Most sharks in UK waters survive catch-and-release fishing when angling best practices are followed, according to a new study.

Scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have described a new way to produce large amounts of xanthommatin, a natural pigment, in a bacterium for the first time. Xanthommatin is the natural chemical compound used by octopus, squid and other cephalopods to change the color of their skin. Researchers in the Moore Lab at Scripps have found their nature-based approach to produce up to 1,000 times more xanthommatin material than traditional methods. This breakthrough opens new possibilities for the pigment’s use in a wide range of materials and cosmetics — from photoelectronic devices and thermal coatings to dyes and UV protectants.

An adult great white shark has just one predator: the orca. Until recently, orcas have only been observed regularly preying on these sharks in South Africa, where they usually prefer to hunt larger adults, which provide more food once caught. But now scientists have observed a specialist shark-hunting pod in the Gulf of California repeatedly targeting juvenile white sharks, flipping them upside-down and taking out their energy-rich livers to share with the pod. They could be taking advantage of a local shark nursery to hunt younger, less experienced individuals which are easier to catch and subdue. 

Plankton are tiny and highly diverse marine organisms that can act as indicators for the health and biodiversity of ecosystems in the face of factors such as climate change. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used a technique called ultrastructure expansion microscopy to extensively study the cellular structure of over 200 planktonic marine microbes. The study, recently published in the journal Cell, was part of a plug-in project for the EMBL-led Traversing European Coastlines (TREC) expedition, and takes the first steps towards a planetary atlas of plankton.

A new species of jellyfish has been discovered! Researchers at Tohoku University named this venomous creature Physalia mikazuki, after the crescent moon helmet worn by Sendai’s feudal lord Date Masamune.

The project will combine natural records around the Eastern Hemisphere tropics to better understand monsoon rainfall patterns across Asia, Indonesia and Australia over the last millennium — and how they might look in the future under a changing climate.

Global environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys significantly expand known geographic and ecological niche ranges of marine fish, highlighting current biases in conservation and ecological modeling

Diverse life forms exist on and within the ocean floor. These primarily consist of microbes, tiny organisms that can cope with extreme environmental conditions. These include high pressures and salinities, as well as extreme pH values and a limited supply of nutrients. A team of researchers has now been able to detect microbial life in two newly discovered mud volcanoes with very high pH values. Their findings have been published in the professional journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Marine microorganisms produce large amounts of nitrous oxide, a highly potent greenhouse gas. A Basel-based researcher investigated the exact processes involved during an expedition to the Pacific. The results are important for climate modeling.

A team led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) has described a sustained and unprecedented decrease in the abundance of marine viruses in the northwestern Mediterranean over the last two decades. The finding, published in the journal ISME Communications, is based on the longest-known time series data on marine viruses to date, from the Blanes Bay Microbial Observatory (BBMO) in Girona.