Tag: life onboard

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 ...

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

The programme supports the sustainable use of the seas and oceans The Council today adopted a regulation establishing an EU programme to further promote the development and the implementation of the EU's integrated maritime policy (55/11 and 16614/11 ADD1).The Union's integrated maritime policy will foster coordinated decision making related to coastal, insular and outermost regions and maritime sectors in the EU.The programme, which will support the sustainable use of the seas and oceans, and the expansion of scientific knowledge, has the following general objectives:(a) to foster the development and implementation of integrated governance of maritime and coastal affairs;(b) to contribute to develop synergies and to support sea or coast-related policies, particularly in the fields of economic development, employment, environmental protection, research, maritime safety, energy and the development of green maritime technologies;(c) to promote the protection of the marine environment, in particular its biodiversity, and the sustainable use of marine and coastal resources, in line with the "marine strategy framework directive" (2008/56/EC);(d) to support the development and implementation of sea-basin strategies;(e) to improve and enhance international cooperation;(f) to support economic growth, employment, innovation and new technologies in maritime sectors in the Union.The budget for the implementation of the programme in accordance ...

After being contaminated by an oil spill off New Zealand Forty-nine little blue penguins rescued and cleaned up after being contaminated by an oil spill off New Zealand nearly seven weeks ago were released into the sea on Tuesday.Maritime New Zealand, which is supervising salvage of the 47,000-ton Rena, said it was the start of a staged release of wildlife over the next few weeks.More than 2,000 seabirds died after about 360 tons of heavy fuel oil spilled from a cargo ship that grounded on a reef 22 kilometres off the east coast port of Tauranga, on October 5.More than 300 penguins are still being held at a wildlife centre after the country's worst marine environmental disaster.Salvage workers managed to pump most of the 1,700 tons of oil from the Liberian-registered Rena. The ship remains on the reef, severely damaged and listing 21 degrees.Veterinarian Brett Gartrell told the Bay of Plenty Times the penguins were made to swim for six hours in their pool on Monday to test their ability to survive in the wild again.'We're simulating the fact the penguins have to spend the whole day out on the water,' he said. 'They were then checked to make sure ...