A recent study in the journal Current Biology has used historical data on over three hundred marine species to demonstrate a trend towards species abundance declining at the trailing (what the team call equatorward), edge of their range and an increase in abundance at the species’ poleward edge [...]
A little while back I shared some images of mangroves growing adjacent to the Red Sea. Here are some more from this harsh, tough, and yet functioning habitat. Mangroves are not common along the Red Sea coastline, a figure of around 2,700 square kilometers has been quoted, to include the entire [...]
It may come as a surprise to you that you can tell an awful lot about the past from shells, and not just the recent past either, but the late cretaceous. Research published in the journal Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology looked at the growth rings in a fossil shell – a relative of today’s [...]
Research published in the journal Current Biology has documented how floating plastic debris becomes covered in marine organisms and ends up giving off scents which are similar to turtles’ normal foodstuffs. “We found that loggerhead sea turtles respond to odors from biofouled plastics in [...]
I shared a few monochrome images recently, and also talked about which underwater subjects look good in black and white. This time, I thought I’d look at some shipwreck images. The main image was taken on a wreck in the Mediterranean. As you can see the propeller makes for a strong [...]
Trimming the coral garden to keep its inhabitants in tip-top shape is by far the best part of tank maintenance a successful reefkeping aficionado performs on a regular basis. Fragging corals brings joy to one’s face, whether the purpose of such a task is to transplant them to other parts of the [...]
It’s not unusual for parasites to lose various pieces of anatomy or chunks of their biochemistry as evolutionary forces, over time, place pressure on them to stop wasting biological ‘effort’ on redundant and useless parts of their biology. This species though, is quite different, it has [...]
I recently wrote a blog about the conservation value of mangroves and how the loss of mangrove habitats has slowed in recent years. This inspired me to share a few images of one of the most extreme mangrove habitats I have ever visited. The southern deserts of Egypt are not known for their lush [...]
