Leatherback turtles are popular this issue, with scientists tracking them across the Atlantic, how they thermo-regulate, and how to stop them ending up in the soup… Otherwise there is a nice bit of experimental work ‘proving’ that faster flow = more life (this doesn’t mean that low-flow = no life, however!). We are also, perhaps, getting closer to understanding why coral bleaching occurs at a molecular level.

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This issue we look at the behaviour of seals and jellyfish – choose the ideal holiday destination for starfish – then dive into a microbial ocean. How to manage fisheries, this time on a Chilean archipelago (there are some mitigating circumstances here, but best of luck guys), and catch up on more news from the Gulf of Mexico. One factor that we need to take on board is that the Gulf was in bad shape before the spill, and that the $20B oil spill response isn’t going to start managing the Gulf ecology properly.

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A real mixed-bag this week, our marine science highlights consider techniques for identifying viruses (or molecular quasi-species) and nanotech trackers to follow zooplankton. In conservation, we see progress on a new generation of bioreactors that promise to remove nitrogen from land runoff. In fisheries, even the best environmental practices at fish farms need improvement. In pollution, science of the gulf oil spill in the service of the law.

For those of you who worry about climate change, but feel they can’t do anything about it right now, we finish with the opportunity to transcribe the logs of British warships from the turn of the last century. The transcriptions will extend our baseline data about climate back in time over a wide area of the Earth’s surface, and so improve the qualty of our climatic forecasts.
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This week we start at the beginning of the marine food web – with algae blooming in the SW Atlantic, and plumbing the depths around Hawaii. In marine exploitation we see plans to mine hydrothermal vents in Papua New Guinea. Conservation worries in the Indian Ocean, with extensive bleaching now occurring due to high water temperatures. Coccolithophores make a guest appearance in climate change – responsible for absorbing large amounts of the CO₂ we’re pumping into the atmosphere – an understanding of their biology takes on global significance…

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Lots of stuff in this roundup in which we travel in time from an up-to-date science review from the gulf oil spill (handy for next month’s talks!) back to ancient cnidaria. Exciting changes in fisheries protection for the US Pacific fleet, which is to see the number of boats reduced to match the number of fish that can be legally caught. More on the formation of shoals – what is the cost of grouping together for protection? To start, however, a first glimpse into the life of one of the largest groups of marine organisms – the bacteria:
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Lots of pollution – the Deepwater Horizon was now the largest spill ever (official). Problems with policing conservation policy. How alike are flocks and shoals? Read on…
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A good couple of weeks of marine science here – from fun to fundamental stuff, and often both together! Fundamental and important is the possibility that studies of nitrogen uptake in the marine ecosystem may have have underestimated the amounts of nitrogen being fixed by marine organisms. Fundamental and fun – well, take your choice from scampering scallops to the secretive sex-life of snails!

In conservation the emerging issue is deep-sea bottom trawling; there doesn’t seem to be any way of controlling this, so I guess the industry will continue until the stocks crash, taking an entire ecosystem with them (if you care, buy fish from sustainable sources – this does not include any deep sea species!). In pollution the important stories are still with the Gulf Oil Slick, with the publication of BP’s report into the accident, and some interesting strands in the debate as to where the oil has gone…

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Fisheries and climate change – the big two marine problems go head to head this week. I couldn’t work out where some stories belonged, so if you are interested in either, scan both columns! My research for a talk in November on the Gulf Oil Spill is getting interesting, with (more) claims of independent research getting elbowed out of the way of a good legal battle! Sour grapes, or serious accusations? First though, something wholesome from the scientific journals:
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The oil spill continues to be important to the marine biology community, which is currently chewing over some of the first reports based on data obtained during the slick and in its immediate aftermath. There is still a lot else to consider – climate change is moving back up the agenda, with indications that we need to address this problem now. We will start, however, 2.5 billion years ago (the lengths I go to to find some good news…)
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Lots in the press over that last week, with the start of the publication of a new PLoS 1 collection on marine biodiversity, one of the outcomes of the Census of Marine Life (2000-2010). In the conservation field we have encouraging support for marine reserves from US studies, though there is strong indication that multi-use reserves are not as efffective as might be hoped – strongly policed no-take zones are really the only option for allowing the recovery of many areas. Otherwise, we have a number of publications on hard corals – some good basic science for a change in ‘Life at Sea’, plus a look at how well corals establish at higher temperatures in our climate change section.

Marine biodiversity and biogeography: The release of a collection of articles from around the world, each article describes the physical, geological, chemical, and biological characteristics of a region of the worlds oceans. Current papers cover the Pacific, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Antarctic, a US overview, and South Africa. These publications follow on from a decade of work by the Census of Marine Life, that attempted to bring together a corpus of knowledge about the biodiversity of our oceans.
PLoS ONE: Marine Biodiversity and Biogeography – Regional Comparisons of Global Issues

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