New findings from the Chagos Islands are a perfect parable for the Anthropocene.
A life reconstruction of Brindabellaspis stensioi, an unusual placoderm fish from the 400-million-year old Burrinjuck reef in New South Wales, Australia.
Jason Art, Shenzhen
Brindabellaspis had eyes on the top of the head, facing upwards, and a skull stretched into a long and broad snout. Although around 400 million years old, it was clearly a specialised fish.
Ingredients in many sunscreens are bleaching coral and harming marine life.
www.shutterstock.com
Deron Burkepile, University of California, Santa Barbara and Mark C. Ladd, University of California, Santa Barbara
With coral reefs in crisis around the world, many organizations are working to restore them by growing and transplanting healthy corals. A new study spotlights techniques that help restored reefs thrive.
The increasingly bleached coral at Black Point on the Cobourg Peninsula is a worrying sign of what’s to come for other coral reefs in Australia.
Alan Withers
Sea snakes spend their lives in the water, giving birth to live young at sea, so why are they only found in some of the world’s oceans? The answer lies in a combination of climate and geography.
Researchers studied reef sands at Heron Island, Hawaii, Bermuda and Tetiaroa. In this photo, white areas show the predominance of sand on reefs.
Southern Cross University
Ocean acidification poses an increasing threat to the sediments that form the framework of coral reefs - within around 30 years, these carbonate sands may no longer be able to form.
Much of the world’s ocean is teeming with ‘cryptic’ fish species, which are small and hard to spot. But a new technique shines a light on these fish, which may in turn help to keep our seas healthy.
Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world.
NOAA Fisheries
Coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific have been deluged with an estimated 11.1 billion pieces of plastic waste, increasing the risk of coral disease more than 20-fold.
Some reefs are strong sources of coral larvae.
Peter Mumby
A new study identifies dozens of individual reefs on the Great Barrier Reef that are especially important for coral larvae dispersal and which could help the entire ecosystem bounce back.
During mass spawning events coral young rise from their parents to ocean surface.
Australian Institute of Marine Science
Line K Bay, Australian Institute of Marine Science; Andrew Heyward, Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Andrew Negri, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Every year buoyant bundles rise from a spawning coral, giving the impression of an upside-down snowstorm.
Regional variations in sea temperature can make all the difference between a coral reef suffering major bleaching or surviving as a refuge for corals, new research shows.
Social media posts, such as this image uploaded to Flickr, can be repurposed for reef health monitoring.
Sarah Ackerman/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
Mining social media posts from tourism hotspots such as coral reefs could turn tourists into environmental citizen scientists without them even realising it.