WANTED: Netizen report on COT outbreaks

COT (crown-of-thorns seastar, Acanthaster planci) outbreaks have devastating effects to coral reefs since the 1930s, in some instances, wiping out entire coral reefs.

COT seastars feasting on a small coral table.
Photo taken by Jennifer Selgrath

In 2011, SeaLifeBase Project started to gather COT occurrences, that is, important baseline information that may help in determining the probable cause(es) of such outbreaks. To date, it has 686 occurrences from 166 references, more than 50% of which are identified as outbreak events.

Reported COT occurrences since 1820

So next time you see a COT seastar or a COT outbreak, please e-mail me at m.pan@fin.ph the following details:

1. Date and name of place where observation was made;
2. Latitude and longitude of the specific area observed via the GPS capacities of your cellphone (if possible);
3. Is this observation that of a few indiduals sparsely distributed within the area? Or is this observation that of many seastars gathered in the same area and visibly destroying the reef (that is an outbreak)?
4. The average number of seastars found in a meter square of the area; and the length and the width of the whole area where this number is observed (if possible);
5. Length (in cm) and/or number of arms of individual COT (if possible); and
6. Other remarks on the occurrence or the outbreak

Your observations will be gratefully receive. Many thanks! 

Picozoa: a new marine phylum

Picozoa,  a new phylum of marine unicellular heterotrophic eukaryotes, was created to accommodate a new picobiliphyte with no known close eukaryotic relative.

Picomonas judraskeda Seenivasan, Sausen, Medlin and Melkonian, 2013 inhabits surface waters of the German  coast (in the North Sea). It is named after its unique mode of movement which consists of a short fast jump ("ju-"), a slow drag ("-dra-") and an extremely fast and extended movement of the cell away from the original position (skedaddle; "-skeda").

Picomonas cell taken from here

Reference:
Seenivasan, R.; Sausen, N.; Medlin, L.K.; Melkonian, M. 2013. Picomonas judraskeda gen. et sp. nov.: the first identified member of the Picozoa phylum nov., a widespread group of picoeukaryotes, formerly known as ‘picobiliphytes’. PLoS ONE 8(3): e59565. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059565

Noises of the ocean

Illustration by ngm.nationalgeographic.com

Water conducts noise, and thus, marine life is affected by noise, notably if it reaches “pollution stage”. The illustration here shows how marine mammal feeding and reproduction is affected by such noise. Natural noises like thunder and the tapping of strong rain may affect them, but louder noises caused by cruise and cargo ships as well as smaller vessels affect them even more [1,2,3]. The noise created by submarine vessels have also been linked as a cause of whale mass strandings [4], and military sonar has been shown to affect diving and feeding behaviour of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus). To know more about this article, click here. [5]

To discover marine mammals natural behavior, visit SeaLifeBase.
 

_________________________________

[1] Hardwood, J. 2001. Marine mammals and their environment in the twenty-first century. Journal of Mammalogy 82(3):630-640.

[2] Wright, et al., 2007. Do marine mammals experience stress related to anthropogenic noise? International Journal of Comparative Psychology 20:274-316.

[3] Erbe, C. 2002. Underwater noise of whale-watching boats and potential effects on killer whales (Orcinus orca), based on an acoustic impact model. Marine Mammal Science 18(2):394-418.

[4] National Geographic. 2013. The big idea. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/big-idea/noisy-ocean [Accessed 15/07/2013].

[5] Marine Society Today. 2013. Researchers record whales' reaction to sonar. http://marinesciencetoday.com/2013/07/08/researchers-record-whales-reaction-to-sonar/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MarineScienceToday+%28Marine+Science+Today%29 [Accessed 15/07/2013].

Written by:

Surveying robots and endangered marine life

Natural history surveying has evolved over time, from from boat-, land-based, and plane/helicopter surveys to current high technology robotics [1]. 

Underwater robots called gliders performing digital acoustic monitoring (DMON) deployed in late 2012 by a team of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the central Gulf of Maine captured baleen whale calls that were identified as those from North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species [2]. This tool overtakes the opportunistic sightings of old techniques, as it records unique whale calls and confirms their location through reconnaissance data with real-time updates.

These robots increased our capacity to discover more about the life history of difficult to observe animals to more than ten-fold and may help extend our knowledge of threatened large pelagic species like whales, dolphins, swordfishes and whalesharks.

To know more about marine endangered species visit SeaLifeBase.

__________________________
[1]  Eberhardt, L.L.; Chapman, D.G.; Gilbert, J.R. (1979) A review of marine mammal census methods. Wildlife Monographs 63:3-46.

[2] Macroevolution.net (2013) Detecting endangered whales. http://www.macroevolution.net/marine-robots.html#.UagR55yP_YN [Accessed 31/05/2013].

Written by:

Wind sailors of the sea

Have you ever walked along the beach and encountered a fleet of bluish mussels on the shore? They are in fact not mussels but hydrozoans, famously known as by-the-wind sailors.  

Although physically similar with the Portuguese man o' war, this is not a jellyfish. Scientifically called Velella velella, it is the only known species under the genus of free-floating hydrozoans. It is found worldwide in both tropical and temperate waters. With a deep-blue rectangular float and an upright triangular sail, it looks like a miniature sailboat, on which its name was coined. 

This colonial species is made up of clustered polyps/zooids categorized into two types: gastrozooids and gonozooids. Gastrozooids function for plankton feeding using its tentacles (see photo above), while gonozooids have a reproductive function, that is, to constantly release medusa to the open waters. Having no means of locomotion, they are at the mercy of the wind to move around the seas and are thus, prone to mass-strandings on coastal beaches.

To know more about the by-the-wind sailors, visit SeaLifeBase.

If you have other information on them, you can e-mail us at sealifebase@fin.ph or come be a collaborator.

____________________

Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBARI). See page link here.Photos by Christian Coudre.
Written by: