It’s often easy to think of science outside of its social and historical contexts, as something pure, empirical, and incorruptible. But each drop of knowledge inevitably depends on what was uncovered and refined in the decades and centuries before it, as well as how it fits with the social and cultural opinions of its time. […]
Scientists estimated the degradation time for glyphosate, an herbicide in “Roundup”, in the Great Barrrier Reef. This is the first study of the persistence of glyphosate in seawater. Lis HendersonI am studying for my doctoral degree at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. My research addresses fisheries and climate change in […]
As a novelist writing about oceanography, I spend a decent amount of time parsing scientific studies. Over the past several years my vocabulary has expanded to include terms like band saturation, turbidity currents, and foraminifera—phrases and words that had not existed in my wildest dreams when I first started writing. I’ve relied on studies and […]
Biofluorescence of coral is well studied, but in this paper, Sparks et al. aimed to investigate the little known details regarding the impact of biofluorescence on the other creatures that thrive in coral reef habitats, specifically the 8,000+ species of fishes. What they found was shocking. Not only is biofluorescence widespread throughout the tree of […]
New research suggests that global warming is leaving large coral reef systems less interconnected, which can affect their ability to recover after disturbance and potentially deplete local populations. Catarina SilvaHi! I am a PhD candidate at Victoria University of Wellington. I study the genetic structure of organisms and how the environment influences genetics. Check out […]
Many fish find a coral colony to host in, living their whole life in that same coral. They must pick carefully, however, for the shape and size of the coral will determine how the fish will grow. Valeska UphamFor my fisheries and aquatic science PhD I am working on how to tank raise urchins and […]
The black sun coral is “invading” the Gulf! Once settled, it could out-compete other benthic epifauna and change the dynamic of the region’s community structure. Valeska UphamFor my fisheries and aquatic science PhD I am working on how to tank raise urchins and transplant them onto reefs across the Florida Keys in order to help […]
Nearly every scientific report concerning the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs describes changes in calcification as a function of the aragonite saturation state (Ωa). Is this the best parameter that we can use to represent calcification condition? Are there any other options? Caoxin SunCaoxin is a graduate student in the Graduate School of […]
Researchers investigated natural trends in carbonate chemistry of the Davies Reef flat in the central Great Barrier Reef on diel and seasonal timescales. They found the reef flat is below a calcification threshold, which implies that a transition in the reef may occur from a state of net calcification to dissolution, around 26.9% of the […]