Invasive crabs and snails threaten oyster reefs in California coastal estuary

July 29th, 2009 LONDON - A team of scientists has identified some of the metabolic changes that occur to transform tens of millions of red crabs from inactive, antisocial creatures into an unstoppable sea of individuals capable of walking for several days on end, thus making one of the most spectacular animal migrations on Earth. "This (migration) requires a major physiological change," said Steve Morris of the University of Bristol, UK, who led the study.

July 20th, 2009 LONDON - Higher temperatures near the ocean's surface propel king crabs to deeper waters, with the result that they are found near the surface only off the coasts of Japan, Alaska, and western Canada, scientists have found. Around 100 species live in the deep.

July 9th, 2009 LONDON - A new study is going to determine the archaeological sites along the coast of England which are most at risk from the impacts of climate change. The effects of climate change, including rising sea level and coastal erosion, as well as other factors such as coastal development and shoreline management initiatives, constantly threaten archaeological sites along the coast of England.

June 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of scientists has warned that accelerating losses of seagrasses across the globe threaten the immediate health and long-term sustainability of coastal ecosystems, with 58 percent of world's seagrass meadows currently declining. The assessment, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows an acceleration of annual seagrass loss from less than 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990.

June 29th, 2009 Study: Coastal seagrass increasingly being lostWASHINGTON — Coastal development and declining water quality are threatening seagrasses worldwide, researchers report. A study of coastal grasses around the world shows that 58 percent of the seagrass meadows are in decline, according to a report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

June 26th, 2009 Activists hot over senator's stance on oyster farmWASHINGTON — A powerful Senate Democrat is backing an oyster farmer over the National Park Service in a northern California controversy that has environmentalists seething. This is good news for San Francisco Bay area lovers of succulent Drakes Bay oysters, some of the world's finest.

June 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, has determined that coral reefs throughout the Caribbean have been comprehensively 'flattened' over the last 40 years. The collapse of reef structure has serious implications for biodiversity and coastal defences - a double whammy for fragile coastal communities in the region.

June 6th, 2009 LONDON - Marine scientists have painted a grim picture of the future, where the 21st century equivalent of Noah's Ark would be needed to save coral reefs from extinction. According to a report in the Times, marine scientists such as Alex Rogers, of the Institute of Zoology, London, warn that unless drastic changes are made, the only way that the rainforests of the sea will survive is through radical intervention such as transplanting them to a Noah's Ark of enormous seawater tanks.

June 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by a team of marine scientists from the US and Australia has suggested that coral reefs appear to be more resistant to seaweed than previously thought. Their study is the first global-scale analysis of thousands of surveys of individual reefs - in all, more than 3,500 examinations of about 1,800 reefs performed between 1996 and 2006.

April 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that some coral reefs off East Africa are unusually resilient to climate change, and can be termed as 'super reefs'. The study, conducted by researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), showed that the reefs have become super tough due to improved fisheries management and a combination of geophysical factors.

March 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A long-term research has concluded that the shell of a particular snail has dramatically increased in size, during less than a century, thus providing a clear illustration of how fast and effectively change can occur. The research, which began in 1915, was completed by a team of biologists at the University of Pennsylvania.

March 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by a Queen's University Belfast academic has shown that crabs not only suffer pain but that they retain a memory of it. The study, which looked at the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks, was carried out by Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's.

March 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A biologist has discovered that the shell lengths of northwest Atlantic Ocean snails have increased by 22.6 per cent over the past century. "We found a dramatic increase in size, which could affect the entire intertidal food chain," said Jonathan Fisher, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Queen's University in Canada, and the leader of the study.

March 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have determined that if carbon dioxide (CO2) reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world. The study, by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, points out that the impact on reefs is a consequence of both ocean acidification caused by the absorption of CO2 into seawater and rising water temperatures.

January 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Coral reefs are on the way to recovery in areas of Indonesia, following the tsunami that devastated coastal regions throughout the Indian Ocean on Dec 26, 2004. The New York based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) working with Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (ARCCoERS), has documented high densities of 'baby corals' in areas that were severely impacted by the tsunami.