Sea Monster

Category: Environment

  • Dueling videos: the battle over the Malibu lagoon restoration project

      When I was an MS student at CSUN in Los Angeles, I used to take undergrad classes on field trips to Malibu Lagoon to see and sample the marsh and lagoon habitats there. They are pathetically small and are just about all that remains of Southern California’s coastal wetlands. But there isn’t much else…

  • Post oil: Can rigs become reefs?

    As ocean oil rigs run dry, the nemesis of many environmentalists may produce a silver lining. Defunct oil rigs are popular dive spots in the Gulf of Mexico and other areas (such as the Celebes Sea) because of the rich communities of reef life and fishes these structures attract on otherwise sandy bottoms. They are…

  • The Coral Triangle

    [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/17419531[/vimeo] By James Morgan

  • All about eddies for G-man

    Interested in ocean eddies? Gavin is! What are ocean eddies? No, not that ocean eddie.  Ocean eddies are swirling currents that spun off of a main surface current.  In the NOAA image below, you can see two eddies that have broken away from the Gulf Stream in the waters off of New Jersey and Massachusetts.    …

  • Diversity: It Matters! (for plants & algae)

      I recently blogged about a new paper (a meta-analysis of hundreds of published experiments) on the influence of plant species richness on ecosystem functions, namely primary production. One of the co-authors – Dr. Jarrett Byrnes, a marine biodiversity expert – wrote a great post about the paper, explaining what they found and why diversity matters.  You…

  • More wind, bigger waves, changing marine ecosystems

    Two recent papers find that ocean winds and waves are increasing and that such an increase in storminess would have big effects on kelp forest food webs. Intrigued? Then scoot over to SkepticalScience to read the whole post I wrote on it here. From one of the two studies (Byrnes et al 2011): If large storms…

  • Coming to America: Massive Debris Patch From Japanese Tsunami

    From the Voice of America: U.S. researches say a huge amount of debris from remnants of Japan’s coastal towns swept away in last month’s tsunami is moving across the Pacific Ocean and could reach the United States in the next few years. University of Hawaii researchers are projecting that the first batch of debris, including…

  • How not to save the environment: sharks as biofuel

    [Following is verbatim copy of a post from our cryptically named friend “WhySharksMatter” (aka David) at the Southern Fried Science blog. I’ve heard some pretty hair-brained ideas for getting the fossil fuel monkey off our backs, but this one is definitely a contender for the most bizarre as David explains ]. How not to save…

  • Can marine reserves limit coral loss?

    My former PhD student (now at Conservation International) Dr. Elizabeth Selig and I recently published a paper in PLoS One (Selig and Bruno 2010) on the effectiveness of marine protected areas in preventing coral loss. The study indicates that MPAs can, on average, reduce coral losses and in some cases promote coral growth. This is…

  • A Plastic Future: the Midway Story

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PiNaJjAX8A[/youtube] An amazing video about plastics on Midway Island by Clare Fieseler.