Background Articles

Guyana’s fish production has suffered a significant decline partly due to the adverse impact of sargassum seaweed, local and regional fishery experts said.

This visualization begins by showing the dynamic beauty of the Arctic sea ice as it responds to winds and ocean currents. Research into the behavior of the Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years has led to a deeper understanding of how this ice survives from year to year. In the animation that follows, age of the sea ice is visible, showing the younger ice in darker shades of blue and the oldest ice in brighter white. This visual representation of the ice age clearly shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016.

B.C salmon farms last year were besieged by sea lice, according to a new University of Toronto study, which also found a dangerously steep rise of infestation among young wild salmon who swam nearby.

FioRito, Rebecca, Celeste Leander, and Brian Leander. "Characterization of three novel species of Labyrinthulomycota isolated from ochre sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus." Marine Biology 163.8 (2016): 1-10.

Contagious cancers occur in clams and other bivalves, and some can even spread between different species of bivalves.

A UM study has found that tidal flooding has leaped by 400 percent in the last ten years thanks to climate change.

Populations of marine wildlife have plummeted by a half on average over the past 40 years with some species suffering far greater declines as a result of habitat loss, overfishing, rising sea temperatures and worsening ocean acidity, a major report has found.

The "unprecedented" warm water in the Pacific caused a massive toxic algae bloom from California to Alaska.

Scientists first caught on to the strange event when they found thousands of purple sea urchins and other organisms dead in their laboratory tanks. Their theory: The mass deaths were caused by a huge bloom of algae.

If you're wondering why British Columbia experienced such a mild winter and early spring, you could maybe blame it on a mysterious "blob" of warm water in the Pacific Ocean.

The half mile-long sea wall was constructed in 2012 at a cost of $34 million to help offset coastal erosion and protect the community from encroaching sea ice.

Since 1976, the distribution of molting Black Brant ( Branta bernicla nigricans ) on the Arctic Coastal Plain has shifted from inland freshwater lakes to coastal marshes, such as those occupying the Smith River and Garry Creek estuaries.

Tar ball deposition on Goa's beaches affecting marine life, says NIO study on Business Standard. To carry out study the NIO also collected samples from Baga, Candolim, Calungute and Mandrem beaches from North Goa and Velsao, Betalbatim, Colva and Benaulim from South Goa.

For decades, the crab piled up in fishing boats like gold coins hauled from a rich and fertile sea. But the very ocean that nursed these creatures may prove to be this industry’s undoing.Scientists fear ocean acidification will drive the collapse of Alaska's iconic crab fishery.

By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin

Study finds genetic evidence of climate-change adaptation.

Our results showed that local fisheries have negatively impacted the marine biodiversity of the ecosystem causing sharp declines of common dolphins and major fish stocks and weakening the robustness of the marine food web.

A parasitic isopod that scientists identified five years ago has all but decimated mud shrimp populations in coastal estuaries ranging from British Columbia to northern California - with the exception of a handful of locations in Oregon from Waldport to Tillamook.

Once one of the most common cetaceans in the Mediterranean Sea, the short-beaked common dolphin has declined throughout the region since the 1960s and in 2003 this population was classified as Endangered in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Here, we document the species’ precipitous decline in eastern Ionian Sea coastal waters across 13 yr. While 150 animals were present in the study area (1050 km2) in 1996, only 15 were observed in 2007. A 12 mo assessment of fishing effort and catch, together with circumstantial evidence, suggests that the decline was caused largely by prey depletion resulting from overfishing. We analyzed the impacts of various fishing gear and estimated the degree of resource overlap between common dolphins and local fisheries. The total biomass removed annually by 308 fishing boats in the study area averaged 3571 t, while that consumed by common dolphins was 17 t. Resource overlap between common dolphins and fisheries—expressed as an average Pianka index of 0.5—differed according to fishing gear, being higher for purse seiners (0.7) and beach seiners (0.4) and lower for bottom trawlers (0.1), trammel boats (0.2) and longliners (0.0). Only about 10 active purse seiners (4% of the total active fishing fleet) were responsible for 33% of the biomass removal, and likely had the greatest impact on prey of common dolphins. This study indicates a high risk of local disappearance of common dolphins in the very near future, unless fishery management measures are implemented immediately. Purse seining should be the main management target.