Missed out on February 2024’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
Oceanography
People and the Sea

Animals and Plants

• A stingray called Charlotte is pregnant despite not sharing her tank with a male for at least eight years. Charlotte is a rust-coloured round stingray that has spent most of her life in an aquarium in North Carolina. Read more.
  
  

• Nearly half of the world’s migratory species are in decline and the global extinction risk is increasing, a new UN report has revealed. Some whale species, sea turtles and jaguars are among the animals at risk, according to the first-ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report. Read more.
  
  

• The Department of Commerce and NOAA announced plans for $27 million to recover threatened and endangered Pacific salmon in the face of climate change. These funds, part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, are made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act. This investment in science will support informed management actions as a component of NOAA’s comprehensive strategy for Pacific salmon recovery. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists plan ‘seaweed breakthrough’ to restore threatened species Read more.
  
  

• The Arctic is changing rapidly due to climate change. It is not only affected by increasing surface temperatures, but also by warm water from the Atlantic, which is flowing in more and more – changing the structures and functions of the ecosystem as it also leads to species from warmer regions, such as sea jellies (also known as jellyfish) arriving in the Arctic. Using DNA metabarcoding, researchers have now been able to demonstrate that these jellyfish serve as food for amphipods on Svalbard during the polar night and thus play a greater role in Arctic food webs than previously assumed. Read more.
  
  

• Corals searching for food in the cold and dark waters of the deep sea are building higher and higher mountains to get closer to the source of their food. But in doing so, they may find themselves trapped when the climate changes. Read more.
  
  

• New research has shown there is more coral reef area across the globe than previously thought, with detailed satellite mapping helping to conserve these vital ecosystems. Read more.
  
  

• On healthy reefs around the world, corals, algae, fishes and microbes live interconnected and in balance – exchanging nutrients, resources, and chemical signals. New research led by the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Manoa and and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) revealed that when coral bleaching occurs, corals release unique organic compounds into the surrounding water that not only promote bacterial growth overall, but select for opportunistic bacteria that may further stress reefs. Read more.
  
  

• Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on the other hand, are usually pale and inconspicuous because the pigments are very sensitive and have already decomposed. Residues of ancient color patterns are therefore very rare. This makes a new discovery all the more astonishing: researchers found pigments in twelve-million-year-old fossilized snail shells. Read more.
  
  

• Beaked whales are among the least studied mammals in the world. Now, a new study reveals surprising information about the Baird’s beaked whale species. Read more.
  
  

• Tracking tropical turtles deep down to the seabed reveals their feeding habits Read more.
  
  

• An amateur wildlife photographer says capturing a pod of orcas teaching a youngster how to hunt was “amazing”. Read more.
  
  

• World’s rarest all-white Omura’s whale spotted off the coast of Thailand Read more.
  
  

• Canadian scientists and fishermen are tracking the northward movement of swordfish into Newfoundland waters where the prized fish is being caught in large numbers on the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists study levels of toxic mercury in Antarctic seals, whales Read more.
  
  

• The first survey of Florida’s reefs after an ‘apocalyptic’ marine heat wave offers a bleak picture of the future of the state’s renowned corals — and the restoration efforts to save them. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers used shark teeth from a 13th-century fishing site in southern Brazil to get a picture of how the ecosystem has changed. Read more.
  
  

• The iconic baleen whales, such as the blue, gray and humpback whale, depend on sound for communication in the vast marine environment where they live. Now researchers have for the first time found that baleen whales evolved novel structures in their larynx to make their vast array of underwater songs. Read more.
  
  

• Tuna is one of the most popular seafoods worldwide. But this protein-rich fish can build up high levels of methylmercury from feeding on contaminated prey, like smaller fish or crustaceans. Despite efforts to reduce mercury emissions into the environment, researchers report that levels in tuna appear to be unchanged since 1971. They warn that more aggressive emission reduction targets are needed to start nudging down tuna mercury levels. Read more.
  
  

• The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain – the part of the brain controlling vital functions like blood pressure and heart rate – of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit.

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• Researchers evaluated the prevalence, concentration and tissue distribution of essential and non-essential trace elements, including heavy metal toxicants in tissue (blubber, kidney, liver, skeletal muscle, skin) and fecal samples collected from 90 whales and dolphins stranded in Georgia and Florida from 2007 to 2021. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers questioned if coordinated group movements by animals moving through a fluid could reduce the energy cost of locomotion. By combining biomechanics and bioenergetics the researchers found not only a significant amount of energy conservation, but also identified the reduced energy use per tail beat. Read more.
  
  

• Fish exposed to some pesticides at extremely low concentrations for a brief period of time can demonstrate lasting behavioral changes, with the impact extending to offspring that were never exposed firsthand, a recent study found. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers analyzed archival samples of bacteria and archaea populations taken from the Beaufort Sea, bordering northwest Canada and Alaska. The samples were collected between 2004 and 2012, a period that included two years – 2007 and 2012 – in which the sea ice coverage was historically low. The researchers looked at samples taken from three levels of water: the summer mixed layer, the upper Arctic water below it and the Pacific-origin water at the deepest level. The study examined the microbes’ genetic composition using bioinformatics and statistical analysis across the nine-year time span. Using this data, the researchers were able to see how changing environmental conditions were influencing the organisms’ structure and function. Read more.
  
  

• Armed with a catalog of hundreds of thousands of DNA and RNA virus species in the world’s oceans, scientists are now zeroing in on the viruses most likely to combat climate change by helping trap carbon dioxide in seawater or, using similar techniques, different viruses that may prevent methane’s escape from thawing Arctic soil. Read more.
  
  

• The reproduction of giant sea spiders in Antarctica has been largely unknown to researchers for more than 140 years, until now. University of Hawai’i at Manoa scientists traveled to the remote continent and saw first-hand the behaviors of these mysterious creatures, and their findings could have wider implications for marine life and ocean ecosystems in Antarctica and around the world. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers studied the composition and function of bacteria in the seabed off Svalbard, during alternating periods of polar night and midnight sun. To do this, they specially developed a sampling device, the Ellrott grab. In contrast with bacterial communities in the overlying water, the sediment bacteria hardly change with the seasons. This is probably due to the fact that in the seabed some hard-to-digest foods are available all year round. Read more.
  
  

• Planting begins on UK’s biggest seagrass restoration project off North Wales coast. Organisers hope to plant more than five million seagrass seeds off the Welsh coastline by the end of 2026. Read more.
  
  

• Southern resident orcas are now listed as endangered under Oregon (USA) law, providing additional protections to their struggling population. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday unanimously voted to protect the whales under the Oregon Endangered Species Act, exactly a year after conservation groups petitioned the state. The commission was required to make a determination within a year. Read more.
  
  

• For the past 10 years, marine biologist and conservationist Stan Shea has been leading a citizen-science program called the 114°E Hong Kong Reef Fish Survey to compile data on local reef fish species and raise awareness about the marine environment. There are likely about 500 reef fish species in Hong Kong, but only about 460 have been identified so far; Shea and his team aim to find and document as many of the other overlooked as possible. Read more.
  
  

Climate Crisis

• Anoxic marine basins are among the most viable places to conduct large-scale carbon sequestration in the deep ocean, while minimizing negative impacts to marine life. So say UC Santa Barbara researchers in a paper published in the journal AGU Advances. As we explore ways to actively draw down the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, sending plant biomass to these barren, oxygen-free zones on the seafloor becomes an option worth considering. Read more.
  
  

• Dumping chemicals in the ocean? Spraying saltwater into clouds? Injecting reflective particles into the sky? Scientists are resorting to once unthinkable techniques to cool the planet because global efforts to check greenhouse gas emissions are failing. Read more.
  
  

• The population of bowhead whales that migrates between the Bering and Beaufort Seas each year is a conservation success story, with today’s population nearing – if not exceeding – pre-commercial whaling numbers. But climate change is shifting the whales’ feeding grounds and migration patterns, potentially pushing them to spend more time in the paths of oncoming ships, according to a new study. Read more.
  
  

• A new study offers a glimpse into the possible impact of climate change on coastal wetlands 50 years or longer into the future. Scientists are usually forced to rely on computer models to project the long-term effects of rising seas, but an unexpected set of circumstances enabled a real-world experiment along the Gulf Coast. Read more.
  
  

• Marine heatwaves will become a regular occurrence in the Arctic in the near future and are a product of higher anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions – as shown in a study just released by Dr. Armineh Barkhordarian from Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS. Read more.
  
  

• The EU Commission is investing over €233 million in twelve new Strategic Projects across Europe under the LIFE programme to support the implementation of the EU’s environmental and climate ambitions under the European Green Deal. These Strategic Projects are expected to mobilise substantial additional funds from other EU sources, including agricultural, structural, regional and research funds, as well as from national governments and private sector investment. Read more.
  
  

• A collaborative team of scientists recently found that there is no physiological evidence supporting a leading theory – which involves the surface area of fish gills – as to why many fish species are ‘shrinking’ as waters grow warmer due to climate change. Known as the Gill Oxygen Limitation (GOL) theory, it has been proposed as the universal mechanism explaining fish size and has been used in some predictions of future global fisheries yields. However, the researchers conducted a series of long-term experiments on brook trout and found that, though increased temperatures do lead to significantly decreased body size, gill surface area did not explain the change. Read more.
  
  

Fisheries and Aquaculture

• A major new European project will improve our understanding of how the bycatch of fisheries impacts protected, endangered and threatened species (PETS) in the Atlantic Ocean and develop methods for better monitoring and mitigating these impacts Read more.
  
  

• Researchers have previously demonstrated that bristle worms can flourish and grow on the sludge derived from farmed fish. Now there is a debate going on about whether these same bristle worms can be fed to farmed salmon. But how safe is it really to allow salmon to feed on bristle worms that have been feeding on excrement sludge derived from the salmon themselves? A research team has been looking into this as part of a project called SecureFeed. Read more.
  
  

• For the first time, researchers have investigated how ropes and fishing lines are handled by the Norwegian commercial fishing industry. The fishing fleet loses almost 400 tonnes of rope in Norwegian waters every year. Read more.
  
  

• Is there a new deep-sea fishery on the horizon? Well, some researchers believe this is possible. Species living at depths between 200 and 1000 metres may be very valuable. However, harvesting them isn’t as easy as it might sound because, when taken on board, valuable catches change rapidly from pure gold to ashes. Read more.
  
  

• Permaculture showed us how to farm the land more gently. Can we do the same as we farm the sea? Read more.
  
  

• Chinese fishing vessels are going scorched earth and pumping cyanide into contested waters, Philippine fishing authority says Read more.
  
  

• The European Commission has launched a call for proposals to develop a demonstrator marine fishing vessel equipped with alternative propulsion technologies and innovative energy solutions. The pilot project aims to significantly improve the energy performance of the current fishing vessels, reducing their greenhouse emissions and enhancing the sector’s economic resilience. Read more.
  
  

• Haiti formally accepts Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies Read more.
  
  

• Seas At Risk have published what they consider to be ten examples from EU Member States pioneering fair and eco-friendly allocation of fishing opportunities Read more.
  
  

• More than 20 algae species have been added to the EU Novel Food Status Catalogue. Thanks to collaborative efforts of the European Commission and EU Member States’ competent authorities, they can now be sold on the market as food or food supplements. It not only eliminates a bottleneck in the development of the sector, but also saves the industry significant time and money. This should result in a shortened process for the marketing authorisation of algae products, leading to an estimated cost savings of at least €10 million for the algae industry in the EU. Read more.
  
  

• Fishing of the blue groper by any method will be prohibited in New South Wales (Australia) under changes to be trialled by the state government, with penalties of up to six months in jail. The blue groper, the NSW state fish, has been protected from spearfishing since 1969, and commercial fishing since 1980, but the changes announced on Wednesday will prohibit other forms of fishing, including line fishing. The changes do not apply to Aboriginal cultural fishing. Read more.
  
  

• Fishing company Moana New Zealand has said one of its contract vessels could be responsible for hundreds of dead fish floating in the sea around Auckland and washing up on the city’s beaches. A Moana NZ spokeswoman said one of the contract vessels lost power while at sea and what happened was accidental, not deliberate. Read more.
  
  

• The scale of unregulated fishing in a disputed region close to the Falkland Islands has reached an “overwhelming” level that is threatening fish populations and the rich biodiversity of the area, politicians and environmentalists have claimed. The “Blue Hole”, a stretch of the south Atlantic Ocean lying approximately 200 miles off the coast of Argentina and north of the Falkland Islands, is one of the only areas of sea that is not covered by a regional fishing agreement. Read more.
  
  

Marine Technology

• Fossils of a marine animal that lived 500 million years ago, combined with computer simulations, informed the design of a new soft robot. Read more.
  
  

• At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), scientists at the Marine Genomics Unit, in collaboration with the Japanese telecommunications company NTT Communications, have identified the genera of mesophotic corals using eDNA collected by underwater drones for the first time. Their groundbreaking research has been published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Now, with the help of submersible robots, large-scale eDNA monitoring of corals can be conducted without relying on direct observations during scientific scuba diving or snorkeling. Read more.
  
  

• New exploration in underwater navigation, a team from the Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan, China, has created novel algorithms that rectify inertial errors using sparse acoustic signals. This exploration offers novel method for the issue of underwater navigation , where traditional satellite systems are ineffective due to their signals’ inability to penetrate water effectively. Read more.
  
  

• A state-of-the-art smart buoy measuring five meters in diameter, fitted with innovative sensors that communicate with each other and with land, will be deployed in the South Pacific, off the coast of New Caledonia. This instrument will allow sampling of both the surface and deep ocean simultaneously every four hours for four years, and will transmit data (biodiversity, chemistry, physics) in real time to oceanographers on land. This technological breakthrough in oceanography will open up new horizons in our understanding of ocean-climate links. Read more.
  
  

• The EU Commission welcomes the political agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council on updating the requirements for the Port State Control of vessels calling at EU ports, and on the flag State requirements for merchant vessels registered in EU Member States. Read more.
  
  

• The Policy and Innovation Group at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the Supergen ORE Hub, Wave Energy Scotland and the Marine Energy Council, are pleased to announce the publication of the 2023 UK Ocean Energy Review. Read more.
  
  

• Fish is commonly consumed but many may not be aware that the food and aquaculture sectors generate a huge amount of fish scale waste from processes such as preparation, canning, filleting, salting and smoking. Disposal of fish scale waste in landfills may cause serious environmental pollution problems. Therefore, converting fish scale waste into functional materials could help to reduce environmental impact and generate economic benefits. Contributing to this effort, physicists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a novel method of repurposing fish scale waste to act as a bio-adsorbant to effectively remove the pollutant Rhodamine B from water, and a material for information encryption. Read more.
  
  

Oceanography

• Marine heatwaves are becoming increasingly common, and they’re impacting the microorganisms in our oceans. Read more.
  
  

• A single Antarctic heatwave or storm can noticeably raise the sea level Read more.
  
  

• An analysis of satellite observations has identified some extreme thunderstorms over the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Mexico with lightning flashes so frequent that the sky would appear continuously lit Read more.
  
  

• New research has shown that the tropical subsurface ocean gained oxygen during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (commonly referred to as PETM). During this short-lived interval of time in Earth s history that occurred 56 million years ago the average temperatures rose by up to six degrees within a few thousand years. Read more.
  
  

• Biggest Holocene volcano eruption found by seabed survey. A detailed survey of the volcanic underwater deposits around the Kikai caldera in Japan clarified the deposition mechanisms as well as the event’s magnitude. As a result, the Kobe University research team found that the event 7,300 years ago was the largest volcanic eruption in the Holocene by far. Read more.
  
  

People and the Sea

• Kicking off its fourth year of implementation, the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (the ‘Ocean Decade’) has endorsed a new batch of 45 Decade Actions focused on the advancement of science-based solutions for a healthy ocean. Read more.
  
  

• People are being warned to stay away from seals after an exhausted pup was harassed. Read more.
  
  

• In Canada, the Greenways Land Trust along with the Wei Wai Kum First Nation’s Guardian Watchmen and the A’Tlegay Fisheries Society are working in the Campbell River estuary this week until Friday, and again next month from March 4-8. They are transplanting eelgrass plugs into subtidal zones, to create habitat for juvenile salmon. Eelgrass provides feeding and hiding grounds for salmon in intertidal zones before they enter the ocean. Read more.
  
  

• An investigation by CSIRO, conducted for Heritage NSW, has helped identify the wreck of a steamship that disappeared off Australia’s east coast in 1904. Read more.
  
  

• Inside North Korea’s forced-labour program: Workers sent from the country to Chinese factories describe enduring beatings and sexual abuse, having their wages taken by the state, and being told that if they try to escape they will be “killed without a trace.” Read more.
  
  

• Offshore wind farms: policymakers are more influenced by reports that accentuate negative impacts Read more.
  
  

• For decades, a graveyard of corroding barrels has littered the seafloor just off the coast of Los Angeles. It was out of sight, out of mind — a not-so-secret secret that haunted the marine environment until a team of researchers came across them with an advanced underwater camera. Read more.
  
  

• Deep-water corals in the Gulf of Mexico are still struggling to recover from the devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, scientists report at the Ocean Science Meeting in New Orleans. Comparing images of more than 300 corals over 13 years – the longest time series of deep-sea corals to date – reveals that in some areas, coral health continues to decline to this day. Read more.
  
  

• Divers are essentially tourists who love coral reefs and invest a lot of time and effort to watch them. Unfortunately, divers also cause damage to corals, often unintentionally, through disturbing and resuspending sand, touching them, hitting them with their equipment, and scaring fish away. Artificial reefs have been proposed as a means of diverting diving pressure from the natural reef to alternative sites, thus preserving both dive tourism and the coral reef. Read more.
  
  

• The UK Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Lord Richard Benyon, today announced full protection for more than 166,000 additional square kilometres (64,000 square miles) of the South Atlantic Ocean surrounding the remote islands. Read more.
  
  

• The EU Commission welcomes the political agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council on the investigation of maritime accidents, modernising a 2009 Directive. The Directive applies only to maritime transport vessels to which the international conventions apply or to fishing vessels. Read more.
  
  

• Citizen science can help to improve conservation and management strategies for Mediterranean marine ecosystems, and to mitigate the impact of the environmental crisis. This is the conclusion of a study by the University of Barcelona and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), which highlights the scientific rigour of the work carried out by volunteers in assessing the state of conservation of corals and gorgonians on the Mediterranean coast. In addition, the results of the citizen science initiative also warn of the increase in the mortality of these species at many points along the Costa Brava (Girona, Spain). Read more.
  
  

• Alex Dawson has been named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024, for his image of a free diver examining the aftermath of whaling. Whale Bones beat more than 6,500 photographs from around the world. Read more.