In 1998 American researchers working aboard the deep-sea submersible Alvin reported their discovery of the most temperature-tolerant eukaryotic (nucleated-cell) organism on record. The polychaete worm Alvinella pompejana, living near deep hot-water vents on the East Pacific Rise, experiences temperatures as high as 80° C (176° F) within its self-constructed protective tube, in contrast to 22° C (71.6° F) at the tube entrance. Its temperature tolerance exceeds that of other known multicellular organisms, which do not normally live at temperatures above 55° C (131° F). A German study of material collected by U.K. researchers described an unusual and abundant sea anemone new to science from the Porcupine Abyssal Plain in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. The anemone, Iosactis vagabunda, exhibits unique behaviour by intermittently vacating its burrow rather than pursuing a completely sessile lifestyle.
Mass stranding of Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) is very unusual, but such stranding was reported in the eastern Ionian Sea of the Mediterranean. The event coincided with military acoustic tests for submarine detection, and an investigation of possible causal links was proposed. Scientists from Thailand, Spain, and Denmark presented encouraging findings for environmental managers who were concerned with halting an alarming decline of mangrove forests in Southeast Asia due to aquaculture and industrial and urban development. (See AGRICULTURE: Special Report.) Their examination of a 28-year record of aerial photographs and satellite images revealed undisturbed mangroves in Pak Phanang Bay, Thailand. The mangrove edge had advanced at nearly 39 m (128 ft) per year where sufficient propagules (structures that allow the plant to spread) were available for the pioneer colonizing mangrove species Avicennia alba and Sonneratia caseolaris.
A new technique for studies of plankton in natural habitats was developed in Sweden. Using an underwater video camera mounted at an oblique angle to a stroboscope, researchers produced dark-field images of plankton animals as small as 0.3 mm (0.01 in) in length, permitting detailed study of species interactions and distributions. Scuba divers in the Atlantic off South Carolina and in the Pacific off the San Juan Islands, Washington state, made direct observations of aggregations of marine "snow," ubiquitous oceanic material comprising detritus, microbes, and phytoplankton embedded in mucus. These aggregations were visited, often in succession, by many types of zooplankton, probably to feed on microorganisms. Other American studies demonstrated a major source of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) in the sea to be remnants of an organic molecule called peptidoglycan derived from bacterial cell walls. The finding suggested that predation on bacteria, and thus their removal as contributor of DON, may be an important control on the long-term cycling of nutrient organic nitrogen in the sea. A U.K. study demonstrated that the planktonic copepod Pleuromamma experiences a significant lowering of nitrogen content between dawn and dusk, the period when this minute crustacean migrates downward in the sea and then back to the surface. Quantification of such losses by defecation and excretion, which at depth release particulate organic nitrogen and dissolved nitrogen, should further increase scientists’ understanding of nitrogen fluxes and so enhance models that describe nutrient flows in oceanic systems.
Molecular evidence demonstrated that the nine species of land crabs of the family Grapsidae found in Jamaica derive from a common marine ancestor that invaded terrestrial habitats only four million years ago. On an evolutionary time scale, this finding indicates a remarkably rapid diversification and specialization. A Canadian study of juveniles of the whelk Nucella emarginata assessed changes that the marine snail undergoes during development in its vulnerability to desiccation, susceptibility to predators, habitat distribution, and coloration. The study found marked changes in all four factors when juvenile whelks reach a shell length of 8 mm (0.3 in). This length demarcated a second "ecological shift," occurring later in development than the better-understood lifestyle changes that take place at metamorphosis from larva to juvenile. A joint Malaysian and Japanese study answered the question of how the mudskipper fish (Periophthalmidae schlosseri) and its eggs survive reduced oxygen conditions in what had been assumed to be water-filled burrows on tropical intertidal mudflats. The investigators observed fish on the surface gulping air into their mouths and then releasing it within the burrow to form an air store under the roof of the burrow, where developing eggs were situated.
Using sophisticated techniques for observing inside feeding oysters as they draw in water and filter the suspended particles, U.S. researchers showed that the oysters actively select living particles for ingestion and reject nonliving particles, evidently in response to chemical and particle-surface cues. Even greater selectivity was demonstrated by Italian workers who showed that the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis feeds selectively on living dinoflagellates rather than diatoms, with a particular preference for the toxin-producing dinoflagellate Dinophysis, the main causative agent of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning in humans in the Gulf of Trieste region of Italy.
Global fisheries statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for 1950-94 revealed a marked change in the composition of catches over the period, attributed to overfishing. Initial catches were predominantly of long-lived, fish-feeding, bottom-living fish positioned high in the food web, but recent catches were dominated by shorter-lived invertebrates and plankton-feeding, open-sea-dwelling fish located lower in the web. The changes indicated progressively increased fishing of organisms lower down the ocean food webs, a trend considered to be unsustainable. Urgent action by fisheries’ managers was recommended to protect world marine fish stocks and the food webs in which they are embedded.
A German study highlighted a continuing decline in the numbers of coelacanth fish in the Comoro Archipelago in the western Indian Ocean. The need to prevent exploitation of this "living fossil," in the wider context of biodiversity conservation, was presented as a test case to measure the success or failure of "eco-ethics," as recently defined and called for by international ecologists.