Coral Reefs News

June 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Geological Time Capsule Highlights Great Barrier Reef's Resilience

June 2, 2025 — New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to ...

Small Currents, Big Impact: Satellite Breakthrough Reveals Hidden Ocean Forces

May 30, 2025 — While scientists have long studied currents of large eddies, the smaller ones -- called submesoscale eddies -- are notoriously difficult to detect. These currents, which range from several kilometers ...

A Cheap and Easy Potential Solution for Lowering Carbon Emissions in Maritime Shipping

May 29, 2025 — Reducing travel speeds and using an intelligent queuing system at busy ports can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oceangoing container vessels by 16-24%, according to researchers. Not only ...

Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs

May 28, 2025 — This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin populations which have exploded due to overfishing in the ...

Imaging Technique Removes the Effect of Water in Underwater Scenes

May 21, 2025 — SeaSplat is an image-analysis tool that cuts through the ocean's optical effects to generate images of underwater environments reveal an ocean scene's true colors. Researchers paired the color-correcting tool with a computational model that converts ...

Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves

May 16, 2025 — A new study reveals that heat-tolerant symbiotic algae may be essential to saving elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) -- a foundational species in Caribbean reef ecosystems -- from the devastating ...

Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!

May 16, 2025 — A new study shows that seagrass ecosystems along the northern half of Florida's Gulf Coast have remained relatively healthy and undisturbed for the last several thousand ...

Tiny Gas Bubbles Reveal Secrets of Hawaiian Volcanoes

May 14, 2025 — Using advanced technology that analyzes tiny gas bubbles trapped in crystal, a team of scientists has precisely mapped how magma storage evolves as Hawaiian volcanoes ...

An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times

May 14, 2025 — With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it's too late. Researchers demonstrate that the ink could boost ...

Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience

May 8, 2025 — A new study links grazing halo patterns in coral reefs, as well as those in other patchy habitats, to the spatial patterns of the shelter habitat itself. The researchers found that grazing halos are distinct when the coral is clustered but merge ...

Artificial Oxygen Supply in Coastal Waters: A Hope With Risks

May 5, 2025 — Could the artificial introduction of oxygen revitalise dying coastal waters? While oxygenation approaches have already been proven successful in lakes, their potential side effects must be carefully analysed before they can be used in the sea. This ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

May 4, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's food supply: ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:29pm EDT

Restoration Programs Won’t Save Coral Reefs

Apr. 14, 2025 — As coral bleaching and deaths become more widespread globally, experts show that over a third of restoration projects fail and might never be scalable enough to have positive effects on reef ...

Coral Reefs Exude Myriad Chemicals, Fueling Dynamic Microbial Recycling of Nutrients

Apr. 12, 2025 — New research revealed the remarkable chemical diversity of substances exuded by coral reefs and demonstrated that thousands of different chemicals ...

Coral Diseases and Water Quality Play a Key Role for Coral Restoration and Survival Efforts

Mar. 28, 2025 — Coral diseases, particularly in the Caribbean, have caused major declines in coral populations, especially affecting staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) ...

Red Coral Colonies Survive a Decade After Being Transplanted in the Medes Islands

Mar. 18, 2025 — The red coral colonies that were transplanted a decade ago on the seabed of the Medes Islands have survived successfully. They are very similar to ...

'Fishial' Recognition: Neural Network Identifies Coral Reef Sounds

Mar. 11, 2025 — Researchers combine acoustic monitoring with a neural network to identify fish activity on coral reefs by sound. They trained the network to sort through the deluge of acoustic data automatically, ...

Adaptability of Some Coral Reef Fish to Rising Temperatures

Mar. 8, 2025 — Researchers have found that reef fish from the Arabian Gulf, the world's hottest sea, exhibit a higher tolerance to temperature fluctuations compared to those from more thermally stable coral reefs. ...

Shark Activity in South African Reef Revealed by Citizen Scientist Scuba Divers

Feb. 26, 2025 — Shark sightings by scuba divers reveal the movements of marine predators throughout the year, according to a new ...

Heat-Stressed Reefs May Benefit from Coral-Dwelling Crabs

Feb. 24, 2025 — Crab behavior suggestive of wound-tending may improve coral tolerance to heat ...

10 New Sponge Species Near Hawaii

Feb. 21, 2025 — Biologists, using a technique that explores both genes and structural characteristics, have introduced 10 new species of marine sponge. Despite their distinction as one of Earth's oldest lifeforms ...

Foraging Seals Enable Scientists to Measure Fish Abundance Across the Vast Pacific Ocean

Feb. 15, 2025 — A new study by marine biologists reports that seals can essentially act as 'smart sensors' for monitoring fish populations in the ocean's eerily dim ...

Can Artificial Intelligence Save the Great Barrier Reef?

Feb. 12, 2025 — Researchers are designing a global real-time monitoring system to help save the world's coral reefs from further decline, primarily due to bleaching caused by global ...

California's Marine Protected Areas Boost Fish Populations Across the State

Feb. 10, 2025 — It's 1999, the 21st century is on the horizon, and California has big plans for marine conservation. New legislation has presented a mandate to establish an ambitious network of marine protected ...

New Technology Lights Way for Accelerating Coral Reef Restoration

Feb. 6, 2025 — Scientists have developed a novel tool designed to protect and conserve coral reefs by providing them with an abundance of feeding ...

'Marine Prosperity Areas' Represent a New Hope in Conservation

Feb. 6, 2025 — An international team of researchers introduces a promising new initiative in marine conservation, dubbed 'Marine Prosperity Areas.' This science-informed effort goes beyond protecting ...

Fishing and Conserving in Great Barrier Reef's Marine Reserves

Feb. 5, 2025 — A new study of the Great Barrier Reef has revealed that the network of no-take marine reserves supplies nearly half of the region's coral trout fishery ...

Cycle of Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef Now at 'Catastrophic' Levels

Jan. 21, 2025 — Marine scientists highlights the complex interplay between heat stress, disease onset and coral mortality. They found that 66 percent of the colonies were bleached by February 2024 and 80 per cent by ...

Great Barrier Reef Fish Evidence Suggests Shifts in Major Global Biodiversity Patterns

Jan. 14, 2025 — Life on the Great Barrier Reef is undergoing big changes in the face of climate change and other human-caused pressures, a new study reveals. From food security to controlling seaweed and even making ...

Study Highlights Key Factors for Successful Restoration of Elkhorn Coral Colonies

Jan. 10, 2025 — To help rare elkhorn corals survive in Florida waters, coral researchers should place them in shallow ocean locations with fast currents, scientists explained in a recent ...

Coral Reef Nightlife Becomes More Predatory With Artificial Light

Dec. 26, 2024 — Artificial light can wake sleeping fish and attract predators, changing nighttime coral reef communities, according to new research using novel underwater infrared ...

New Study Highlights the Correlation Between Live Corals and Fishing Yields

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study examines the correlation between fish yield and live coral habitats. Researchers analyzed the yields of nine fisheries dependent on Australia's Great Barrier Reef from 2016 to 2020. ...

Giant Virus Encodes Key Piece of Protein-Making Machinery of Cellular Life

Dec. 18, 2024 — Researchers recently discovered that a virus, FloV-SA2, encodes one of the proteins needed to make ribosomes, the central engines in all cells that translate genetic information into proteins, the ...

Corals Depend on Near Neighbors to Reproduce

Dec. 16, 2024 — A new study reveals corals must be within only a few meters of each other to successfully reproduce, leaving them vulnerable in a warming ...

Surveys Show Full Scale of Massive Die-Off of Common Murres Following the 'Warm Blob' in the Pacific Ocean

Dec. 12, 2024 — Colony surveys of common murres, an Alaskan seabird, show the full effects of the 2014-16 marine heat wave known as 'the blob.' Analysis of 13 colonies surveyed between 2008 and 2022 finds ...

Coral Adaptation Unlikely to Keep Pace With Global Warming

Nov. 28, 2024 — Coral adaptation to ocean warming and marine heatwaves will likely be overwhelmed without rapid reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to an international team of ...

Research Highlights the Pressures Human Activities Place on Tropical Marine Ecosystems

Nov. 20, 2024 — The tropical coastlines of Southeast Asia are home to some of the most important and biodiverse marine ecosystems on the planet. But as well as being essential to communities along these coastlines, ...

Decline in West African Coastal Fish Stocks Threatens Food Security and Livelihoods

Nov. 16, 2024 — Fish stocks along the West African coast have declined significantly over the past five decades, threatening food security and the livelihoods of the fishing communities that depend on them, ...

Young Coral Use Metabolic Tricks to Resist Bleaching

Nov. 12, 2024 — Coral larvae reduce their metabolism and increase nitrogen uptake to resist bleaching in high temperatures, according to a new ...

Remote Control Eddies: Upwelled Nutrients Boost Productivity Around Hawaiian Islands

Oct. 31, 2024 — Oceanographers showed that eddies on the leeward side of the Hawaiian Islands can supply nutrients, not only locally, but also to the opposite side of the island chain and stimulate blooms of ...

New Genetic Web Tool to Help Restore Climate-Resilient Marine Ecosystems

Oct. 30, 2024 — In the face of increased human pressures and climate change, a team of scientists have launched a new online tool to assist marine managers and restoration experts to bolster the resilience of marine ...

Weddell Seals in the Antarctic Strategically Time Their Most Extreme Dives to Maximize Foraging

Oct. 29, 2024 — Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica, may look like couch potatoes when they are resting on ice. However, these seals, which are the southernmost population of the southernmost living mammals, are ...