Research Highlights
Oceanus Magazine
An MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student is exploring how tiny larvae hatched in the open ocean find their way to coral reefs where they settle down and live.
Much of marine life begins as microscopic larvae—so tiny, delicate, and scattered in hard-to-reach parts of ocean that scientists have had a tough time illuminating this fundamental stage of life in the ocean. To see what’s out there, scientists have…
WHOI’s new research vessel Niel Armstrong is equipped with an EK80 broadband acoustic echo sounder. Using a wide range of sound frequencies, it gives scientists the ability to identify and distinguish between different types of marine life in the depths.
There are autotrophs, such as plants, that can make their own food. There are heterotrophs, such as animals, that consume other organisms. And then there are curious organisms called mixotrophs, which can do both, switching how they get food depending on the conditions in their environment.
The continental shelfbreak in the waters off New England is an area where a spectacular abundance and diversity of marine life aggregate year-round. The Pioneer Array, a part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative, was placed there to help scientists explore the processes that make the shelfbreak so productive.
News Releases
New analysis says thousands of stranded vessels may unintentionally spread invasive marine life worldwide
The Seafood Engine will initially receive an award of $15 million over two years, with the potential to grow up to $160 million over ten years as it works to build an internationally competitive technology and innovation cluster.
The Heroic Age Expedition, led by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, reveals the famed Antarctic explorer’s last ship, Terra Nova in stunning detail
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, in partnership with WHOI, will undertake “once-in-a-generation” expedition to survey Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Quest and Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova
A new WHOI study shows basking sharks dive nearly 1,000 meters deep, likely in search of prey
News & Insights
WHOI’s Dennis McGillicuddy on why ocean life matters deeply to the Sunshine State
Are you an ocean lover? Go a little deeper with these courtship tips from beneath the waves!
April 24 marks the first-ever Right Whale Day in Massachusetts. WHOI biologist and veterinarian Michael Moore recently met with the resident who brought this special recognition about– and explains why it’s important to raise awareness about the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
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.
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 from New England Aquarium, witnessed a remarkable biological event: North…