Biology Marine biology

News

Great Barrier reef
15 Jan 2025
Tsuyoshi Watanabe uses corals to understand the environment of the past and what it can tell us about people living then.
The pineal gland of zebrafish is located atop the head
14 Jan 2025
Zebrafish arrestins take turns inactivating key protein depending on intensity of light
Medaka mating
23 Dec 2024
Intimate insights into relationship between cost of gamete production and sexual selection
12 Nov 2024
Hokkaido University and Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. signed a partnership agreement in June 2022 to address various social issues in Hokkaido and lead the creation of a sustainable society. As part of this collaboration, Hokkaido Air System Co., Ltd. will equip one of its aircraft with an external camera to commence the world's first regular flight-based red tide monitoring starting in the summer of 2025.
07 Nov 2024
The two Pseudo-nitzschia species found in Luzon produce a dangerous neurotoxin that can cause severe sickness and permanent short-term memory loss.
Xochitl Édua Elías Ilosvay (researcher) and Kazuki Seike (translator) during a personal interview with a coastal fisher at a Fisheries Cooperative Association in the northern region of Shikoku Island. (Credit: Kameyuki Seike)
25 Oct 2024
A new scientific study reveals the complex relationship between the impacts of climate change and the adaptive responses of coastal fishers in the southern coasts of Japan.
Editor's Choice
07 Oct 2024
Mirror, mirror, in my tank, who’s the biggest fish of all? Sigma bond spotted, Balancing cell membrane, Exploring quantum squeezing and Outbreak preparedness. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.
Fish in the mirror
11 Sep 2024
Cleaner wrasse check their body size before fights due to having their own mental representation
09 Sep 2024
Seaweed helps brain health, Whales in long-distance relationships, Jumpstarting male fertility, Demystifying black hole turbulence, Shrimp to steel & Mpox Resources. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.
22 Aug 2024
One of the smallest lifeforms may have the biggest impact on marine ecosystems. Researchers at Tohoku University modeled how climate change can affect phytoplankton – and our future.
Bowhead whales are tagged in Disko Bay, West Greenland, to track their movements and diving behavior. (Photo: Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen)
11 Aug 2024
Applying chaos theory to the movement of iconic arctic whales uncovered a 24-hour diving cycle and a long-range (~100 km) synchronization.
Trajectories of the abundance-weighted center of gravity (COG) for eight commercial species
01 Aug 2024
Commercially important marine fish and invertebrate species will likely shift northwards under a warmer climate.
Helper (left) and dominant breeder/parent (right) of Neolamprologus savoryi
14 Jun 2024
Study shows fish may use punishment to promote help from their offspring
12 Apr 2024
Zika virus vaccine targets brain cancer, 120-year quest to farm lobsters, Arctic nightlife bursts with sound, Eating a robot, Molecular orientation is key & New treatment for ALS and dementia. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.
25 Mar 2024
A marine biologist is inching closer to conquering science’s over 120-year pursuit to farm lobsters by letting these “dragons of the sea” get real weird.
09 Nov 2023
New shrimp species in ancient hot spring, Super sprouts, How "warm-ups" work, New antiviral candidate, Solving voltage decay and from our blog: A sustainable future shines in TIE 2023. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.
Hyalella yashmara amphipod
13 Oct 2023
A new amphipod species thrives at record temperatures in nearby hot spring pools of an ancient Inca city, defying norms for these typically cold-dwelling animals. Unraveling its key adaptations can give clues for the survival of other freshwater creatures in our warming world.
An acoel (top) with two types of symbionts collected in Kochi, Japan (bottom left). The green-colored spots in the acoel are green algal (Tetraselmis) symbionts (middle right) and the brown-colored spots are dinoflagellate symbionts (bottom right). (Photos: Kevin Wakeman and Siratee Riewluang)
05 Oct 2023
Acoels have been found to host a wide diversity of symbiotic, photosynthetic microalgae.
Map of the eight Arctic marine areas included in the study (Irene D. Alabia, et al. Scientific Reports. March 11, 2023).
04 Apr 2023
Marine predators have expanded their ranges into the Arctic waters over the last twenty years, driven by climate change and associated increases in productivity.
14 Dec 2022
Using cryogenic electron microscopy, a research team from the Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (ReCAP) at Osaka Metropolitan University has revealed, for the first time, the structures and binding environments of pigments bound to a protein called a photosynthetic antenna of the marine green macroalga Codium fragile. The team’s results extend our knowledge about the molecular mechanism by which blue-green light—the only light available in deep seawater—is efficiently utilized for photosynthesis.
17 Feb 2022
An international team of researchers respond to criticisms on previous work that demonstrated Mirror Self-Recognition (MSR) in the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus, by 1) successfully repeating the mark test with a larger sample size, 2) showing the MSR behaviour to be the visual result of the mark not a physical response to it, and 3) showing that MSR-trained fish do not show aggression to spatially varied mirror images of themselves. Additionally, they further demonstrate potential self-awareness in L. dimidiatus by showing that they do not demonstrate MSR behaviour when visually presented with the mark on other fish and solidify the importance of ecologically relevant marks presented in previous work by showing MSR behaviour of L. dimidiatus with brown marks, meant to resemble a main food source of the fish, as opposed to no such behaviour in fish with green or blue marks.
Head regeneration of the hemichordates, Ptychodera flava
15 Feb 2022
Better understanding of regeneration in hemichordates may eventually lead to advances in reparative medicine
19 Oct 2021
An ambitious project using cutting edge environmental DNA, known as eDNA, to understand the richness of biodiversity of UNESCO’s marine World Heritage sites launches today.
Collecting coral probiotics from seawater instead of coral
13 Oct 2021
Coral reefs, comprising some of the most diverse and delicate ecosystems under water, are under immense stress. From global warming to pollution to pathogens, many of the reef-building coral species are listed as threatened or endangered. But, according to researchers in Japan, the corals may have an unlikely ally: bacteria.
Masahiro Nakaoka, Rommel Llanillo, Muammar Princess Soniega
03 Sep 2021
Social vulnerabilities of coastal communities and their reliance on blue carbon ecosystem services may be improved by addressing three major factors, according to a study led by Hokkaido University researchers.
Two distinct biodiversity refugia (inset map, top panel) for marine communities (159 fish and invertebrate species) in the Eastern Bering Sea from 1990-2018
17 May 2021
Scientists from Hokkaido University have used species survey and climate data to identify two marine biodiversity refugia in the Eastern Bering Sea – regions where species richness, community stability and climate stability are high.
10 May 2021
Deep sea animals face greater risks compared to those nearer the surface as they become less able to maintain their preferred thermal habitats with climate change.
19 Mar 2021
Through a series of prosocial choice tasks, researchers reveal prosocial and antisocial characteristics in male convict cichlid fish. The fish distinguish between female breeding partners, unknown females, and rival males by adjusting their actions to either provide food for both them and the females or avoid providing food for the rival males.
11 Dec 2020
Recognizing species is important for understanding regional biodiversity and for environmental conservation. However, taxonomic identity is sometimes obscure even with the organisms that are closest to human life.
25 Nov 2020
Scientist's understanding of this microscopic invertebrate has grown after the second discovery of Loricifera near Japan.

Events

01 Jun 2021 to 30 Jun 2021
The Ocean Celebration event runs 1-30 June 2021 and is organized by the Borneo Marine Research Institute of Universiti Malaysia Sabah.

Researchers

Jorge García Molinos is an aquatic ecologist broadly interested in global change ecology and macroecology.
Associate Professor Sitti Raehanah Muhamad Shaleh is the director of Borneo Marine Research Institute at Universiti Malaysia Sabah.
Professor Qiu Jianwen currently works at the Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University. He is interested in ecology and adaptation of apple snails, biodiversity and systematics of polychaetes, stress responses in shallow-water corals, and deep-sea biology. His research involves the use of various molecular tools including transcriptomics, proteomics and genomics.

Giants in history

The techniques that make industrial pearl culturing possible were developed over a century ago at the Misaki Marine Biological Station in Japan. The station’s first director, Professor Kakichi Mitsukuri, emphasized to Kokichi Mikimoto in 1890 that stimulating pearl sac formation was important for pearl growth, and they went on to successfully develop methods for culturing pearls.
Osamu Shimomura (27 August 1928 – 19 October 2018) was a Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist who dedicated his career to understanding how organisms emitted light.
Edgardo Dizon Gomez (7 November 1938 – 1 December 2019) was a Filipino marine biologist who recognized the need to protect marine resources, especially coral reefs, in the Philippines.