Why did the first big, complex organisms spring to life in deep, dark oceans where food was scarce? A new study finds great depths provided a stable, life-sustaining refuge from wild temperature swings in the shallows. […]

A new study is starting to unravel that mystery. Researchers found that the soundscape of a reef -- the combined sounds of all animals living nearby -- might play a major role in steering corals towards healthy reef systems and away from damaged ones. […]

Many fish produce sounds for courtship and mating, navigation, and defending their territories. Scientists analyze these sounds to study their behavior such as reproduction. Since grouper spawning is brief and it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity, they are vulnerable to overfishing. 'Eavesdropping' on them is key to their survival. Researchers have developed a novel acoustic monitoring technique to classify grouper species by their sounds or 'grouper calls,' with accuracy of about […]

New research shows that phytoplankton iron storage strategies may determine which species thrive in changing oceans and impact marine food webs, according to a recent article. The research examined two primary methods of iron storage and found that one makes species more resilient against shortages of the rare and essential element. […]

The effects of a supernova -- and possibly more than one -- on large ocean life like school-bus-sized Megalodon 2.6 million years ago are detailed in a new article. […]

Hypoxic dead zones, which occur when dissolved oxygen levels in water drop so low that fish and other aquatic animals living there suffocate, are well-documented problems in many coastal waters. […]

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have found unprecedentedly high levels of nitrate, an essential plant nutrient, in streams and watersheds of Puerto Rico for a year after two consecutive major hurricanes in 2017. This high amount of nitrate may have important climate change implications that could harm forest recovery and threaten ecosystems along Puerto Rico's coastline by escalating algal blooms and dead zones. […]

One out of three rivers in the Iberian Peninsula are highly salinized mainly due the impact of agricultural activity and urbanization. This environmental problem will affect hydric ecosystems due global warming, the growing use of water and the exploitation of soil natural resources. […]

In 2018, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 229 new plant and animal species to our family tree, enriching our understanding of Earth's complex web of life and strengthening our ability to make informed conservation decisions. The new species include 120 wasps, 34 sea slugs, 28 ants, 19 fish, seven flowering plants, seven spiders, four eels, three sharks, two water bears, one frog, one snake, one seahorse, one moss, and one liverwort plant. More than a dozen Academy […]

Albert Einstein is famous for a lot of reasons, but the movement of sediments in rivers is perhaps not one of them. Yet, his name is associated with those of Ackers, White, and Shields who developed equations to help explain how grainy materials transported as particles in a river move. Given the importance of sediment from the physical or chemical degradation of rocks in a waterway and the impact they have on erosion, entrainment, transportation, deposition, and compaction, it is not […]