SeaMonster blog
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Freedivers Are Testing the Bounds of Human Endurance
Photo credit: DeeDee Flores By Tammy Kennon from the NYT here Bahamas — Shouts of “Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!” pierced the tropical air and echoed off the limestone precipice around Dean’s Blue Hole, a vertical cavern plunging 660 feet, a cobalt blue pool of seawater surrounded by crystal-clear shallows and white sand. Bathing-suit clad spectators stand in…
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The Coral Triangle
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/17419531[/vimeo] By James Morgan
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Whale culture dispersed by traveling minstrels
New research shows that the legendary songs of humpback whales evolve rapidly as they’re spread throughout the world’s population by traveling males whose new songs are adopted by listeners along their migration routes. Male humpbacks have a highly stereotyped, repetitive, song that functions in sexual selection, either through mate attraction or male “social sorting”. Males…
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Diving with humback whales
I love this photo by Marco Queral from the south Pacific Ocean. From a ClimateShifts post by Jez where you can see other similar photos.
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Global change, big animals, and how marine ecosystems work
[Here’s my review, recently published in the Quarterly Review of Biology, of an excellent new book on the complex structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems and their responses to ongoing climate change. ] The scarcity of large vertebrates in graduate oceanography curricula has long perplexed new students and other naifs, given the centrality of fishing…
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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. …
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The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
Scientific skepticism is healthy. In fact, science by its very nature is skeptical. Genuine skepticism means considering the full body of evidence before coming to a conclusion. However, when you take a close look at arguments expressing climate ‘skepticism’, what you often observe is cherry picking of pieces of evidence while rejecting any data that…
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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…
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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…
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Insane Indo barreling tidal bore
Crocodiles, half hour + rides, chocolate brown water, secret spot; sounds like an adventure. [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/22248520[/vimeo] See more footage here
Got any book recommendations?