Tag: life onboard

Toxic substances in the spilled oil can continue to damage marine life for a long time After an oil spill at sea, toxic substances in the spilled oil can continue to damage marine life for a long time, even though the oil appears to be cleaned up, according to a new study by researchers from Norway, the UK, Spain and France.To help define a European strategy for risk assessment of accidental marine pollution, the two-year research project Toxprof examined the impacts of oil discharges along the coasts of Europe. The researchers studied the effects of several types of oil, including common Arabian light crude and oil from the Norwegian Ekofisk field, in addition to the diesel fuel commonly burned by ships."We found that the oil can become more toxic and harmful during the breakdown process," said Toxprof researcher Ketil Hylland, a professor of toxicology at the University of Oslo's Department of Biology.The experiments were carried out at the University of Oslo's marine biological station at Drobak, located on the Oslo Fjord. Seawater was pumped through coarse sand containing oil that was partially broken down by ultraviolet radiation. The oil then floated into aquariums containing cod, mussels or spotted goby.In this ...

The rate at which marine life needs to relocate is very fast Marine life may need to relocate faster than land species as well as speed up alterations in the timing of major life cycle events. This challenges previous thinking that marine life in the ocean would respond more gradually than species on land because of slower warming in the oceans."Analyses of global temperature found that the rate at which marine life needs to relocate is as fast, or in some places faster, than for land species. This is despite ocean warming being three times slower than land" says paper co-author, Dr Elvira Poloczanska from CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship.Dr Poloczanska said that globally, an increasing number of species are responding to climate change by changing their distributions and the timing of life cycle events such as breeding, spawning and migrations.She said that a one degree change in ocean temperature may mean that marine plants and animals will have to travel hundreds of kilometres to stay in their comfort zones. This can present major problems for marine organisms, particularly those that are unable to move long distances such as corals.This collaborative work was led by Dr Mike Burrows from the Scottish ...

The new standards require vessels to install technology The Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter requirements Wednesday for cleaning ballast water that keeps ships upright in rolling seas but enables invasive species to reach U.S. waters, where they have ravaged ecosystems and caused billions of dollars in economic losses.The new standards would require commercial vessels to install technology strong enough to kill at least some of the fish, mussels and even microorganisms such as viruses that lurk in ballast water before it's dumped into harbors after ships arrive in port. Environmentalists whose lawsuits forced the EPA to implement rules in the first place said the new proposal is largely inadequate.More than 180 exotic species have invaded the Great Lakes, about two-thirds of which are believed to have been carried in ballast water. Among them are zebra and quagga mussels, which have spread across most of the lakes and turned up as far away as California. Ballast water also has brought invaders to ocean coasts, including Asian clams in San Francisco Bay and Japanese shore crabs on the Atlantic seaboard.Ballast water regulation has been debated in Congress for years but no legislation has passed because of disagreements over how strict the cleanliness ...

Action would help protect U.S. water quality and lower invasive species risk The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued two draft vessel general permits that would regulate discharges from commercial vessels, excluding military and recreational vessels. The proposed permits would help protect the nation's waters from ship-borne pollutants and reduce the risk of introduction of invasive species from ballast water discharges.The draft Vessel General Permit, which covers commercial vessels greater than 79 feet in length, would replace the current 2008 Vessel General Permit, when it expires in December 2013. Under the Clean Water Act, permits are issued for a five-year period after which time EPA generally issues revised permits based on updated information and requirements. The new draft Small Vessel General Permit would cover vessels smaller than 79 feet in length and would provide such vessels with the Clean Water Act permit coverage they will be required to have as of December 2013.Both permits will be subject to a 75-day public comment period, which will allow a broad array of stakeholders, including industry and communities, to provide feedback. That information will help inform EPA's decision on the final permits, which are expected to go into effect in 2013. EPA intends ...

The evolution of marine life has beenriven by both ocean chemistry and sea level changes Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record - but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth? "It's a question that goes back a long way to the time of Darwin, who looked at the fossil record and tried to understand what it tells us about the history of life," says Shanan Peters, an assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.The dramatic changes in biodiversity seen in the fossil record at many different timescales - including both proliferations and mass extinctions as marine animals diversified, evolved, and moved onto land - likely arose through biological responses to changes in the global carbon and sulfur cycles and sea level through geologic time.In fact, the fossil record can tell us a great deal, he says in a new study. In a report published in Science magazine, he and colleague Bjarte Hannisdal, of the University of Bergen in Norway, show that the evolution of marine life over the past 500 million years has been robustly and independently driven by both ocean chemistry and sea ...

The loss represents 51 per cent of the mussel bed The biodiversity loss caused by climate change will result from a combination of rising temperatures and predation -- and may be more severe than currently predicted, according to a study by University of British Columbia zoologist Christopher Harley.The study, published in the current issue of the journal Science, examined the response of rocky shore barnacles and mussels to the combined effects of warming and predation by sea stars.Harley surveyed the upper and lower temperature limits of barnacles and mussels from the cool west coast of Vancouver Island to the warm shores of the San Juan Islands, where water temperature rose from the relatively cool of the1950s to the much warmer years of 2009 and 2010."Rocky intertidal communities are ideal test-beds for studying the effects of climatic warming," says Christopher Harley, an associate professor of zoology at UBC and author of the study. "Many intertidal organisms, like mussels, already live very close to their thermal tolerance limits, so the impacts can be easily studied."At cooler sites, mussels and rocky shore barnacles were able to live high on the shore, well beyond the range of their predators. However, as temperatures rose, barnacles ...

The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time

The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time Bizarre underwater "icicle of death" has been filmed by a BBC crew.With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.Where the so-called "brinicle" met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time by cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson for the BBC One series Frozen Planet.The icy phenomenon is caused by cold, sinking brine, which is more dense than the rest of the sea water. It forms a brinicle as it contacts warmer water below the surface.Mr Miller set up the rig of timelapse equipment to capture the growing brinicle under the ice at Little Razorback Island, near Antarctica's Ross Archipelago."When we were exploring around that island we came across an area where there had been three or four previously and there was one actually happening," Mr Miller told BBC Nature.The diving specialists noted the temperature and returned to the area as soon as the same ...

IMO-BBC Documentary The award winning IMO-BBC documentary film Invaders from the Sea, which address the core of the invasive species in ships' ballast water problem is now available from IMO's Publications Section. This documentary won the gold award in the category of "Best United Nations Feature" at the 2007's "Stories from the Field", the third annual United Nations Documentary Film Festival, which took place in New York. The film was produced by IMO, the United Nations agency responsible for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships, in co-operation with the BBC and the shipping industry.

Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve The world's largest marine protected area will be created in the Coral Sea under a federal government plan to limit the use of nearly 1 million square kilometres of ocean.As revealed by The Age, the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve - extending from the edge of the Great Barrier Reef to 1100 kilometres from the mainland - will have different levels of environmental protection.The western half of the reserve will be open for restricted recreational and charter fishing. The eastern half will be a ''no-take'' reserve in which fishing is outlawed.The decision falls short of a campaign by conservationists for the entire sea to be declared ''no-take'' due to its largely unspoilt environment and military significance.Source: The Age