The North Sea has warmed in recent years and there is an ongoing debate into how this is affecting the distribution of fishes and other marine organisms. Of particular interest is the commercially important Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.), which has declined sharply in abundance in the North Sea over the past 20 years. Observations of the temperature experienced by 129 individual cod throughout ...

Regular occurrence of brevetoxin-producing toxic phytoplankton in commercial shellfishery areas poses a significant risk to shellfish consumer health. Brevetoxins and their causative toxic phytoplankton are more limited in their global distribution than most marine toxins impacting commercial shellfisheries. On the other hand, trends in climate change could conceivably lead to increased risk po...

Exposure of nearshore animals to hypoxic, lowpH waters upwelled from below the continental shelf and advected near the coast may be stressful to marine organisms and lead to impaired physiological performance. We mimicked upwelling conditions in the laboratory and tested the effect of fluctuating exposure to water with low-pH and/or low-oxygen levels on the mortality and growth of juvenile red ...

Strong, dissolved, copper-complexing ligands are known to control copper speciation and bioavailability in most marine waters. We are testing the hypothesis that metal-responsive production of such ligands occurs in the Elizabeth River estuary, and that picoplankton and bacterioplankton produce the ligands. Recent studies utilizing cultures of marine picoplankton (Synechococcus) and bacteriopla...

Heavy metal concentrations in Antarctic surface seawaters and some marine organisms were determined, and their distributions and bioaccumulations were discussed in comparison with other marine ecosystems. Locational difference of the heavy metal concentrations in Antarctic seawater was negligible, and their concentrations were in the order of Zn Fe> Mn> Cu>Pb Ni> Cd> Hg. When compared to the we...

The recent Diplomatic Conference held (1-5 October 2001) by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London adopted the Draft Convention prepared by The Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) of IMO for the "Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems for Ships." The convention has been developed to immediately ban the use of Tributyltin (TBT) globally in anti-fouling paints to "p...

The kinetics of methane hydrate formation in marine sediments with different water saturations are important to assess the feasibility of the hydrate production and understand the process of the secondary hydrate formation in the gas production from hydrate reservoir. In this paper, the behaviors of methane hydrate formation in marine sediments from the South China Sea at different water satura...

The ever increasing demand of water permits the need of alternative water sources for balancing the water supply and demand. Desalination has become a significant alternative water source due to growing demand of water and inadequate conventional water sources in many countries. Desalination is a process of removing excess salts and other dissolved solids from water in order to get clean water ...

The distribution and activity of the bulk picoplankton community and, using microautoradiography combined with catalysed reported deposition fluorescence in situ hybridization (MICRO-CARD-FISH), of the major prokaryotic groups (Bacteria, marine Crenarchaeota Group I and marine Euryarchaeota Group II) were determined in the water masses of the subtropical North Atlantic. The bacterial contributi...

Viruses are abundant in all known ecosystems. In the present study, we tested the possibility that viruses from one biome can successfully propagate in another. Viral concentrates were prepared from different near-shore marine sites, lake water, marine sediments, and soil. The concentrates were added to microcosms containing dissolved organic matter as a food source (after filtration to allow 1...