Pollution by marine litter of anthropogenic origin –that comes from human activity– is currently one of the biggest environmental concerns given its increasing magnitude, especially due to the considerable amount of plastics present in the marine environment.

In JASA, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution combine acoustic monitoring with a neural network to identify fish activity on coral reefs by sound. They trained the network to sort through the deluge of acoustic data automatically, analyzing audio recordings in real time. Their algorithm can match the accuracy of human experts in deciphering acoustical trends on a reef, but it can do so more than 25 times faster, and it could change the way ocean monitoring and research is conducted.

A new study by scientists and graduates at the University of Plymouth has investigated one aspect of how the future environmental conditions created by the changing global climate might affect earliest development within Christmas Island’s red crab population

Bacteria and other single-celled microorganisms in the seas around Antarctica are strongly influenced by water temperature and the amount of sea ice. This is shown by coordinated measurements taken off the coast of the west Antarctic Peninsula. "Even at two locations that are only 400 km apart on the peninsula – a very short distance on oceanographic scales – we found striking differences in the composition and relative abundances of microorganisms. These differences seem to be related to the differences in local climate", says NIOZ computational microbiologist Dr. Julia Engelmann. The results of this study by an international team of scientists led by NIOZ, are published in the journal Environmental Microbiome.

Researchers used in situ pH measurements and in situ UV-Vis spectroscopy to investigate the kinetically controlled growth of Co(OH)₂. They discovered that Co polyhedra with unconventional coordination play a crucial role in the formation process of Co(OH)₂, reshaping our understanding of the formation process.

Scientists have discovered that whales move nutrients thousands of miles—in their urine—from as far as Alaska to Hawaii. These tons of nitrogen support the health of tropical ecosystems and fish, where nitrogen can be limited. They call this movement of nutrients a “conveyor belt” or “the great whale pee funnel.” In some places, like Hawaii, the input of nutrients from whales is bigger than from local sources. It’s critical to tropical ocean health, therefore, to protect and restore whales.