From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Coral organisms use minuscule appendages to control their environment, stirring up water eddies to bring nutrients

Conventional wisdom has long held that corals — whose calcium-carbonate skeletons form the foundation of coral reefs — are passive organisms that rely entirely on ocean currents to deliver dissolved substances, such as nutrients and oxygen.

The Washington DC Area Marine Aquarist Society (WAMAS) is excited to announce that MACNA® 2015 (the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America) will take place on September 4th, 5th, and 6th of 2015 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, in northwest Washington, DC.

From Oregon State University:

Lionfish characteristics make them more “terminator” than predator

New research on the predatory nature of red lionfish, the invasive Pacific Ocean species that is decimating native fish populations in parts of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, seems to indicate that lionfish are not just a predator, but more like the “terminator” of movie fame.

From the San Diego State University (by Michael Price)

The study’s lead author, Linda Wegley Kelly, is a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of SDSU virologist Forest Rohwer.

Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, Australia, have been studying the effect of carbon dioxide on the schooling behaviour of the tropical damselfish Chromis viridis.

The survival of the Caribbean Elkhorn Coral, Acropora palmata, is threatened by increasing seawater temperatures, infectious disease outbreaks, and overfishing. Research by a team of Penn State scientists now shows that the spatial scale over which the coral host and its algal symbiont exchange genes is not well matched, raising questions about the ability of this symbiosis to adapt to a rapidly changing climate change. 

Giesemann supplied Advanced Aquarist with the following literature:

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Unprecedented levels of biological diversity underscores value in protecting Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Deep coral reefs in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) may contain the highest percentage of fish species found nowhere else on Earth, according to a study by NOAA scientists published in the Bulletin of Marine Science.

Costa Rican researchers at the Smithsonian and the University of Costa Rica named a new coral species, Psammogorgia hookeri, for Yuri Hooker, biologist and naturalist at the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.