Published on March 8th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers Chris Perry, Michael Salter, and others published a paper entitled “Fish as Major Carbonate Mud Producer and Missing Components of the Tropical Carbonate Factory.” 

If you are a student either entering or are currently attending an accredited North American college or university as either an undergraduate or graduate with a declared major in the marine sciences, you are eligible to enter to win this $2500 scholarship.

Since going live with our new website, we’ve had a lot of interest in knowing how to keep abreast of our latest articles, blog posts, and events that we post here on a daily basis.

I started listening to the Reef Threads podcast two to three months ago, either after I heard about them on Facebook or found them through a Google Search while looking for reefkeeping podcasts to listen to on my daily commute (surprisingly enough, there are very few reefkeeping podcasts!).

The research is very preliminary and up to this point is based on only three whales, but researchers Luke Rendell, Jonathan Gordon, Hal Whitehead, Shane Gero, and others who have been working with whale auditory research believe that the data is “very suggestive” that this type of communication is taking place during whale click sequence (or “coda”) communications.

In this particular study, the scientists broadly modeled these two genera and included factors such as sea surface temperatures, ultraviolet radiation, coral host density, human population magnitude, in addition to other factors. 

Dr Andrew Hoey and Professor David Bellwood at Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University have documented that once the “weed” density reaches a certain density (as little as the size of an average backyard garden plot) that herbivorous fish will migrate to areas less dense in leafy macroalgaes. 

For those of you unfamiliar with Sylvia Earle, she is a world-renowned oceanographer whom The New York Times has dubbed “A Living Legend” and The New Yorker has called “Her Deepness.” 

As if we didn’t already know that our imperilled reefs are important to save, a tiny cyanobacterium that’s found inhabiting reefs has shown its importance in fighting disease.

Growing up, I had a neighbor that would take her knitting with her everywhere.  Basketball games, restaurants, you name it.