Research Highlight
Sunlight can break down marine plastic into tens of thousands of chemical compounds, study finds
Sunlight was once thought to only fragment plastics in the marine environment into smaller particles that chemically resemble the original material and persist forever. However, scientists more recently have learned that sunlight also chemically transforms plastic into a suite of polymer-, dissolved-, and gas-phased products. Now, a new study finds that this chemical reaction can produce tens of thousands of water-soluble compounds, or formulas.
Read MoreSome coral reefs are keeping pace with ocean warming
Some coral communities are becoming more heat tolerant as ocean temperatures rise, offering hope for corals in a changing climate. After a series of marine heatwaves hit the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) in the central Pacific Ocean, a new study finds the impact of heat stress on the coral communities lessened over time.
Read MoreSurviving extreme heat
A team led by Anne Cohen, a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, received $1.75M in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how coral reefs survive extreme heat events caused by climate change. The multidisciplinary project taps into expertise across four WHOI departments to uncover the oceanographic and biological processes that enable corals to survive marine heatwaves.
Read More‘Rolls-Royce’ of shark cameras can extend to turtles, whales, seals and squid for ocean’s big picture
A high-tech SharkCam invented by a Cape Cod researcher offers an unprecedented window into the lives of the ocean’s toothy predators, and can also extend to seals, whales, turtles and…
Read MoreWHOI advancing a seaweed solution to develop new kelp strains
A leader in ocean science, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is embarking on a study of how new seaweed strains could further enhance the burgeoning seaweed industry and offer solutions to some of the world’s pressing challenges. This research is funded in part by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) with support from the Bezos Earth Fund.
Read MoreNew Study Finds Emperor Penguins Increasingly Threatened by Climate Change
A new study published today in Global Change Biology provides valuable new data that highlights how species extinction risk is accelerating due to rapid climate change and an increase in extreme climate events, such as glacial calving and sea ice loss.
Read MoreWhat Happens to Marine Life When There Isn’t Enough Oxygen?
In September of 2017, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution postdoctoral scholar Maggie Johnson was conducting an experiment with a colleague in Bocas del Toro off the Caribbean coast of Panama. After…
Read MoreWhat happens to marine life when oxygen is scarce?
A new study co-led by WHOI postdoctoral scholar Maggie Johnson looks closely at the changes occurring in both coral reef and microbial communities near Bocas del Toro during sudden hypoxic events, which occur when there is little to no oxygen in a given area of water.
Read MoreLife at Rock Bottom
This digital photo essay brings you the forms, figures, and facts of life more than a mile and half deep
Read MoreReview Evaluates the Evidence for an Intensifying Indian Ocean Water Cycle
Report Calls for Better Integration of Observations, Models, and Paleo Proxies The Indian Ocean has been warming much more than other ocean basins over the last 50-60 years. While temperature…
Read MoreStudy Examines the Role of Deep-Sea Microbial Predators at Hydrothermal Vents
Researchers Emphasize the Need for Baseline Information of Microbial Food Webs The hydrothermal vent fluids from the Gorda Ridge spreading center in the northeast Pacific Ocean create a biological hub…
Read MoreFalling in love with deep-sea parasites
At hydrothermal vents there are body-snatchers, intestinal hitchhikers, and chest-bursters, but something about them is still alluring to Lauren Dykman
Read MoreSharks and the ocean’s twilight zone: Some female great white sharks can deep dive for hours
Much of the shark focus around the Cape is on great whites roaming close to the shoreline as they prowl for seals, but researchers are finding out that several sharks…
Read MoreShark Week 2021: Sharks and the Ocean’s Twilight Zone
How large marine predators use the twilight zone to thrive, and survive Woods Hole, MA (July 11, 2021) — Sharks are some of the largest fish in the ocean, known…
Read MoreRobot Dives 3,000 Feet to Film Creatures in Mid-Ocean ‘Twilight Zone’
Bioluminescent creatures and others inhabiting the dark depths 3,000 feet below the surface in the mid-ocean “twilight zone” — beyond the reach of sunlight — are now being documented by a…
Read MoreNew glider design aims to expand access to ocean science
Gliders are vehicles vital to collecting oceanographic data, but not accessible to everyone in the ocean community. A team of WHOI engineers want to change that
Read MoreUnderwater robot offers new insight into mid-ocean “twilight zone”
Woods Hole, MA (June 16, 2021) — An innovative underwater robot known as Mesobot is providing researchers with deeper insight into the vast mid-ocean region known as the “twilight zone.”…
Read MoreMaine’s having a lobster boom. A bust may be coming.
The waters off Maine’s coast are warming, and no one knows what that’s going to mean for the state’s half-billion-dollar-a-year lobster industry—the largest single-species fishery in North America. Some fear that continued warming could cause the lobster population to collapse. To understand what’s happening to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Maine, says Glen Gawarkiewicz, an oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, you have to look beyond it—see how it’s affected by the atmosphere, ocean currents, and rivers that flow into it.
Read MoreCritically Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales Getting Smaller, New Research Finds
A report out this week in Current Biology reveal that critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are up to three feet shorter than 40 years ago. This startling conclusion reinforces what scientists have suspected: even when entanglements do not lead directly to the death of North Atlantic right whales, they can have lasting effects on the imperiled population that may now number less than 400 animals. Further, females that are entangled while nursing produce smaller calves.
Read MoreScience RoCS Initiative responds to need for increased ocean monitoring
Commercial ships are helping oceanographers deploy robotic Argo floats to keep an eye on hard-to-reach parts of the ocean
Read MoreThe ocean science-art connection
Some of the most complex insights in marine science are no match for the communicative power of art. Check out these five recent collaborations between ocean scientists and artists
Read MorePapers Explore Massive Plankton Blooms with Very Different Ecosystem Impacts
Two papers explore the distribution and abundance of plankton and what conditions lead to big plankton blooms with vastly different potential impacts on the ecosystem.
Read MoreWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution Wants Everyone to “Keep it Weird”
Campaign raises awareness of the ocean twilight zone by celebrating the “weird” in all of us Woods Hole, Mass. (May 27, 2021) — Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) wants to…
Read MoreRare Drone video shows critically endangered North Atlantic right whales
May 10, 2021 During a joint research trip on February 28 in Cape Cod Bay, Mass., WHOI whale trauma specialist Michael Moore, National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry, and scientists…
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