Missed out on July 2022’s ocean news? Here’s a glimpse into what went down in Davy Jones’ Locker this month.

Sections

Animals and Plants
Climate Crisis
Fisheries and Aquaculture
Marine Technology
People and the Sea

Animals and Plants

• UNESCO has released their pilot State of the Ocean Report 2022. This pilot report is structured around the ten UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development challenges including pollution, ocean observation, and the ocean economy.
  
  

• Fancy some perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) and phthalate esters (PAEs) in your Florida oysters? Didn’t think so. Bad news…a study of 156 oysters from Biscayne Bay, Marco Island and Tampa Bay found these contaminants in every single oyster.
  
  

• Who wants to chat with sperm whales? Who doesn’t! Researchers are using AI to “decipher the codas of sperm whales”.
  
  

• Soo apparently great white sharks can switch between dark grey and light grey within a matter of hours.
  
  

• Eighteen years of continuous underwater recordings indicate the amount of Chagos’ pygmy blue whales songs is increasing.
  
  

• Who was the first to bounce back after the end-Permian mass extinction? Those lovely burrowing shrimps and worms.
  
  

• New species alert! This time three new species of sun coralin the waters off Hong Kong.
  
  

• Mangroves are marine ecosystems right? Well, there’s always an exception to the rule! Researchers have recently published an open access study documenting freshwater mangrove forests in the Amazon Delta.
  
  

• White southern right whale calves have been spotted in Western Australia! Apparently, only around 5% of southern right whales are born mostly white. Unlike Mingalooo, the albino humpback whale, they will turn dark as they get older.
  
  

• The Madagascar Whale Shark Project has recently unveiled a new project that allows anyone to help protect Madagascar's whale sharks.
  
  

• Bad news for large marine fish in warming waters. They’re more likely to experience oxygen deficiency in warming waters than smaller species, and freshwater species.
  
  

• Sampling ~10,000 shark fin trimmings from Hong Kong markets, researchers find that around two-thirds of the species in the fin trade are endangered or threatened.
  
  

• Why did megalodon sharks go extinct? The answer could lie in their fossilized teeth.
  
  

• Turns out whale sharks love a bit (a lot?) of seaweed with their krill.
  
  

• Israel’s Parks and Nature Authority have released drone footage of a jellyfish swam near Haifa. Check it out-it’s an impressive sight.
  
  

• An adult female Atlantic spotted dolphin, nicknamed Eugenie Clark, has become the first offshore dolphin in the Gulf of Mexico to receive a health assessment. Thanks to a satellite-linked transmitter, researchers–and you–can follow her movements
  
  

• Plesiosaurs. The quintessential marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs. If this new study is anything to go by, we might need to revisit that. New evidence suggests they also frequented freshwater environments.
  
  

• Stingrays… Silent ocean dwellers… or so we thought. Researchers have shown at least two species of stingray voluntarily make noise. Be sure to check out the video in the link.
  
  

Climate Crisis

• Researchers have been exploring mineral deposits in Mallorca’s caves. They found “evidence of a previously unknown 20 centimetre sea-level rise that occurred nearly 3,200 years ago when ice caps melted naturally.” They also found evidence that since the start of the 20th century, sea level has risen 18 centimetres.
  
  

• Arctic fish seem to be more prone to tumors, thanks to an increase in Xcellidae, a parasitic alveolate. The reason for this increase? Warming sea temperatures.
  
  

• Phytoplankton have the potential to store an estimated five to 17% of the “total increase in carbon uptake by the oceans by 2100”.
  
  

• With climate change wildfires are likely to become commonplace. According to this new research, that’s pretty bad news for Arctic sea ice as well.
  
  

• New research suggests changes in surface-ocean density may impact the dispersal patterns of mangrove, especially in the Indo-West Pacific.
  
  

Fisheries and Aquaculture

• In Sri Lanka, illegal dynamite fishers even target marine protected areas.
  
  

• It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, but a new open access study has found commercial clams from the South Yellow Sea contain microplastics.
  
  

• Ireland have recently announced €20 million in funding for capital investments to accelerate the sustainable growth of the Aquaculture Sector.
  
  

• Fishers and researchers in Jamaica have been sharing how overfishing and poaching are making life much harder.
  
  

• Interested in salmon Stocks and Fisheries in England and Wales? CEFAS, the Environment Agency, and Natural Resources Wales have published their 2021 assessment.
  
  

• In India, the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) have estimated the country has a seaweed production potential of 9.7 million tonnes (wet weight) per year. They’ve identifed 342 sites suitable for cultivating seaweed across the country.
  
  

• Are you ready for vegan “oysters”? Seafood startup Pearlita has developed the first plant-based oyster prototype.
  
  

Marine Technology

• An interdisciplinary team of biologists, chemists, and engineers from the University of Portsmouth have become the first to uccessfully grow a limpet inspired biomaterial with extreme strength.
  
  

• Apparently NASA are considering sending swimming robots “beneath the icy shells of our Solar System’s many “ocean worlds”".
  
  

• Need a low-cost way to monitor coral reefs? Alex Runyan at the University of Rhode Island has developed a 3d-printed camera.
  
  

• Find sealions inspiring? These researchers did. They created artificial whisker arrays to detect sources of flow disturbances under water or in the air.
  
  

• Researchers have used data from the underwater volcanic eruption that took place earlier this year to detect changes in air pressure. The technique could help predict future tusnamis.
  
  

• Sometimes the best tech is… not tech. Researchers at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi have enlisted the help of Poppy, an English Springer Spaniel, and Bin, a German Shorthaired Pointer, to discover if dogs can efficiently sniff out crude oil on beaches.
  
  

• Over in New Zealand researchers are using a combination of drones, AI and cloud technologiesto learn more about (and hopefully protect) Māui dolphins.
  
  

• How far can a human-occupied submersible go? This month Alvin and it’s occupants reached a new record- 6,453 meters below the sea surface.
  
  

• Forget making water into wine. Making seawater into drinking water is where it’s at, especially when the desalination process is powered by waves.
  
  

• Fancy a bit of in-situ imaging of deep-sea infauna? Researchers in Japan have developed a 3D acoustic “coring” system that allows them to visualise animals living below the surface of the sea floor.
  
  

• The EU-financed SEASTAR (SurvEillance of Aquaculture farmS with neTworks of underwAter sensoRs) will embrace Internet of Things technologies and miniature wearable sensors for fish to support aquaculture.
  
  

People and the Sea

• The Ocean Race have launched a new initiative to drive public support for ocean rights. The Ocean Race say the ‘One Blue Voice’ initiative “will raise awareness of the declining state of the seas, highlight how the ocean’s rights are being ignored and help to shift perception of the ocean from a resource to use and exploit, to an entity that has a right to thrive.”
  
  

• New survey of the Western Pacific Kuril-Kamchatka Trench found between 215 and 1596 plastic microparticles per kilogram in the sediment.
  
  

• Researchers have used radioactive material in marine sediments and corals to provide a “quantitative definition for the start of what is known as the Anthropocene”.
  
  

• Researchers call for greater integration between “BBNJ Treaty” and the ISA’s regulations(both currently under negotiation).
  
  

• Earlier this year, an orca died in the Seine River, France. An autopsy has revealed a bullet lodged at the base of her skull. It’s unclear whether the bullet was related to the orca’s death.
  
  

• In Australia, there are mounting calls to remove shark nets in Queensland after rescuers released the fifth humpback whale that got tangled in the net this year.
  
  

• Narwhals don’t like seismic survey ship noise. They swim as hard as they can to get away from the noise, increasing “the energetic cost of diving while a paradoxically reduced heart rate alters the circulation of blood and oxygen.”NA
  
  

• Sticking with noise, a new study suggests deep-sea mining noise pollution could stretch for hundreds of miles.
  
  

• As expected, the UN Ocean Conference resulted in multiple pledges to better protect the ocean. Of course, only time will tell if these words will be backed by rapid and meaningful action.
  
  

• The University of Portsmouth have launched a ” one-stop policy shop with solutions to end plastic pollution.” The Global Plastics Policy Centre (GPPC) online platform will give the latest guidance to anyone with an interest in plastics policy.
  
  

• Officials from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Cabo Verde, the European Union, Morocco, South Africa, and the United States have all signed the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance Declaration. The Declaration seeks to advance marine research and build on cross-Atlantic collaborations.
  
  

• One for the divers and lovers of archaeology. Cyprus has opened its first underwater archaeological park.
  
  

• Three extremely rare shipwrecks have recently been granted the highest protection. One of the ships is a 13th-century vessel, while the other two date to the 16th and 17th centuries.