Category Archives: Research Blogging

The Most Repulsive Barnacle in the World

Posted on 2011/07/11 by Sam

There is some truly nasty stuff out there in the ocean. All kinds of parasites. Male anglerfish. Penis fencing and traumatic insemination. Lampreys. Even those studying the “cute” marine mammals aren’t safe. Ever hear of blowhole sex? How about murderous, … Continue reading →

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Are Grouper Eating Invasive Lionfish?

Posted on 2011/06/24 by Sam

A short but provocative study just came out in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. As readers may or may not be aware, the Caribbean Sea has seen an invasion of lionfish over the past five to ten years. No one … Continue reading →

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Beaked Whales and Naval Sonar: What’s Going On?

Posted on 2011/04/10 by Sam

There have been huge fights in the past decade over Naval sub-hunting sonar and its effects on certain species of whales. In several cases, mass strandings of marine mammals have occurred shortly after naval exercises where mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar … Continue reading →

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Reef Noise As Guide for Floating Crustaceans

Posted on 2011/02/07 by Sam

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a small planktonic crustacean floating in the tropical ocean. Your world is vast, but its physical geography at your scale is relatively simple. Light and warmth are above, dark and cold are down. … Continue reading →

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Cape Cod Crabs Consume Haline Hay

Posted on 2010/11/30 by Sam

An interesting piece of ecological detective work from the shores of New England, which came to my attention via this blog post and this op-ed in the Cape Cod Times. Salt marshes on Cape Cod have been suffering local die-back … Continue reading →

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Matching Management to Fish and Fishers

Posted on 2010/10/05 by Sam

There are no truly universal laws in ecology. Every pattern and process takes place on its own scale in time and space, and truths that hold at one scale do not necessarily hold at another. This is a fact of … Continue reading →

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Methods of sampling and analysis and our concepts of ocean dynamics

Posted on 2010/06/12 by Sam

I read a paper today (actually, more like an essay) by Peter Wangersky, a longtime chemical oceanographer. Titled “Methods of sampling and analysis and our concepts of ocean dynamics,” it is essentially a personable ramble through six decades of marine … Continue reading →

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Varieties of Oceanographic Experience

Posted on 2010/05/16 by Sam

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about issues of scale in ecology, both because I’m taking a fascinating seminar on the topic this quarter, and because my particular research is conducive to thinking about them. “Scale” came to the fore … Continue reading →

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Krill v. Salps in the Southern Ocean

Posted on 2010/03/15 by Sam

Last week, writing about copepods, I mentioned that they make up what is probably the most massive group of animals on earth. I also mentioned the likely runner up: krill. In particular, the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba. Photo by Uwe … Continue reading →

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Sustainabewildering Seafood

Posted on 2010/02/04 by Sam

I just finished reading a new paper from Jennifer Jaquet et al., mostly from Daniel Pauly’s group at UBC. The paper is titled “Conserving wild fish in a sea of market-based efforts,” and it appears in the current issue of … Continue reading →

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