Coastal & Marine Conservation

Marine ecosystems can take thousands, rather than hundreds, of years to recover from climate-related upheavals. 2013 Fellow Sarah Moffitt examined fossilized fauna on the seafloor to chart the changes. "There’s not a recovery we have to look forward to in my lifetime or my grandchildren's lifetime. It’s a gritty reality we need to face as scientists and people who care about the natural world and who make decisions about the natural world," she says.

A healthy ocean ecosystem is a public good—both locally and globally. Mangroves, corals, and salt marshes protect coastal towns from storms. Oceans store carbon and produce oxygen that benefits us all. And areas of high biodiversity support global fisheries and are essential for resilient and productive oceans.

New research published in January reveals that vast stretches of the ocean interior abruptly lost oxygen during the transition out of the last ice age that occurred 17,000–10,000 years ago. This event was the most recent example of large-scale global warming, and was caused primarily by changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun. Past climate events provide informative case studies for understanding what is currently happening to the modern climate system, says 2013 Fellow Sarah Moffitt.

Join the Aqua Kids as they meet up with Dr. Elphick (Chris Field's advisor) to learn all about declining salt marsh bird habitat. From participating in grass research to coring trees, you will not want to miss all of the excitement in this week’s episode.

Organic matter in Narragansett Bay has shifted from its traditional role of filtering nitrogen from the aquatic ecosystem in Narragansett Bay and is instead adding nitrogen to the system, two researchers said earlier this month during a lecture at the University of Rhode Island.

There's a growing understanding of the factors that contribute to ocean acidification in coastal areas and how shellfish respond. A new study looks at the risks to shellfish and identifies areas where livelihoods are most at risk. ...

When you think about East Africa, probably the first images that emerge are of large terrestrial animals like elephants and lions. Many people don’t know that East Africa has vibrant marine fishing communities and hundreds of miles of coral reefs. In a typical morning, you watch the sun rise over the Western Indian Ocean, sip spicy tea, hear morning calls to prayer from the mosque, and see fishers heading out to the sea. These fishers work from small canoes, or even broken surfboards, to support families.

You might have heard the oceans are full of plastic, but how full exactly? Around 8 million metric tonnes go into the oceans each year, according to the first rigorous global estimate published in Science today. That’s equivalent to 16 shopping bags full of plastic for every metre of coastline (excluding Antarctica). By 2025 we will be putting enough plastic in the ocean (on our most conservative estimates) to cover 5% of the earth’s entire surface in cling film each year.

Green crabs have been lurking in local waters for a while. They came to wider New England awareness as an invasive species to be reckoned with in 2013, when researcher and marine ecologist Brian Beal convened a green crab summit in Orono, Maine. Spinoff meetings in Massachusetts followed. I attended those meetings, then bought a crab trap, baited it with herring and other fish, and before long was hauling hundreds of crabs at a time from a tidal estuary in the salt marshes of Ipswich.