A team of marine scientists have discovered that WA's coral reefs contain weather maps going back hundreds of years. The scientists, from the University of WA and Curtin University, drilled into giant porite corals on Ningaloo Reef, the Abrolhos Islands and Rowley Shoals to find the marine weather data. They discovered that the core samples were able to tell them what causes marine heat waves among WA's unique coral reefs. Read …
SWIMMING with humpback whales is set to become WA’s newest must-do experience, with the State Government giving the go-ahead to a trial at the Ningaloo Marine Park. Building on the success of whale shark tourism, the humpback whale tours will be offered to 11 licensed operators at Exmouth and Coral Bay next year. WA’s humpback population is back to pre-whaling numbers, with more than 30,000 whales – which grow up to …
Warmer waters across the California coast have brought unprecedented sightings of marine animals along the shore and in the water. Larger fish and bigger schools of fish are staying around later in the year, and in some cases, species that have never before been documented in California have found their way to California shores. Read the full story at NBC 7 San Diego.
The world’s oceans are warming at an accelerated rate due to anthropogenic activities. Over 100 species have undertaken polewards range-shifts along the south-east coast of Australia with expected positive and negative impacts in the invaded southern communities. Read more about this hot topic by researcher Jorge E. Ramos and Redmap founder Gretta Pecl from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in the Ecological Society of Australia's Hot Topics …
New research shows that warm sea-surface temperature anomalies in the region can cause shifts in the marine environment where they feed, forcing the birds to travel farther and dive deeper for their food — and causing declines in their populations. Read more about the impacts of warming seas on penguins in The Washington Post.
Who wants to be a manta ray scientist? Project Manta's team will be giving a presentation this Friday in Exmouth! Please come along to find out about the research and how you can get involved. Where: Novotel Ningaloo Resort Exmouth and When: 30th October, 7pm #projectmanta #citizenscience Check out the Project Manta on Facebook.
A new method has been developed to estimate fish movements using ocean heat content images, a dataset commonly used in hurricane intensity forecasting. With Atlantic tarpon as the messenger, this is the first study to quantitatively show that large migratory fishes, such as yellowfin and bluefin tunas, blue and white marlin, and sailfish have affinities for ocean fronts and eddies. Read the full story at Science Daily.
New details on how birds respond to climate change have been revealed by volunteer bird watchers all over Europe. The information they've gathered shows birds respond to changing conditions in different seasons of the year. While some species benefit from these changes, birds that are adapted to colder regions stand to lose. Read more at Science Codex.
The Atlas of Life in the Marine Wilderness asks the community to record their local marine species diversity in order to monitor the seasonal and annual changes in marine species diversity. Read more here.
Fancy yourself a bit of an artist? Check out the latest Redmap marine design competition.... (Closes November 5th 2015)