Scientists from the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka are hoping their new research technique will help unlock underwater secrets of marine wildlife.

A relatively small amount of groundwater trickling through Alaska’s tundra is releasing huge quantities of carbon into the ocean, where it can contribute to climate change.

Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. A research team led by geoscientists from Heidelberg University conducted the analyses, which revealed that human activity in the region resulted in lead contamination of the environment approximately 5,200 years ago – much earlier than previously known. Combined with the results of pollen analyses from the sediment cores, this contamination also offers insights into socioeconomic change in the Aegean.

Brazilian and British researchers have observed that a small crustacean that changes color according to the marine vegetation is able to disguise itself in exotic algae that did not evolve together with the species. However, the long-term effects of this interaction are unknown.

Sharks and rays have populated the world's oceans for around 450 million years, but more than a third of the species living today are severely threatened by overfishing and the loss of their habitat. An international research team led by palaeobiologist Manuel A. Staggl from the University of Vienna has now investigated whether and how global warming influences the diversity of sharks based on climate fluctuations between 200 and 66 million years ago. According to the study, higher temperatures and more shallow water areas have a positive effect, while higher CO₂ levels have a clearly negative effect. The study was recently published in the scientific journal "Biology".

An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has investigated the influence of the forces exerted by the Zagros Mountains in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on how much the surface of the Earth has bent over the last 20 million years. Their research revealed that in the present day, deep below the Earth’s surface, the Neotethys oceanic plate – the ocean floor that used to be between the Arabian and Eurasian continents – is breaking off horizontally, with a tear progressively lengthening from southeast Turkey to northwest Iran. Their findings show how the evolution of the Earth's surface is controlled by processes deep within the planet's interior. The research was published in the journal Solid Earth.

New research, led by the University of Plymouth and published in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management, highlights the benefits of combining existing long-term plankton monitoring programmes and emerging technologies in monitoring the health of our seas

A new article published today in the journal Oryx examines the efficacy and perception of queen conch (Aliger gigas) conservation aquaculture – cultivating aquatic organisms to manage or replenish natural populations. 

The European project PROMICON issues five policy recommendations to support a new method for the production of sustainable bioplastics from microorganisms.

Petrol-based plastics are present in many aspects of our daily lives, from clothing to food packaging. They are often left behind in the environment, where they degrade, breaking into thousands of tiny pieces that harm ecosystems and human health. While biodegradable plastics are seen as a potential solution, their production remains limited, accounting for just 1.3 million tons in 2022 compared to 400 million tons of petrol-based plastics. Many biodegradable plastics also fail to biodegrade efficiently under all environmental conditions such as soil, rivers, and oceans. In this context, researchers from the Horizon 2020 project PROMICON have developed an innovative method that leverages photosynthetic microorganisms (cyanobacteria) to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) – a type of bioplastic that fully degrades in soil, water, and marine environments.