Convict surgeonfish are the roaming sheep of the reef but, instead of noshing on grass, they feed on algae.
CREDIT:
Michael Webster
Publish by: Michael Webster - Jun 19, 2013
When snorkeling in the Kahekili Herbivore Fisheries Management Area (KHFMA) in West Maui, I keep an eye out for certain kinds of fish. Not the brightest or the biggest, but those herbivores such as uhu (parrotfish), lau'ipala (yellow tang), or na'ena'e (orangeband surgeonfish) that mow algae. These fish can tell me whether a unique experiment in coral reef management that has the potential to restore ecological resilience —the ability for an ecosystem to rebound after a disturbance—is working. Inside the KHFMA, fishing for herbivorous fishes and urchins is banned, so the species I’m hoping to...
Tags: Corals, Fisheries, Protected areas
The ocean plays an important role in our everyday lives—whether you live near the coast or not.
CREDIT:
Dennis Frates/Nature's Best Photography
Publish by: Emily Frost - Jun 7, 2013
Those of us who can't see the ocean from our window might feel disconnected from the life there. It might seem that, because the ocean feels far away, its problems will only harm those people that fish or make their living directly from the sea. But this isn’t true: the sea is far more important than that. It's easy to forget the critical role the ocean plays in human life. The salty water of the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Ocean plants produce some 50% of the planet's oxygen. Seawater absorbs a quarter of the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere. And...
Tags: Human impacts, World Ocean Day
A Hawaiian petrel flies over part of its North Pacific feeding grounds.
CREDIT:
Photo courtesy of Jim Denny
Publish by: Anne Wiley - May 24, 2013
Most people have never heard of the Hawaiian petrel , an endangered, crow-sized seabird that spends the majority of its life searching for food over the North Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, this bird is no stranger to human influence, and it has a stern lesson to teach us about the history of the open ocean. When it comes to what marine predators can find to eat, humans are changing things, and fast. My colleagues and I have spent a number of years studying the history of this amazing seafarer. We’ve come to view it as a sort of indicator of food web history in the oceanic zone of the North...
Tags: Food web
A pipe on the seaflood discharges fish waste, such as bones and scraps, from processing factories that turn whole caught fish into filets that you buy in the supermarket.
CREDIT:
Bruce Duncan, USEPA
Publish by: Sean Sheldrake - May 8, 2013
As a research diver for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one of my jobs is to make sure that people and companies working in the fish industry don’t dump too much waste in the ocean. On my first dive at an underwater waste site, my old salt of a dive partner hinted, “you might see a shark… or three” with a wink. “Okay,” I thought, “I can deal with a couple of sharks.” Descending to the dump site, I soon saw circling dogfish and salmon sharks extending all the way from 80 feet to the surface—maybe 50 sharks, perhaps more. All those dogfish were drawn to a pile of Alaskan salmon...
Publish by: Daniel Botkin - May 2, 2013
Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Daniel Botkin's new book The Moon in the Nautilus Shell: Discordant Harmonies Reconsidered . He will be in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, May 8th for a lecture and book signing through the Smithsonian Associates. The Nautilus and the Moon: (From Chapter 14) My mind meandered from thoughts of the shallow European sea to those of the far-off Pacific Ocean and one of its humblest and most obscure creatures, the chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius Linnaeus), which lives far from Venice in the southwestern Pacific. Although the shell of the chambered...
Tags: Cephalopods, Geologic time, Mollusks
An emperor penguin chick (Aptenodytes forsteri) huddles under its mother's legs to keep warm in the long Antarctic winter.
CREDIT:
Wikimedia User "Mtpaley"
Publish by: Emily Frost - Apr 23, 2013
Even if you aren't a hardcore birder, chances are you have some hidden love for penguins. These flightless birds have captured our hearts through countless movies, beautiful images and their adorable fluffy young. Panoramic scenes of their large breeding colonies make penguin populations seem limitless, but the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists 11 of the 18 species as Vulnerable or Endangered. Penguins have certain characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to large-scale changes to our oceans and climate: their reproductive lifestyle of laying only one or two eggs,...
Tags: Feeding, Fisheries, Penguins, Polar regions
If the Earth is viewed from this side, uncommonly shown, it looks much more like a blue ocean planet than a green land-filled one.
CREDIT:
NOAA/NASA GOES Project
Publish by: Hannah Waters - Apr 22, 2013
Sometimes I think that our planet Earth, named for the Old English word for “dry land” (eorthe), should get a new name. Despite our knowledge that more than 70% of the planet’s surface is ocean—definitely not “dry land”—we still refer to our home by an 8th century description. The same goes for Earth Day. Since 1970, people around the world have set aside April 22nd of each year to think about protecting the environment. This includes the ocean, as it’s a huge part of Earth’s environment. But the sea often seems to play a background role compared to more terrestrial causes. What many people...
Traditional fishing techniques now involve monofilament nets, with snorkelers diving down to ensure the bigger fish don't get away.
CREDIT:
Caine Delacy
Publish by: Caine Delacy - Apr 17, 2013
We began this journey three months ago, a team of scientists and filmmakers traveling the East African coastline by boat to document and research the status of coral reefs from South Africa to Kenya. We have observed a lot of changes in the coral reef communities as we travel north. Some of these changes are natural shifts in biodiversity, species composition and structure of the reef communities. There are also those changes that are caused by humans . Where Have All the Big Fish (and Sharks) Gone? Immediately obvious when we dive a new location are the effects of fishing, fishing practices...
"I was photographing this beautiful school of jacks when a diver slowly approached from beneath. I shifted my position to capture the moment he entered the ball of fish. Seconds later, he was completely immersed in the school.” -- Nature's Best photographer, Steve De Neef
CREDIT:
Steve De Neef, Antwerp, Belgium www.stevedeneef.com
Publish by: Hannah Waters - Apr 11, 2013
April is National Poetry Month here in the United States. We'd like you to help us celebrate by penning a poem in the comment field below or on our Facebook page . The ocean has served as an inspiration for as long as poets have been writing poems. Some people are inspired by the ocean’s powerful, crashing waves, like when Homer wrote about the “wine dark sea” in the Odyssey . Its fascinating animals sparked Walt Whitman , while its depth and mystery drew in former US poet laureate Billy Collins. Even play on the beach can be a source of inspiration: it compelled E. E. Cummings to pen the...
Tags: Ocean art
The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) is one of the most important commercial species in the United States.
CREDIT:
Brian Henderson, Flickr user stinkenroboter
Publish by: Katrina Lohan - Mar 27, 2013
Hopefully you've never bitten into a delicious hunk of snow crab meat and instantly spit it out because instead of crab you tasted... aspirin?! If you have, it might have been crab meat infected with a species of Hematodinium , a parasitic dinoflagellate that is the cause of Bitter Crab Disease in cold-water crab species. This parasite lowers the “tasty factor” of commercially important cold-water crabs around the world. At present, there are reports of 39 species of crab and shrimp from 12 countries being infected. Recent victims include the snow crab ( Chionoecetes opilio ), the Norway...
Tags: Crustaceans, Parasitism
