Dec 1, 2020 · Marine mammals are warm-blooded vertebrates (animals with a backbone) that bear live young and nourish them with milk as land mammals do, but that spend most or all of their lives in the ocean. They are broken into three groups that share similar adaptations to their aquatic life, but that have very different origins and life patterns.

Jan 23, 2025 · As filter feeders, they often grow from high vantage points to skim nearby currents for tasty particles and swarming zooplankton. In Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, New England, WHOI biologists have recorded more-concentrated populations of these animals along shipwrecks than on other native substrates like boulder reefs.

Jun 3, 2021 · Plastics could present a risk to both marine animals and humans since they may contain toxic chemicals like phthalates, bisphenol A and others used in the manufacturing process. These additives can change the properties of plastic items in different ways. For example, they may make water bottles more rigid, and pens more flexible.

Aug 21, 2008 · “Marine animals interact with each other as predators, scavengers, and through the shared use of marine and beach environments,” they wrote. “Our results indicate that marine mammals, fish, and seabirds may not only suffer as victims of disease from zoonotic pathogens, but also act as vectors, moving these human pathogens to different ...

May 24, 2024 · In 1977, scientists discovered hydrothermal vents. These seafloor hot springs release mineral-rich water that attracts an abundance of life, including shrimp, crabs, and six-foot-tall tubeworms.

May 2, 2013 · Fisher, a marine biogeochemist at Stony Brook University, has spent 35 years studying the fate of metals and radioisotopes in marine organisms, including radioisotopes associated with nuclear waste. He and members of his lab participated in the research cruise led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marine geochemist Ken Buesseler off the ...

Sep 10, 2020 · Small marine animals called zooplankton feed on phytoplankton and are, in turn, eaten by larger marine organisms. Although much of the carbon taken up by phytoplankton is recycled in the upper layers of ocean, the remaining portion sinks, eventually reaching depths at which the carbon will remain sequestered, or removed, for hundreds to ...

Sep 29, 2023 · Animals in the twilight zone help support the ocean’s food web and transport huge amounts of carbon from surface waters into the deep ocean, helping to regulate global climate. So far, the twilight zone is largely unexplored and its rich biodiversity has remained mostly beyond the reach of commercial fishing—and the international laws that ...

Sep 15, 2004 · They become available as food for higher organisms in the food web, the zooplankton—tiny marine animals that, in turn, are eaten by larger animals, from fish to jellyfish to whales. A rich and vulnerable ecosystem. Nowhere is the plankton ecosystem less well-understood than in the Arctic Ocean.

Oct 7, 2021 · In Paleozoic seas, non-skeletal corals frequently grew on the bodies of marine animals called sea crinoids, or sea lilies--a flowery relative of the starfish. Though the seafloor is rich with their fossils, the pair seemed to disappear from the fossil record around 273 million years ago and was believed to have gone extinct.