Oyster reefs off the U.S. Atlantic coast remove more nitrogen and provide greater economic value than previously estimated, and their restoration may be effective in maintaining water quality and improving marine ecosystems

A UN-led initiative launched today at COP15 zeros in on domestic hunting, fishing and use, now identified as a major driver of decline for 70% of species accorded strict protection by an international treaty. By targeting the root causes -- from weak enforcement to rising local demand -- the Global Taking Initiative aims to close a critical gap in conservation efforts that have long focused on international trade while overlooking the far larger impact of everyday exploitation.

Feeding the global population currently requires clearing vast forests for soy plantations or heavily depleting the oceans for fish meal. What if the agricultural industry could bypass the farm and the sea entirely, opting instead to brew high-quality food from a problematic greenhouse gas? A rigorous new life-cycle assessment demonstrates that cultivating methane-consuming microbes is far more than an experimental concept—it is a highly lucrative, environmentally superior reality.

Driving this evaluation are corresponding authors Yanping Liu and Ziyi Yang from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. Their latest work, appearing in the journal Carbon Research, stacks microbial protein directly against conventional agricultural staples. The verdict leans heavily in favor of the bioreactor over traditional harvesting.

The research team modeled three distinct supply chains: soybean meal, fish meal, and protein derived from methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB). The legacy methods carried expectedly heavy environmental baggage. Soy production was dominated by massive land footprints and agricultural chemical inputs. Meanwhile, the fish meal industry demanded extensive fuel consumption and inflicted severe stress on marine ecosystems.

Scientists have pinpointed, for the first time, exactly when key oil- and gas-forming rocks developed in northwest China. By precisely dating tiny zircon crystals preserved in ancient volcanic ash, researchers built a high-resolution timeline for Carboniferous–Permian source rocks in the Junggar Basin and nearby regions. The study shows that these source rocks formed during three distinct time windows and that the shift from marine to land-based environments occurred at different times across the region. These findings resolve long-standing geological debates, support a step-by-step, “scissor-like” closure of the Paleo-Asian Ocean, and provide a crucial time guide for future energy exploration.

A major new UN assessment finds that the world’s great freshwater fish migrations are rapidly collapsing, threatening ecosystems, fisheries, and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. Being released by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) at its COP15 in Brazil, the Global Assessment of Migratory Freshwater Fishes identifies 325 species requiring coordinated international conservation action, their declines driven by dams, habitat fragmentation, pollution, overfishing, and climate change. Migratory freshwater fish populations have fallen by about 81% since 1970, making them among the most imperiled wildlife on Earth. Because many species migrate across national borders through shared river basins such as the Amazon, Mekong, Danube, Nile, and Ganges–Brahmaputra, the report stresses that effective protection depends on countries managing rivers as connected systems. At CMS COP15, governments will consider new basin-scale action plans, conservation listings, and other initiatives to protect iconic long-distance migrant species such as the massive Amazonian catfish.

University of Cape Town researchers have discovered that the 2023-2024 El Niño triggered the largest sea level surge ever recorded across Africa's marine domains. A rare convergence of climate patterns amplified the event, causing sea levels to rise faster than the global average and placing over 15 million coastal residents at heightened flood risk. The study is published in Communications Earth & Environment.

A single-celled predator maintains stolen chloroplasts with its own proteins, linking the host cell and stolen organelles at the molecular level. This process, now supported by biochemical evidence, may offer clues to early steps in the evolution of plant cells.

A new open-access special issue of the journal ZooKeys has been published, detailing the discovery of 24 new deep-sea amphipod species and a rare new superfamily from the Pacific’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone. This publication is the result of a collaboration led by the University of Lodz and the National Oceanography Centre, marking a major milestone in the global effort to describe 1,000 new species by 2030.

A new study by UW–Madison geoscientists, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the obliquity cycle — a 40,000-year astronomical cycle tied to changes in Earth’s axial tilt — influenced ocean productivity in subtropical latitudes about 34 million years ago when the Antarctic ice sheet was first expanding.

Welcome aboard: Last Friday (20 March 2026) Hajo Eicken officially assumed office as the new Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven (AWI). Previously, he spent almost three decades researching at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks in various scientific positions. For the past eleven years, Hajo Eicken headed up the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) there. "I am very excited about my new role. When I told my American colleagues about my move, the reaction was mostly the same: everyone was happy for me, because the AWI is known worldwide for its impressive research."