr van Helden.

‘We are pleased that the world’s leading authority on pygmy right whales, Dr Catherine Kemper of The South Australian Museum will be here along with Dr Joy Reidenberg of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; Dr Sentiel Rommel of the University of North Carolina and Otago University’s Dr Ewan Fordyce,’ Mr van Helden said.

The scientists will be documenting the dissection via Te Papa’s blog, http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/ and will present an overview of pygmy right whales and current research in an event organised by the Friends of Te Papa on Wednesday evening at Te Papa. Source

May 5th, 2008: Name a Species!

Maybe a squiggly-wiggly, or a fishamazoo? This newly-discovered species needs a name, and you can choose it, for a price.
As a fundraising venture, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego is inviting donors to name new species.

Every year the institution's researchers discover new species of marine creatures from deep within the vast global oceans. Some specimens set new records, such as the stout infantfish below (Schindleria brevipinguis), co-described by Scripps as the world's smallest fish in 2004.

Traditionally, the person who first describes a newfound plant or animal is entitled to name it, but now, Scripps is inviting the public to share in the process by naming select newly discovered species acquired by the institution. The names can be selected by a donor for his or herself, or a friend or family member, and are then introduced in scientific publications that establish the new species name permanently.

Currently, the Scripps Oceanographic Collections hold several new marine species that are available for naming. They include a rare hydrothermal vent worm ($50,000), two types of worms found living on deep-sea whale bones ($25,000), an orange, speckled nudibranch ($15,000), and a spiny worm found in the kelp forests of La Jolla cove( $10,000). Several fishes from the Gulf of California as well as several new species discovered in local La Jolla waters are also available to be named.

The cost to name Scripps' newly discovered creatures starts at $5,000. Donors who name a species will receive a framed print of their named organism, as well as a copy of the scientific publication in which it is first described.
Funds raised through the new naming opportunity will be used to help maintain and build upon the Scripps Oceanographic Collections for future generations of scientists. Source

May 5th, 2008: DECLINE IN OCEAN OXYGEN FOUND
Marine scientists led by Dr. Lothar Stramma from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany say they have made an alarming new discovery - in some regions of the world oceans, oxygen essential for marine organisms is declining. The new study documents that the oxygen values in tropical oceans at a depth of 300 to 700 meters have declined during the past 50 years. As large marine organisms can either no longer exist in these areas or they would avoid them, the expanding oxygen minimum zones may have substantial biological and economical consequences. . .

"We found the largest reduction in a depth of 300-700 m in the tropical northeast Atlantic, whereas the changes in the eastern Indian Ocean were much less pronounced", explains Dr. Stramma. "Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved", Stramma continues. The reduction in oxygen may also be caused by natural processes on shorter time scales" Nevertheless, the results are consistent with model results which predict a further decline in the future. Source

May 5th, 2008: Gigantic marine posters educate and entertain

A New Zealand-led project to produce an authoritative register of all the world's marine species is being publicised with a series of gigantic street posters unveiled in Christchurch.

The street posters, with each series measuring 75m long, were put together by Saatchi & Saatchi to advertise an underwater camera, but also each feature a million words about the sea and sea creatures.

Each 75m span includes the full texts of Moby Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, plus the names of over 120,000 marine species, from the NZ-based World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) at www.marinespecies.org.

WoRMS is the brainchild of University of Auckland Leigh Marine Laboratory Associate Professor Mark Costello and colleagues at the Flanders Marine Institute, Belgium who host the database.

It combines the results of international marine research to produce the register, with over 100 experts in marine species editing and validating the species names and associated information.

Dr Costello, who ran a similar species register project in Europe between 1999-2000, said global coordination of species names was important to avoid misinterpretation of names, and confusion over the Latin spellings.

"Scientists estimate there are over one million marine species but only one fifth have been named so far," Dr Costello said in a statement.

The WoRMS list is planned to have validated 200,000 species names by the end of 2008, of an estimated 230,000 believed to have been formally described. Source

April 28th, 2008: Up Close With a Colossal Squid
Scientists finally get a chance to examine the immense, mysterious creature hauled ashore a year ago.

Courtesy of Kathrin Bolstad (left); New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries
Dr. Steve O'Shea examines a squid caught in 2003, and the colossal catch of 2007, at right

By Matthew Philips It sounds like something out of a bad monster movie: a team of scientists busily examines the thawing carcass of a 900-pound colossal squid. They've kept it frozen for more than a year inside a walk-in freezer ever since a commercial fishing crew hauled it up from the chilly depths of the Antarctic last January, half dead and clinging to a giant toothfish, and it now sits floating in a massive temperature-controlled tank filled with an icy saline solution just above freezing. The scientists, some in white coats and waders, others in scuba gear, have only four hours to study the 30-foot-long specimen before its rubbery, pink tissue begins to decompose and they have to inject it and fill the tank with formaldehyde. Until then, they rush to perform a battery of tests, studying the suckers and hooks on in its tentacles, measuring its sharp, birdlike beak, examining the contents of its stomach, collecting tissue samples for DNA analysis, trying to determine its sex, its age. All the while, the creature's eyes, which are the size of dinner plates and thought to be the largest in the animal kingdom, stare lifelessly ahead. Surrounding the chaos, is a cable-TV camera crew, recording the details of this rare autopsy for a documentary.

This will be the scene Wednesday at a facility outside Wellington, New Zealand, where for the last year, marine scientists and staff of the Museum of New Zealand have been trying to figure out just how to defrost and examine the largest known specimen of colossal squid without damaging it. If everything goes accordingly, the squid will end up on display at the museum later this year, encased in a big Plexiglas tank and—ideally—fully intact. "It sounds simple, just defrost a big lump of dead squid, right? But so much can go wrong," says Steve O'Shea, director of the Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute at the Auckland University of Technology, and one of the world's foremost squid experts. He and his colleagues have spent the better part of the last year pondering the challenge of defrosting the half-ton specimen, which remains tangled in sea netting and stuffed into a large plastic bin, smushed like an accordion. The problem with defrosting something so large is that at room temperature, by the time its insides have thawed, the outer flesh will have already begun to rot. At one point, they considered using an industrial-size microwave, but figured it was too risky. "I know it can be done," says O'Shea. "But it wouldn't have looked good if we boiled the thing."

Last fall, they decided that the safest way was to submerge the carcass in a tank of icy saltwater and have it slowly thaw over the course of a couple days. But even that isn't foolproof. Two weeks ago, O'Shea and his Auckland University colleague Kat Bolstad, along with the museum's national environment director Dr. Carol Diebel, decided to try a test run with a chunk of ice about the size of the frozen squid and submerge it into the tank to see how it would react. The ice ended up cracking after only a few minutes, so they lowered the temperature and extended the expected time of defrosting to about four days. "We've had to constantly rethink this," says O'Shea. "We can't afford to get complacent now." The biggest challenge, he says, is controlling the temperature in the defrosting tank, which will have water circulating through it, but also do it in a way that, considering the public fascination, has some entertainment value. "There's nothing worse to look at than a big block of frozen squid," jokes O'Shea. The entire process will be broadcast on the museum's Web site and also filmed by the Discovery Channel for a documentary to be released in the fall. "This is science as theater," says Diebel. "It's like when they uncovered that woolly mammoth a few years ago. You want to document and record it because of the level of interest, but also you have to take every precaution because once this process is started, there's really no stopping it."

On Sunday, a forklift slowly removed the squid from the freezer and eased it into the slurry-filled tank. For the next two days, O'Shea and his team will monitor the thawing process, attempting to remove the netting and allow the squid to expand to its normal size, thought to be about 30 feet. Once its completely thawed, the race against the clock begins. "If it starts to smell, then we'll know we don't have a lot of time," says Diebel.

One of the first things that O'Shea hopes to do is to measure the creature's beak. The largest one on record, which was removed from the stomach of a sperm whale, is 49mm. "If this one is less than that, I'll be able to turn around and say guess what? They get bigger than this," says O'Shea, who will also try to quickly determine the sex of the squid. If it's a male, that would also indicate that there are bigger colossal squids out there, as females tend to be larger. "I'd love it to be a male," O'Shea says.

Once measurements are taken, construction on the Plexiglas display case will begin, while the squid sits in formaldehyde for the next several weeks, possibly shrinking to a third of its full size. It will then have to be transported a few miles away to the museum, likely put on the bed of a truck and driven carefully through "very narrow, winding roads," says O'Shea. The museum is still working out the logistics of how to fit the giant display case into its gallery—which might take a bit of remodeling; O'Shea speculates that they might have to dismantle the side of the building and load it in with heavy-duty cranes. There are also safety issues at stake. The display case will be filed with glycol, a colorless, odorless syrupy liquid that is both toxic and flammable. Any break in the display case would spell a major disaster.

If dealing with a dead squid is exciting, imagine the thrill of encountering a live one in its own habitat. O'Shea believes this is possible: just two years ago, a team of Japanese researchers shot the first footage of a live giant squid in waters of the coast of Tokyo. "I don't think it's going to be difficult at all for the first person to raise the money it'll take to put some cameras down there and lure one in. They're such an aggressive creature, all you'd have to do is stick a dead cow on the end of the hook. It's the T. rex of the ocean." Source

April 28th, 2008: Green sea turtle reveals oceanic highway

AFTER a remarkable 1400km journey, she has finally arrived in WA. For two months green sea turtle Dorte has hitch-hiked the ocean currents from Java to WA in search of shallow waters full of lush green sea beds.

She is one of the first green turtles whose migratory route has been tracked by conservationists, who plan to study the lifecycle of this ocean giant.

Dorte, who is thought to be at least 20-years-old, was tagged with a satellite tracking device as she lay a clutch of 136 eggs at a nesting beach in Java.

Scientists believe she is heading to Eighty Mile beach, halfway between Broome and Port Hedland.

“After laying her clutch she is now in her feeding phase. The best place to find sea grass beds is in shallow coastal waters and the west coast of Australia is perfect in that regard,” the ocean programme manager with WWF Australia, Dr Gilly Llewellyn told PerthNow.

“Dorte’s journey is unique. She has revealed an ‘oceanic superhighway’ that helps us better understand how marine turtles navigate around the world’s oceans as well as highlighting the strong ecological and evolutionary connections between Indonesia and Australia’s Kimberley-Pilbara coast,” she adds.

Although turtles are known to instinctively return to the beach they were born to lay their own eggs, it was previously thought that they do not travel great distances.

The discovery of Dorte's migratory route could be used to influence decisions makers on which areas of the ocean should be better protected, scientists say.

“This new finding throws the spotlight on the true natural values of the magnificent Kimberley marine ecosystem and its link to the Indonesian Coral Triangle to the north – the world’s epicentre of marine biodiversity and the cross-roads of migration routes and breeding grounds for whales, turtles, dolphins and other precious marine species," Dr Llewellyn said.
“We think of Australia as an island, but it is also a cross roads of the world’s oceans.”

Dorte’s tracking device will run out of battery in about six months time and eventually fall off her shell. Source

April 22nd, 2008: New type of ocean current discovered

By Robert Shikina - Scientists have discovered a zebra-stripe pattern of deep, wide and slow currents that cut east-west across the planet's oceans, each like a plodding conveyer belt at the airport passenger terminal.

The previously unsuspected currents stand in sharp contrast to the heat- and wind-driven express trains such as the Gulf Stream, which typically flow in a circular pattern.

The findings on this ocean's hidden texture will be published in an upcoming issue of the Geophysical Research Letters by a team of four scientists that includes a researcher and a postdoctoral fellow from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Using data from satellites and drifting buoys, the scientists found that weak but persistent currents run horizontally across oceans worldwide, moving particles east or west. Their cause remains a mystery.

Eventually, the currents, or striations, could explain how nutrients move through sea water and boost marine life, and also might explain the effect of the ocean current on climate, the scientists said.

"These are jetlike features," said Nikolai Maximenko, one of the authors and a researcher with the UH International Pacific Research Center. "We suspect that they must contribute significantly to mixing in the ocean and to earthly interaction, which is important for climate systems."

Contributing author Peter Niiler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego said future models of climate systems will eventually show the striations.

The discovery started with work by Niiler, who for 20 years had been collecting data from 11,000 drifting buoys in the world's oceans. Monitoring data from the buoys, Niiler and Maximenko noticed strange currents in 2003.

Maximenko, along with UH postdoctoral fellow Oleg Melnichenko, selected two regions for closer analyses in the Pacific: near California and toward Latin America.

The two Hawaii scientists analyzed historical data from satellites and of the altitude and wind. They used a filter to remove "noise" from the data and produced an image of the currents, which also have crests and troughs a few centimeters high.

Dozens of previous research missions in those areas missed the currents, Maximenko said. One reason might be their weakness.

With a speed of about .02 mph or 1 centimeter a second, they are dwarfed by normal ocean currents and eddies, some of which have speeds of about 30 centimeters a second near Hawaii. To continue the airport metaphor, people running on a conveyer belt attract more attention than the conveyer belt itself.

While weak, the currents persist and can move as much water as swirling eddies in the ocean, said Maximenko, adding, "They are always there."

Scientists also found the currents travel nearly half a mile down, possibly even reaching the sea floor. While feeble, the currents are about 124 miles wide and travel thousands of miles.

Scientists are still trying to explain their existence. One theory compares the striations to cloud bands on Jupiter that form from turbulence in the atmosphere. Maximenko considers this theory unlikely, since land masses interfere in the ocean.

The scientists plan another study, funded by NASA and with more scientists added to the team, that will try to determine the cause of the stripes and their effects. Source

April 21st, 2008: When our oceans turn sour

CLIMATE change is a core issue on the Rudd Government's agenda. But there's another carbon problem that has been avoided and is largely independent of global warming.

In a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last week on Australia's focus on the Pacific, parliamentary secretary for Pacific Island affairs Duncan Kerr pointed to the effect of marine acidity on coral reefs, the backbone of economic activity for many islander communities. Kerr noted that if land drowns and coral reefs die, the Pacific faces mass movements of people, presenting strategic and humanitarian challenges for Australia.

Confronting the profound problem of acid oceans that could devastate ocean life would demonstrate the Government's commitment to communities dependent on coastal resources in Australia, the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, as well as dealing with long-term global change.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the Southern Ocean are alarming scientists concerned about the productivity of oceans. As human activity introduces increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the ocean becomes more acidic.

The Southern Ocean is particularly important, because it is efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: it is here that the first effects are being felt.

Under conditions of increasing acidification, parts of the oceans will progressively become uninhabitable for certain types of plankton, the earth's most important life forms, and coral structures.

Some shell-forming species will struggle to reproduce vital shell structures and skeletons, which will have a direct effect on the ocean food web. Some species will decline, some will be displaced or will disappear and patterns of fisheries will change. Coral reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef, will also suffer. Coral skeletons will become weaker and growth rates will reduce, leading to a significant decline by the middle of this century. This will deprive parts of our coastline of a natural protective barrier against the ocean, leading to greater threats from storm activity.

Similarly, environmental threats to states in our region with extensive coastal exposure will increase, resulting in more demands on Australia to assist Pacific Island countries with environmental disasters.

The size and global circulation of the oceans restrict the option of a preventive solution to acidification — such as adding ground limestone. So we need to learn how to adapt. Source

April 19th, 2008: Antarctic Ocean is 'less salty, less dense': scientist

The Aurora Australis is back in Hobart after four weeks studying the composition of the Southern Ocean. (File photo) (ABC News: Andrew Fisher)

By Felicity Ogilvie. After spending four weeks on rough seas in the Southern Ocean, the team aboard the Aurora Australis sailed back to a sunny, calm day in Hobart.

Steve Rintoul is the chief scientist on board the Aurora. He says the team's most exciting discovery was that the deep ocean around the Antarctica is changing, in particular becoming less salty and less dense.

"The cause of the freshening is the next challenge for us to work out, the leading hypothesis at the moment is that the water is becoming fresher because the ice around the edges of Antarctica is melting more rapidly," Dr Rintoul said.

The scientists lowered their robotic instruments down to five kilometres below the surface. Antarctica is one of the few places in the world where it is so cold that the water on the surface becomes so dense it drops straight to the bottom.

The reason why the water on the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean is getting less salty is because the melting ice is dropping straight down to the ocean floor. The scientists know the Antarctic ice is melting, but the reason is still unclear.

"It could be global warming, it could be the ozone hole, and it could be natural variability. Our best evidence at the moment suggests that all three are playing a role," Dr Rintoul said. He says the warming ocean waters are causing the Antarctic ice to melt more rapidly.

"Warmer ocean temperatures mean faster melt, faster melt means lower salinity of the sea water as the fresh water locked up into the ice melts and spreads into the ocean," he said.

The scientists have been working on the ship. Now, they'll go back to their labs in Hobart to work out how fast the ice is melting and if it is likely to continue.

"On the voyage, we collected samples to measure an isotope of oxygen, which it turns out is a tracer of melting ice, Dr Rintoul said.

"We couldn't run those analyses on board, but within a few months we should have an indication of whether the waters are fresher because there is more ice melting, or because of a change in sea ice or a change in snow fall, or some other process."

The Southern Ocean drives the world's climate, so the fact it is becoming less salty means the weather everywhere else will change. The scientists are still trying to work out exactly what those changes will be. Source

April 18th, 2008: Study Sees an Advantage for Algae Species in Changing Oceans

An algae bloom is seen off the coast of Newfoundland taken by NASA's SeaWiFs satellite.
By KENNETH CHANG. Contrary to expectations, a microscopic plant that lives in oceans around the world may thrive in the changing ocean conditions of the coming decades, a team of scientists reported Thursday.

The main threat to many marine organisms is not global warming but ocean acidification, as carbon dioxide from the air dissolves into the water and turns into carbonic acid. Acid dissolves calcium carbonate in the skeletons of corals, for example; many scientists fear that acidification of the oceans will kill many, if not most, coral reefs by the end of the century.

Similar concerns have been raised about coccolithophores, single-cell, carbonate-encased algae that are a major link in the ocean food chain. Earlier experiments with a species of coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi, had found that lower pH levels (more acidic) hindered the algae’s ability to build the disks of carbonate that form its shell.

In Friday’s issue of the journal Science, however, scientists led by M. Debora Iglesias-Rodríguez of the National Oceanography Center at the University of Southampton in England and Paul Halloran, a graduate student at the University of Oxford, report that they found the exact opposite. The algae grew bigger in the more acidic water.

Dr. Iglesias-Rodríguez said the conflicting findings probably arose from differences between how the experiments were conducted. In the earlier work, the researchers lowered the pH by directly adding acid to the water.

In the work reported in Science, the scientists added the acid indirectly by bubbling carbon dioxide into the water, which more closely mimicked the chemical reactions that are occurring in the oceans. As a consequence, in addition to the lowered pH, levels of carbon dioxide in the water also rose — speeding up the algae’s photosynthesis machinery — as did the levels of bicarbonate ions, the building material for the carbonate disks.

“It’s a really complex problem,” Dr. Iglesias-Rodríguez said. “You cannot look at calcification in isolation. You have to look at photosynthesis as well.”

The pH scale, which measures the concentration of hydrogen ions, runs from zero, the most acidic, with the highest concentration of ions, to 14, the most alkaline, with almost no ions. Ocean water today is somewhat alkaline, at 8.1, down from 8.2 at the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.

The laboratory findings agree with what has been observed in the oceans. Over the past 220 years, the average mass of a coccolithophore increased 40 percent as ocean pH levels dropped.

The hopeful news for coccolithophores, however, does not overturn the gloomy predictions for corals or negate ocean acidification as an impending ecological disruption, Dr. Iglesias-Rodríguez said. Rather, she said, it points to how little data biologists currently have. Source

April 14th, 2008: Tiny, pink crustaceans pose big questions in Antarctica

By Lauren Morello -Climatewire: In the frigid waters near the South Pole, the Saga Sea trawler is casting its nets for “pink gold.”
The Norwegian industrial fishing boat isn’t chasing cod, salmon or other fish you might find on a dinner plate. Instead, the trawler is after tons of tiny, bug-like crustaceans known as Antarctic krill, which form the base of Antarctica’s food web.
That has caught the eye of conservation groups, which worry that the Saga Sea and other similarly equipped “supertrawlers” are poised to triple or quadruple the annual krill harvest in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean.
This little shellfish, which most people probably have never heard of, is in high demand these days. Fish farmers feed the naturally pink krill to farmed salmon, eliminating the need for artificial dyes. Vitamin makers turn fatty krill into fish oil capsules marketed as aids to heart health.
But the tiny marine species’ toughest opponent may be climate change. Scientists are just beginning to understand the complex interplay between krill and the sea ice that helps feed and shelter them. But there are already indications that Antarctic warming could spell trouble for the little shellfish and the penguins, sea birds, fish and whales that like to eat them.
One recent study by the British Antarctic Survey found that the number of krill in the Southern Ocean has dropped by about 80 percent since the 1970s. Over the same period, the annual duration of sea ice in the krill’s main breeding ground decreased by 30 days.
And in its report released last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoed those findings, reporting that the decline in the Antarctic krill population is “very likely” a result of changes in sea ice. Read more here..

April 14th, 2008: Day of the dolphins
CRAIG SIMCOX/The Dominion Post

A group on an outrigger canoe get a front-row seat as a pod of up to 100 common dolphins cavort in Wellington's Evans Bay.
On Miramar peninsula, Maupuia resident Derral Barnes had a bird's eye view. He said the dolphins spent all afternoon circling from one end of the bay to the other.
"Whether they are lost or just enjoying themselves, who knows?"
Te Papa dolphin expert Anton van Helden said the common dolphin was often found in Cook Strait, and frequently seen during the summer and late summer in large pods.
Although dolphins were regularly seen in Wellington at this time of year, onlookers should take care, particularly with boats, as pods could include young ones and all animals were susceptible to collisions. Source

April 12th, 2008: South China Sea headed for troubled waters!
HANOI (AFP) — Polluted, crossed by busy shipping lanes, and disputed by many countries, the South China Sea has taken an environmental battering that threatens future food supplies, marine scientists have warned.
In a decade the sea -- at the heart of a densely populated and rapidly industrialising region -- has lost 16 percent of its coral reefs and coastal mangroves and 30 percent of its sea grass, says the United Nations.
The exploitation of its fisheries, both legal and illegal, by family boats and industrial deep sea trawlers now threatens to deplete fish stocks that millions of people rely on, a Hanoi conference heard last week.
"The key issues on a basin scale are habitat degradation and loss, overfishing and land-based pollution," said Vo Si Tuan, who served as Vietnam representative to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) South China Sea Project.
"There are many, many problems, but these are the biggest."
The South China Sea is ringed by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, with about 350 million people living along its coastal areas.
"There are large populations heavily dependent, directly and indirectly, on fishing, in one of the world's most biodiverse marine areas," said Keith Symington, a marine specialist with the World Wide Fund for Nature.
"The international trends are more pronounced in the South China Sea.
"Boats have to go further and fish longer to catch the same amount of fish and they are catching smaller fish," said Symington, speaking to AFP at the fourth Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts and Islands.
"There are a lot of illegal or unreported catches, there are fishing boats flying flags of convenience, there are loopholes."
The UN has highlighted the damage done to coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves and wetlands that are crucial for biodiversity and fish breeding.
Vietnam's Halong Bay, a world heritage-listed island scape, is a case in point, said Michael Hayes, an expert on tourism in protected marine areas.
"There are 138 coral species in Halong Bay, but most of the reefs are being destroyed by heavy sedimentation," he said.
Erosion from deforestation along the Red River is pouring silt into the bay, where shrimp farms and land reclamation have destroyed mangroves and heavy shipping, coal mining and tourism are polluting the waters.
"There is more and more pressure on the South China Sea, from fisheries but also from other exploitation like oil and gas and ballast waters from ships that introduce invasive species," he said.
Vietnam, aiming to protect its coastal areas, plans to send fewer and larger fishing boats deeper into the South China Sea, said Nguyen Chu Hoi, director of the Vietnam Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning.
The communist government plans to declare 15 marine protected areas this year, he said, and to reduce its fleet of 90,000 mostly family-run boats by 30 percent over five years while encouraging more off-shore fishing.
The ships may be heading into troubled waters, and not just during the annual typhoon season that is set to worsen with climate change.
Fishing has already led to clashes on the high seas, with Chinese vessels and the Indonesian coastguard firing at Vietnamese ships.
Managing the South China Sea is complicated by the fact that at its heart lie the Spratly islands, which are claimed in full or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
"The South China Sea is a highly contested area," said Robert Jara of the Philippines' environment and natural resources department.
"One of the basic approaches now is putting aside the claims while we address the environment and the resource degradation of the South China Sea.
"If you address the claims before addressing the environment, at the end of the day everybody loses out."

April 12th, 2008: NZ Sea lions fitted with tracking technology

Hold still... Looking more like members of a medical emergency team, (clockwise from left) Massey University wildlife veterinarian Kerri Morgan, Department of Conservation marine mammal scientific officer Dr Louise Chilvers, biologist Jacinda Amey, DOC coastal ranger Jim Fyfe, University of Otago doctora student Amelie Auge, and Dunedin veterinarian Tony Matthews help while monitoring devices, including a combined time-depth recorder and satellite tracking unit, and VHF transmitter, are attached to a New Zealand sea lion, named Aurora, at the Otago Peninsula this week.

By JOHN GIBB: ANEW Department of Conservation research initiative involving the satellite tracking of New Zealand sea lions is also highlighting the special qualities of the Otago Peninsula wildlife, researchers say.

Dr Louise Chilvers, a Doc marine mammal scientific officer, of Wellington, said the sea lions now found on the Otago Peninsula were a ‘‘unique and incredibly special population’’. About 70 of the protected animals are based there now.

The females among them constitute the first breeding colony of sea lions to reappear on the New Zealand mainland since hunting and sealing wiped them out there by the early 1800s. The peninsula’s Royal Albatross Colony is the only mainland albatross colony in the world.

The yellow-eyed penguin, one of the world’s rarest penguin species, has also adopted the Otago Peninsula and the Catlins as its main breeding areas in the South Island.

A team of scientists and support staff this week fitted satellite tracking tags and timedepth recorders to four female sea lions on the Otago Peninsula’s southeast coast in order to gather data about their foraging (food gathering) behaviour.

If successful, the initial pilot study will usher in a three-year research programme, with four or more further female sea lions studied each year. This is the first time such satellite-linked devices have been used to track sea lions based on the New Zealand mainland.

The four animals were also measured, weighed and inspected for external parasites. Milk and blood samples were taken and examined for pathogens, pollutants, and to determine the overall health of the animals.

The combined satellite tracking devices and timedepth recorders used in the Otago research will provide regular information on the location of the foraging sea lions and the depth and duration of their dives while searching for prey.

The small devices were mounted on neoprene and then glued to the hair of the sea lions. The equipment would be retrieved after one or two months by cutting through the neoprene, organisers said.

A very high frequency (VHF) transmitter was also attached to each of the study animals to help relocate them when back on land.

The neoprene layer that remained on the sea lions would fall off during their annual moult. The VHF transmitters would be left on for the life of the battery about six months allowing researchers to continue further monitoring.

Shaun McConkey is the Dunedin-based chairman of the New Zealand Sea Lion Trust, which promotes protection, conservation and education about the sea lion, which has long been a protected species.

The fact that sea lions had joined the royal albatross and the yellow-eyed penguin in opting to breed on the Otago Peninsula was ‘‘another indication that this is a great area,’’ Mr McConkey said.

‘‘It’s got to be a pretty good indication that there is a real value here for the wildlife and you would assume the main reason would be food accessibility,’’ he said in an interview.

Kate Rushbrook, the Tourism Dunedin international sales manager, said the growing sea lion colony on the peninsula was adding to the city’s reputation as a wildlife tourism centre. The scientific research being undertaken was a positive step which would ultimately enable visitors, undertaking guided tours, to receive more information about sea lions and their activities, Mrs Rushbrook said.

University of Otago zoology student Amelie Auge will be undertaking much of the Otago sea lion research for her PhD thesis, which will be supervised by Dr Chilvers.

Dr Chilvers said that, at this stage, much of the behaviour of the sea lions once they left the Otago Peninsula coastline in search of food remained obscure. ‘‘We know nothing about their feeding behaviour, apart from a little bit about diet,’’ she said.

Knowing more about where the sea lions roamed in search of food, including whether they visited the edge of the continental shelf, about 25kms offshore, would help support improved conservation and management planning for the threatened marine species. The Otago study is part of a wider study, led by Dr Chilvers, also involving sea lions at the Auckland Islands.

Satellite tracking and timedepth recorders have previously been used by Dr Chilvers to study foraging behaviour by New Zealand sea lions on the Auckland Islands, about 700km south of Dunedin.

More than 99% of the estimated 12,000 remaining New Zealand sea lions are based in the Auckland Islands, which seems a physiologically marginal location for the animals, which once were found throughout mainland New Zealand.

Satellite data from the Auckland Islands shows female sea lions with young to feed have ranged up to 175km offshore in search of food and reached depths down to about 600mwhich is the deepest dive ever recorded for any sea lion or fur seal species in the world.

The satellite tracking equipment now being used near Dunedin had provided a lot of information about sea lion foraging behaviour in the Aucklands. ‘‘We hope to have the same success here,’’ she said. Source

April 11th, 2008: Poisonous Fish Sparks Adriatic Warning
Suspicious Fish in Adriatic

Zagreb _ Marine biologists from Montenegro and Croatia are warning local fishermen about an increasing number of poisonous fish in the Adriatic.

The Index.hr portal reported that due to global warming and rising sea temperatures, new species of toxic fish have recently begun to appear in the Adriatic.

Concerns were raised after a strange fish was caught by a Montenegrin fisherman off the Rafailovici resort. Twenty-eight new species of fish have been identified recently in the waters off Croatia and Montenegro.

Marine biology institutes in the Croatian port of Split and the Montenegrin town of Kotor have prepared a joint brochure which describes dangerous new species and which will be distributed widely in order to help prevent the possibility that any of these fish could enter the food chain. SOURCE

April 10th, 2008: Levels of litter on UK beaches soar
Plastic litter, including bags and bottles, is at its worst level ever recorded on Britain's beaches.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said the amount of plastic found on the coastline had increased by 126% since its first annual Beachwatch survey in 1994.
Carrier bags, drinks bottles and even plastic-based cigarette butts contributed to the "tide" of plastic waste which made up more than half (58%) of the litter blighting our beaches, the MCS Beachwatch 2007 study found.
The conservation organisation said the plastics could remain in the marine environment for hundreds of years and prove fatal for wildlife including seabirds, turtles and whales.
More than 170 marine species have been recorded mistaking litter for food, and as a result starving, being poisoned or suffering fatal stomach blockages.
Emma Snowden, MCS litter projects co-ordinator, said: "The results are truly shocking. In the last 10 years, plastic bottles have increased by 67%, plastic bags by 54% and cigarette butts by 44%.
The 2007 report saw almost 4,000 volunteers surveying 168.5km of coast in September 2007 and removing more than 346,000 items of litter ranging from cloth and fishing line to glass and lolly wrappers.
The MCS said the litter was recycled where possible or disposed of with the help of local authorities.
The number of items of litter per kilometre rose slightly on average across the UK from 2006 to 2007, increasing from a density of 1,988 items per kilometre to 2,053 - an average of two pieces per metre.
The survey found the largest single source of beach litter was from visitors and recreation on the coast (35.3%), followed by fishing litter (13.7%), sewage-related/sanitary waste (6.1%) and shipping litter (1.8%). Source

April 9th, 2008: London's Secret Seahorses
Wonderful news this week from Great Britain, where seahorses have been spotted in the lower reaches of the River Thames, downstream from London. The Zoological Society of London, which had been keeping the news under wraps until the seahorses received protection under British environmental law, believes there may now be a breeding population in Thames' waters.

Several short-snouted seahorses (Hippocampus hippocampus) have turned up during routine conservation surveys over the past 18 months, and scientists believe they represent a resident resident population. They attribute the recovery to clean-up efforts in the river and its tributaries.

“It demonstrates that the Thames is becoming a sustainable biodiverse habitat for aquatic life," said Alison Shaw, Marine and Freshwater Conservation Program Manager for the Zoological Society.

Short-snouted seahorses weren't the only sea creatures given additional legal protection this week. Long-snouted seahorses and angel sharks also became protected species.

The Zoological Society of London is one of many international partners of Project Seahorse, which works to promote conservation and sustainable use of coastal marine ecosystems around the world. Source

April 9th, 2008: Enormous pod of dolphins seen in Cook Strait

A 3 News crew has caught on camera an astonishing sight in the Cook Strait - a pod of hundreds of dolphins.

The camera was in a helicopter flying over Palliser Bay when the pilot spotted a large area of confused water. A closer look revealed the cause - a dolphin convention of truly enormous size.

The common dolphin is one of New Zealand's most widespread species and large gatherings are frequent at this time of year. See video here

April 3rd, 2008: Bizarre, monstrous sea creatures found in Antarctic waters

Giant star fish, hydroids , sea-squirts (that really just look like a squirt of gelatin), sea-spiders, daggertooths and sea-pigs, are just a few of the 30,000 rare sea creatures found by a team of researchers on a large-scale survey of Antarctica.

Over 35 days they traveled about 2000-miles collecting specimens on the surface and from the sea-bed as part of the International Polar Year and Census of Antarctic Marine Life programs, which study the diversity of Antarctic marine life. Using advanced video imagine, the researchers also managed to photograph the seafloor to a depth of 2.1 miles.

Published recently in National Geographic, you can see an incredible, jaw-scrunching photo slide-show that gives a taste of these marine species, on their website here.

April 3rd, 2008: Study sheds light on octopus sex

An octopus during mating. Photograph: Roy Caldwell/UC Berkeley/Reuters

The charge of wandering hands - or tentacles - is a bit unfair to level at an octopus, given that the mollusc has eight to control.

But scientists have discovered that, far from being the loners marine biologists had categorised them as for decades, octopuses are pretty lascivious.

The Marine Biology journal has published research by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, which found Abdopus aculeatus practise sexual habits that amount to "more than just arm-wrestling".

The octopuses, found off the coast of Indonesia, didn't just mate with the first female that crossed their path but picked out a specific sex partner and guarded her den for several days, strangling rivals if they got too close.

In an attempt to get near to the females, male Abdopus aculeatus swim in an "unmanly fashion" - low on the ground - and hide their brown stripes to gain access to a partner's den.

Similarly predatory behaviour in human mating has been called "sharking", in reference to the habits of the sharp-toothed sea creature. Now it may have to be renamed "octing".

"This is not a unique species of octopus, which suggests others behave in this way," Roy Caldwell, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and co-author of the study, told his university's newsletter.

There are nearly 300 species of octopuses in the world, ranging from the giant octopus in the Pacific ocean to the tiny Octopus wolfi in the tropics.

The scientists discovered that octopus mating can take place several times a day once the creatures reach sexual maturity.

It usually begins with the male octopus poking the female with his long, flexible, hectocotylus arm and then slipping it into her mantle cavity.

Once the sperm packet has been deposited, the female retires to her den and lays tens of thousands of eggs, which she weaves into strings and attaches to the roof of her underwater dwelling. She keeps the eggs clean by blowing jets of water on them and is unable to leave her den to forage for food during this time.

After about a month, the eggs hatch and the weakened mother octopus dies. The father also dies within a few months of mating, leaving the newborns to fend for themselves.

Octopuses are typically thought to be bashful sea creatures. "They're obsessively secretive, solitary and pretty spooky," Caldwell said. "If you watch them, they watch you back. It's hard to study them. This is the first study to show a level of sophistication not previously known in the sexual behaviour of an octopus." Source

March 31st, 2008: Invasion of the holiday-snatchers!

Swimming with jellyfish this summer

WITH winter fast receding in the northern hemisphere and thoughts turning to summer holidays, reports are suggesting that there may be an unprecedented swarm of jellyfish heading for Europe. The mauve stingers (also known as Pelagia noctiluca) have been breeding in the water throughout the winter, and are now ready for an assault on the beaches of Spain and the Mediterranean.

Masses of jellyfish are an increasingly common nuisance, not just in Spain, but all around the world. Spectacular blooms have been reported in Japan, Namibia, Alaska, Venezuela, Peru and Australia. And since 2000, the Gulf of Mexico has been suffering from an invasion of monster Australian spotted jellyfish (Phyllorhiza punctata), which are fouling fishing nets and upsetting the shrimpers. But are these accounts of rising numbers real, or are humans just spending more time in the water?

A familiar sight
Lucas Brotz is a oceanography graduate-student at the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre, and he agrees that the potential for interaction between man and jelly is on the rise. More fishing means that jellyfish will more frequently clog up, and split, fishing nets. The expansion of aquaculture means more disasters like last year’s destruction of 100,000 organically farmed salmon in Ireland—by a swarm of jellyfish. And media reports have also primed journalists to accept that the “deadly jellyfish menace” is on the rise.

So is it possible to say with certainty that jellyfish are increasing? Mr Brotz thinks so: some well-studied ecosystems show evidence of an increase, and he is working to prove that this is a global phenomenon.

The Namibian coast, for instance, used to be “hugely productive in fish,” he says, “and now it is entirely dominated by jellyfish. Things appear to be going that way in the Middle East, South Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean.”

The Japanese coast has long weathered jellyfish blooms, but they tended to happen about once every 35 years. Since 2002, however, every year but one has seen massive blooms. Some individual fish exceed two metres in size and weigh a couple of hundred kilograms; both the size and number of the fish interfere with Japanese fishermen.

Many species of jellyfish spend the early part of their life as a polyp (like an anemone or coral) on the ocean floor, which can survive harsh conditions. When the conditions are right, the polyps switch into jellyfish-production mode and bud off massive numbers of baby jellyfish.

Overfishing may cause blooms: some fish eat baby jellyfish, and some, like herring, compete with jellyfish for the same zooplankton food. Take the fish away, and you get more jellyfish.

But jellyfish also eat fish eggs and baby fish, so if they start to increase in a marine ecosystem, it can create a positive feedback loop and produce more jellyfish at the expense of the fish. The jellyfish don’t allow fish stocks to recover because they are eating all the baby fish before they get large enough to reproduce.

Other factors tipping the balance in favour of jellyfish include dumping excess nutrients from chemical fertilisers, which sucks oxygen out of the water and create what are known as “dead zones”, which are hostile to almost all marine life other than certain species of jellyfish. Rising ocean temperatures are also favourable to jellyfish.

Though some species are eaten in Asia (the jellyfish-food industry nets around $120m per year), blooms are already causing significant economic losses to traditional fisheries. In response to this abundance, scientists are developing a process to extract commercially valuable biomaterial from them for use in foods and medicines. Others have suggested expanding the jellyfish-food industry.

But is this sow’s ear too big to make into a silk purse? Jellyfish push out incredibly valuable, and diverse, marine ecosystems. Scientists may somehow turn jellyfish into food, tyres or flip-flops, but it is hard to imagine an industry based on a product that is at least 95% water will ever be economically superior to one based on a diverse and healthy marine ecosystem.

In 2004, fish caught in the ocean netted $85 billion on first sale. Do we want to grow an industry that has a vested interest in a very different kind of ocean to the one we have today? The world has to decide what kind of ocean it wants: one thriving with diverse marine life, or one swimming with a few hundred species of jellyfish.

At the moment, it looks likely that humans may have only themselves to blame for the rise in jellyfish, through decades of overfishing. There is a certain Schadenfreude in knowing that Spain, home one of the world’s most voracious fishing fleets, is destined to suffer from blooms of jellies—which will presumably do no good at all to its tourist industry. Such pleasure, however, is short-lived when one realises that while Spanish fleets have long benefited from overfishing, we will all ultimately suffer the consequences.

Mr Brotz calls jellyfish “harbingers of change”. The solution isn’t to find ways of using them but to “stop polluting the ocean with nutrients and stop over fishing.” The next time you enjoy a sea-side holiday and sit to eat freshly caught fish in an ocean-front cafe, you may wish to pause and wonder whether next time it will be jellyfish fingers for tea. Source

March 31st, 2008: Who are you calling ugly?

Bathypelagic fish. Picture: Complimentary

By Frank Urquhart - THEY have quaint names like the fangtooth, the roundnose grenadier, the chiasmodon niger, the spookfish and the dolichoteryx longpipe.
But they are some of the most frightening-looking and ugliest creatures on earth – denizens of the deep which inhabit the darkest reaches of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

For the first time in Britain, a series of stunning pictures and specimens collected from the volcanic mountain range in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean are going on public display.

This summer, members of the public are being given the unique chance to get up close and personal with these monsters of the abyss in a new exhibition, Deeper than Light, which is being staged at Aberdeen's Maritime Museum.

The exhibition is based on the work of an international research project in which scientists from 16 nations, including marine experts at Aberdeen University's Ocean Lab, took part.

The exhibition, providing an unrivalled insight into the life and environment of the deepest parts of the Atlantic, displays findings from an expedition in 2004 to research the marine life and ecosystem along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Iceland and the Azores.

Sophisticated subsea technology was used to study marine life along the Mid- Atlantic ridge to a depth of 3,000 metres (almost two miles). Despite the inhospitable terrain, researchers identified a staggering 300 different species of fish, of which five were new to science, and a myriad of other organisms during the expedition.

Nikki King, one of the scientists from Ocean Lab who was on the 2004 expedition, said: "The members of the public who visit the exhibition will never have seen anything like this before.

"The exhibition features preserved specimens, from quite small species about two centimetres long, to quite big fish up to 40 to 50 centimetres long.

"And it also features a series of stills and video footage taken by remotely operated vehicles at depths up to 3,000 metres and others of the organisms once they were taken on board."

She explained that scientists were, in many ways, only beginning to scratch the surface in studying the rich variety of life in the deepest reaches of the Atlantic.

Professor Monty Priede, director of Ocean Lab, explained: "The old marine biology textbooks suggest that as you get deeper, life gets sparser and less interesting. But between America and Europe, we have this massive 'alpine' range of mountains with very interesting life-forms all over it.

"There is no bit of ocean where there is no life. There is always at least one animal per cubic metre. Source"

March 25th, 2008: Fish Vital to Reef Survival
Life on the Reef - A healthy fish population could be the key to ensuring coral reefs survive the impacts of climate change, pollution, overfishing and other threats.
Australian scientists found that some fish act as “lawnmowers”, keeping coral free of kelp and unwanted algae.
At a briefing to parliamentarians in Canberra, they said protected areas were rebuilding fish populations in some parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
Warming seas are likely to affect the reef severely within a few decades. Pollution is also a growing problem, particularly fertilisers that wash from agricultural land into water around the reef, stimulating the growth of plants that stifle the coral.
Protect and survive
The assembled experts told parliamentarians that fish able to graze on invading plants played a vital role in the health of reef ecosystems. Because sea temperatures are now a lot higher, they are now reaching the thresholds at which coral get into distress.

“The Great Barrier Reef is still a resilient system… and herbivorous fish play a critical role in that regenerative capacity, by keeping the dead coral space free of algae, so that new juvenile coral can re-establish themselves,” said Professor Terry Hughes from James Cook University in Townsville.
His research group has conducted experiments which involved building cages to keep fish away from sections of reef.
They found that three times as much new coral developed in areas where the fish were present as in the caged portions.
Parrotfish in particular use their serrated jaws to scrape off incipient algae and plants.
More recently, his team has also identified the rabbit fish - a brown, bland-looking species - as a potentially important harvester of seaweed.
“So managing fisheries can help to maintain the reef’s resilience to future climate change,” he said.
The parrotfish performs a vital role as a “lawnmower” of the reef
In recent years, Marine Protected Areas have been set up along the Great Barrier Reef in order to provide sanctuaries where fish and other marine creatures can grow and develop.
Dr Peter Doherty from the Australian Institute of Marine Science presented data showing that just two years of protection brought significant increases in populations of important species such as coral trout and tropical snapper.
“More importantly, more eggs are being produced… nearly three times the number of eggs per unit area being produced in the surrounding territory,” he said.
The eggs, he showed, travelled well outside the boundaries of the protected zones, potentially increasing fish populations in non-protected areas too.

Burning issue
The scientists emphasised that a comprehensive approach to reef protection would include measures to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce run-off from agricultural land and human settlements along the coast.
“You have got a three- to nine-fold increase in sediment loss,” said Professor Iain Gordon from the governmental research organisation CSIRO.
“[There are] increases in nutrients that feed into the system, nitrates and phosphates and also new kinds of chemicals in the water that is around the reef; pesticides and herbicides, they haven’t been there before.”
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland noted that unusually warm water in 1998 and 2002 had bleached and damaged coral in southern parts of the Barrier Reef.
High water temperatures cause coral to bleach, sometimes irreversibly
“The reef literally goes from being brown and healthy to being a stark white, and this happens with very small changes in temperature,” he said.
In the past, he said, bleaching events happened only at the warm extremes of natural cycles such as El Nino; but now the overall water temperature is higher, which makes the peaks of the cycles more harmful to coral.
“Because sea temperatures are now a lot higher, they are now reaching the thresholds at which coral get into distress, and of course it is really large scale impacts.”
At high temperatures, coral polyps expel the algae which normally live with them in a symbiotic relationship, turning the reef white. The algae typically provide most of the polyp’s nutrition; without them, the polyps eventually die.
Even if a bleached zone contains live polyps and carries the potential to recover when waters cool, a quick invasion of kelp, or types of algae that do not live symbiotically with coral, can make the die-off permanent - hence the protective role of plant-munchng fish.
The Great Barrier Reef is worth about six billion Australian dollars (US$5.5bn; £2.8bn) to the national economy, primarily through tourism and fishing. Source

March 25th, 2008: Salt And Vinegar!
A report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides details of a promising treatment for dealing with invasive sea squirts. Faced with an onslaught of the colonial tunicate Didemnum in Puget Sound, one Washington biologist is testing whether acetic acid is an effective control method. Preliminary results suggest that a simple spray of the vinegary liquid kills off the Didemnum, perhaps supplanting the need for the labor-intensive plastic wrap method of killing off these marine invasives. If the treatment is successful, the US will likely owe a debt of gratitude to New Zealand, which has employed a number of innovative control techniques to deal with Didemnum. Read more here

March 20th, 2008: NZ scientists return from largest investigative voyage to Antarctica

Scientists and crew of New Zealand's biggest scientific voyage in the Antarctic waters of its Ross Sea dependency have returned with a treasure trove of new fish and other organisms.

The research vessel Tangaroa returned to Wellington today after completing the most comprehensive survey of marine life in the region.

The 7140 nautical mile voyage surveyed some areas and habitats for the first time, and uncovered many species that are new to science.

The 26 scientists and 18 crew endured the worst ice conditions documented in the Ross Sea in 30 years to complete 35 days of sampling Antarctic marine biodiversity and habitats.

The voyage, which took 50 days and $6.6 million of government funding, was part of an international effort by 23 countries to survey marine ecosystems and habitats in the waters surrounding Antarctica.

The voyage would contribute to two global science programmes: International Polar Year and the Census of Antarctic Marine Life.

The researchers worked round the clock in the 24-hour days of the Antarctic summer collecting more than 30,000 samples of many different forms of life from tiny micro-plankton up to large toothfish and recorded some never-seen-before views of the seabed.

Fish experts onboard recorded 88 fish species, of which eight are possibly new to science.

Many of the fish have special adaptations to deal with the extreme polar and deep-sea environments they live in.

Malcolm Clark, of the National Institute of Atmospheric and Water Research (Niwa), and Stefano Schiaparelli, of the Italian National Antarctic Museum, reported continued discoveries of new species or new records of invertebrates.

Many would remain unconfirmed until samples were sent to experts around the world after the voyage.

In a report on the internet they said there were a number of animals that have been caught or photographed that they were confident were new species, new records, or adding a lot of information about poorly known groups.

These included a sea lily found in shallow waters, a sea urchin and a snail found at a depth of 2200m.

Some unusual squid species were caught, including several juvenile colossal squid.

The survey also captured samples from the sea surface, the water column and the seabed.

While processing the samples, scientists had to battle worse than expected weather, with temperatures down to minus-13degC and blizzards that caused equipment to ice up and samples of seawater, mud and fish to freeze on deck.

Hi-tech cameras allowed scientists to see many communities on the sea-floor for the first time and revealed new information about the behaviour, inter-relationships and habitats.

The voyage was a collaboration between Land Information New Zealand (Linz), Ministry of Fisheries, Niwa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Antarctica New Zealand, New Zealand universities, and both the Italian and United States Antarctic programmes.

The entire voyage was filmed by Natural History New Zealand, an American-owned company. Source

March 19th, 2008: Are sharks getting smarter?

Could sharks be catching on to human techniques for tagging them – and learning how to avoid them?

That’s the theory of Steve Kessel, an Earth and Ocean Sciences PhD student who has spent the past three years working at the world-renowned Bimini Biological Field Station, also known as Shark Lab, in the Bahamas.

Steve is studying population trends among lemon sharks and believes current research techniques may underestimate numbers – because sharks are getting wise to human methods of counting.

Traditional methods of tagging sharks have involved putting bait on a long line, then implanting a transmitter once it bites.

However, Steve said: “The sharks do seem to be getting smarter and learning our techniques. They’ve realised it’s not a good thing to be eating this free food any more.”

Steve is using other techniques to tag sharks, including using skiffs to corral them into shallow water where they can be netted, and aerial surveys for abundance counts. However, as lemon sharks can grow upwards of three meters in length and are reckoned to be the 10th most dangerous species in the world, the first method has its risks.

Steve said: “Like most sharks, they are fine as long as you leave them alone. When you mess around with them, they can become difficult to handle and can have a pretty nasty bite. You have to be fairly confident about dealing with them, but without getting complacent – that’s what gets you bitten.”

Despite the risks, Steve has found his time at Bimini extremely rewarding. He has been encouraged by the trends he has seen among shark families, giving hope that the population situation is better than was feared.

He has been joined in the Bahamas by another Earth and Ocean Sciences student, Mark Bond, who is on a placement there as part of his course. Both have seen close up the worldwide media interest in Shark Lab. Steve has featured on the Discovery Channel and Sky One. His work has now just appeared on NBC and has been filmed by the BBC for a new documentary about the oceans. Source

March 19th, 2008: Red Lipped Batfish discovered!

This fish has a broad head, slight body, and is covered in large gnarled lumps. Batfish are not good swimmers; they use their pectoral fins to "walk" on the ocean floor. When the batfish reaches adulthood, its dorsal fin becomes a single spine-like projection that lures prey. Batfish eat shrimps, mollusks, small fish, crabs, and worms. Source

March 18th, 2008: Heroic Dolphin Guides Stranded Whales to Safety

You don’t have to be a card-carrying member of PETA or a Rainbow Warrior boarding Japanese tuna boats to appreciate this story.

A dolphin known as Moko by local residents around Mahia Beach in New Zealand came to the rescue of a pair of pygmy sperm whales last week. The whales repeatedly tried to beach themselves despite the efforts of a local Conservation Department officer. He attempted to urge the mother whale and her male calf back to deeper water and safety, but the pair seemed to be headed to a painful death on the shore when Moko showed up.

The wildlife officer said he heard the animals communicating with their high pitched sounds. Then Moko, who often approaches humans in kayaks and boats in her watery neighborhood, led the at-risk whales about 200 yards down shore to a narrow channel and through to safety.

Not only is it one of those stories that makes you go “Aaaaawwww,” it’s piqued the interest of marine biologists interested in the fact that different species apparently communicated with each other in a time of crisis. Source

March 17th, 2008: Easy identification of NZ marine invertebrates

New guide offers easy identification of NZ marine invertebrates.

A photographic guide to some of the most striking and beautiful invertebrates inhabiting New Zealand’s shallow subtidal waters will be released by Canterbury University Press this month.

Subtidal Invertebrates of New Zealand: A Divers Guide, published in association with the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries, is the work of Stephen Wing, Associate Professor in Marine Science at the University of Otago.

Intended as a quick guide and introduction the book looks at 155 marine invertebrate species commonly and widely found in New Zealand waters at depths reachable by scuba divers, and which are also easily visible and identifiable in the field.

Dr Wing said he believed Subtidal Invertebrates filled a gap in the available literature.

“I run a summer course on subtidal ecology, which involves diving, and we couldn’t find a good book that just described the common creatures that can be found in kelp forests and rocky reefs around New Zealand,” he said.

“I went to graduate school in California where they run a similar course and they had a really good short reference book so I decided to create something similar for the creatures in New Zealand. It’s really nice to have an accessible book that can be used by amateur naturalists, scientists or anyone who dives and is interested in these animals.”

The book contains colour photographs, taken by Dr Wing, of each organism in its natural habitat, offering a visual aid for identification. A succinct description of each creature is provided in the accompanying text and a general introduction explains invertebrate diversity and ecology.

“New Zealand has an amazing variety of different organisms and there are some amazing creatures that you can find in any kelp forest – hard corals, beautiful animals – so anyone who appreciates looking at these things will find this book to be a handy reference.”

Dr Wing conducts ecological research in southern New Zealand with particular emphasis on rocky reef habitats in Fiordland and Stewart Island. He has dived and photographed marine life extensively in New Zealand, Australia, northern California and Florida. Source

March 11th, 2008: Fish-killing algae discovered

Fish-killing, red tide causing algae are among six new species of algae which have been discovered in the middle of the Southern Ocean by University of Tasmania scientists.

Research Fellow (Marine Biotechnology) Dr Miguel de Salas, from the School of Plant Science, made the discovery from microscopic samples collected in 2006 and 2007, for which the results have just been published.

“Discovering six entirely new species is exciting enough, but we have also found that they are quite abundant and at least two of them are toxic - this is the first time that fish-killing, red tide causing algae have been discovered in the Southern Ocean,” Dr de Salas said.

Red tide blooms occur naturally, and some are toxic to fish. Some of these algae can cause problems for people when they bloom close to beaches or estuaries and people come in contact with the water, causing irritation, rashes and sores.

“In some parts of the world they get picked up by the wind as sea spray and cause breathing difficulties for people with conditions such as asthma,” Dr de Salas said.

Dr de Salas said it was unclear whether a red tide would occur in the Southern Ocean. Red tides are usually linked with higher than normal nutrient levels, such as farm fertiliser being washed into an estuary, or nutrient enrichment when deep water comes to the surface.

“The main reason we don't know if a red tide would occur is that we don't know enough about what causes the algae to bloom into red tide proportions,” he said.

Each of the new species contains a pigment different to that which algae in its group were expected to have. Pigments are used to classify algae into groups to measure ocean productivity.

“This means that a significant part of what we thought was contributing to the food chain in the Southern Ocean might not be doing so at all,” Dr de Salas said.

The toxicity of the algae means that their predators often learn to spit them out and the algae, while abundant, are no longer a food source. The toxic algae also eat other algae that would otherwise contribute to the food chain.

Dr de Salas said his findings could have an impact on determining future levels of sustainable fishing in the Southern Ocean.

“If we don't take all of this into account when calculating what the sustainable fishing levels are, we're probably coming up with the wrong results and this can lead to over-fishing,” Dr de Salas said.

“We know little of the impact on humans at this early stage, but the impact on other marine life higher on the food chain is important – if we have miscalculated how much we can fish, we will also be affected,” he said.

Dr de Salas and Dr Simon Wright, of the Australian Antarctic Division, are working on identifying pigments that are unique to the new algae so data can be re-analysed correctly. Models that better reflect the natural environment will improve management of primary production and fish stocks in the Southern Ocean.

March 7th, 2008: Humanity is now consuming over 20 per cent more natural resources each year than the earth can produce.

Humanity is consuming over 20 per cent more natural resources each year than the earth can produce
People are plundering the world’s resources at a pace that outstrips the planet’s capacity to sustain life, says a report by the Genevas-based environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The “Living Planet Report” examines the “ecological footprint” – or environmental impact – of the planet’s 6.4 billion-strong population.

The report is the WWF’s periodic update on the state of the world’s ecosystems – as measured by the “Living Planet Index” – and the human pressure on them through the consumption of renewable natural resources – as measured by the “Ecological Footprint.” There is a cause-effect linkage between the two measures.

The report said humanity is now consuming over 20 per cent more natural resources each year than the earth can produce.

“It is possible to exceed ecological limits for a while, but this over-spend leads to the destruction of ecological assets, on which the world’s economy depends,” said the report.

These are assets such as: depleted groudwater, collapsed fisheries, carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere, and defeorestation.

The report, which includes more sophisticated data sets than the previous four reports, shows that humanity’s Ecological Footprint grew by 150 per cent between 1961 and 2000.

During the same time period, the report’s Living Planet Index shows a 40 per cent decline in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species population. This evidence suggests that as humanity’s Ecological Footprint grows, the world’s myriad populations of wildlife shrink.

From 1991 to 2001, essentially the ten years after the United Nations Rio conference in 1992, the Footprint in the 27 wealthiest countries increased by 8 per cent per person, while in the middle and low income countries, it shrank by 8 per cent per person – exactly the opposite of what Rio promised.

The report said that consumption of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil increased by almost 700 per cent between 1961 and 2001. But the planet is unable to move as fast to absorb the resulting carbon-dioxide emissions that degrade the earth’s ozone layer.

“We are spending nature’s capital faster than it can regenerate,” said WWF Director-General Dr Claude Martin. Read more here

March 3rd, 2008: Six-legged 'hexapus' claimed as world first in Britain

A handout image from Blackpool Sealife Centre shows an octopus with six legs, or 'hexapus.' British marine experts have found what they claim is a world first -- a six-legged octopus, or "hexapus," who they have christened Henry. Read more here

March 2nd, 2008: Made in Britain: a new sea of rubbish
By DAVID DERBYSHIRE - A vast, swirling mass of plastic bags and rubbish has been discovered in the Atlantic.

The floating garbage heap - which contains debris blown off the coast of Britain and carried by currents - is a smaller version of the huge plastic cluster which lies in the North Pacific.

Marine researchers who made the discovery say every ocean is now contaminated with plastic waste - and that tiny fragments of plastic from bags and other rubbish are routinely washing up on shores around the world.

The findings come from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which has been trawling the oceans for two years.

In one typical experiment, a net was dragged overboard for four miles south-east of the Azores.

Wildlife thorughout the world is at risk from discarded supermarket bags. Here in Britain, two swans struggle to rid each other of strands of plastic caught in their beaks. The team pulled up around 800 pieces of plastic large enough to be caught in the mesh.

The haul included 700 unidentified scraps of plastic, 57 lengths of fishing line, fragments of old bags and dozens of white pellets. The pellets - called nurdles or "mermaid's tears" - are the raw material of the plastic industry.

The scale of pollution was so great that the scientists believe they could have found the Atlantic's equivalent of the North Pacific Gyre - a garbage patch the size of America which lies between Hawaii and the U.S. and contains up to 100million tons of rubbish.

The Atlantic version appears to lie around the Canary Islands and the Azores.

"There's been a lot of attention given to the North Pacific Gyre and it has given the impression that it's the only area where there's a problem with plastic bags and rubbish," said a spokesman.

"But wherever we looked in the ocean, we found plastic fragments. We are still analysing the results but there is evidence of a similar pattern of waste in the Atlantic."

Up to 80 per cent of the litter in the seas is plastic.According to the UN's Environment Programme, there are about 13,000 pieces in every square kilometre of sea. Source

March 1st, 2008: Climate change threat to fisheries

ACCORDING to the latest UN report released the other day, the world's major fishing grounds, depleted already by over-harvesting and pollution, are now severely threatened by climate change. Warmer water and acidification caused by the seas' absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide are disrupting fragile natural cycles and threaten a dramatic collapse in fish stocks. 'What we do over the next decades has the potential to affect ocean chemistry for tens of thousands of years, and marine life for millions of years,' marine scientist Ken Caldeira one of the authors, was quoted to have said. The UN report was unveiled at an international meeting of environment ministers in Monaco focussing on global warming.

Over-fishing, pollution and now climate change have had catastrophic impacts on the world's wild fish populations, the report said adding previous studies showed that 90 per cent of many of the ocean's big fishes - including tuna, marlin, swordfish, some sharks, cod and halibut - hav