News and Features by Research Area or Topic
Posted on November 28th, 2012 in Chemical Contaminants, Climate Impacts, Coastal Pollution, Hypoxia & Eutrophication, News Clips, Ocean Acidification, Pathogens & Microbes, Sponsored Research
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s DOOM lab (Dissolved Oxygen and Oyster Mortality) is examining how oysters respond to sudden drops in oxygen levels in shallow parts of the Chesapeake Bay at night. These fluctuations are partially natural, but appear to be made worse by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Oxygen depletion may make oysters more susceptible [...]
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Posted on November 19th, 2012 in Harmful Algal Blooms, Outreach, Sponsored Research
Teaching college undergraduates introductory biology includes helping students understand the relationships between genes, mutations, and the environment interacting together as biological evolution. A complete understanding of evolution requires knowledge that spans many biological sub-disciplines including genetics, cell biology and ecology. A group of professors at Michigan State University developed case studies for teaching evolution. These cases, [...]
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Posted on October 26th, 2012 in Coral, Ecosystem Management, News Clips, People and Infrastructure, Sponsored Research
Dania Beach, Florida, a small coastal city about 10 miles south of Fort Lauderdale, is best known as a jai-alai haven and home of the International Game Fishing Association Hall of Fame. It’s also where, for more than a decade, researchers at Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Oceanographic Center have quietly studied coral ecosystems in association [...]
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Posted on October 12th, 2012 in Harmful Algal Blooms, Human Health, Monitoring & Event Response, Rapid Response, Sponsored Research
An extensive Karenia brevis algae bloom off of the Florida coast prompted NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science to provide the state funding to pay for offshore monitoring of the bloom’s development, movement, and toxicity. This can help the state more accurately predict its magnitude and movement of the bloom as well as its impacts. The bloom started in [...]
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Posted on October 10th, 2012 in Coastal Pollution, Hypoxia & Eutrophication, News Clips, Sponsored Research
This post was co-authored with Bob Diaz, a WRI partner and professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. This year’s extreme weather events—a warm winter, even warmer summer, and a drought that covered nearly two-thirds of the continental United States—has certainly caused its fair share of damages. But despite the crop failures, water shortages, [...]
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Posted on October 10th, 2012 in Harmful Algal Blooms, Human Health, Monitoring & Event Response, News Clips, Rapid Response, Sponsored Research
The largest red tide bloom to affect Southwest Florida in years stretches nearly 100 miles from Lee County to Pinellas, with reports of fish kills and irritating red-tide air concentrated in Sarasota County. The widespread nature and intensity of the bloom, strongest off Charlotte Harbor, exceeds a smaller outbreak at this time last year and [...]
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Posted on October 2nd, 2012 in Chemical Contaminants, Coastal Pollution, Hypoxia & Eutrophication, News Clips, Sponsored Research
Nancy Rabalais is a marine ecologist who is dedicated to documenting and mitigating the effects of hypoxic zones—aquatic areas with low dissolved oxygen levels commonly known as “dead zones”—that have expanded dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico and many other coastal systems around the globe. Since the mid-1980s, she has led a long-term monitoring program [...]
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Posted on October 2nd, 2012 in Chemical Contaminants, Coastal Pollution, Hypoxia & Eutrophication, News Clips, Sponsored Research
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the recipients of their ‘Genius Grants’ yesterday, and one of them is a scientist dedicated to studying the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Nancy Rabalais is a marine ecologist and the executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. A ‘dead zone’ is an [...]
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