Links for Biological Oceanography

• Oceanic Wonders
• Planktonic Ecology
• Deep-Water Ecology
• Shoreline Ecology
• Marine Bacteria and Protists
• Marine Invertebrates
• Fishes
• Marine Mammals
• El Nino and Marine Life

Oceanic Wonders

• Diving off the Galapagos. From Pacific Discovery, now called California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Winter 1997.
• Seabirds of the Farallons. From Pacific Discovery, now called California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Spring 1997.
• Collecting specimens for a unique display of deep-water creatures in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. From the San Francisco Chronicle, December 16, 1998.
• Feature article on the new display of deep-water animals, Monterey Bay Aquarium. From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 7, 1999.
• California's Galapagos: the Channel Islands. From the San Francisco Chronicle, January 1998.

Planktonic Ecology

Planktonic Communities

• The ecology of krill in the Southern Ocean From New Scientist, April 1999.
• Life in and around Antarctic sea ice. Feature article from BioScience, 1995.
• Life in and around floating kelp. From California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Winter 1999.
• Life in blue water: salps and other neat creatures. Article by Robert Kunzig for Discover magazine. Features research by Larry Madin, UC Davis alumnus. This article was rewritten as a chapter in Kunzig's fine book The Restless Sea, highly recommended.
• Gelatinous zooplankton. From the Monterey Bay Research Institute.
• Marine snow, an article from the UC Santa Cruz scientific writing program's Web site.
• Eat me, and I'll sterilize you!. The evolutionary race between copepods and diatoms in the plankton. From Nature news service, November 11, 1999.
• The nerves of planktonic copepods. The evolutionary race between copepods and their predators. From Nature news service, April 15, 1999.
• What keeps Australians out of the water? Certainly not sharks.... The answer is "stingers". Story from New Scientist, November 1999.

Deep Water Ecology

• Life in the Abyss. From a NOVA program.
• Neat organisms that live in deep water. The Washington Post archives some stories, but for some reason makes them difficult to find.
• A dead whale is a biological bonanza for deep-sea creatures. Feature story from Natural History, November 1999.
• Diving beneath Monterey Bay. From California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Fall 1997.
• Marine snow, an article from the UC Santa Cruz scientific writing program's Web site.
• How do deep-water organisms cope with crushing pressure?. Story from New Scientist, December 11, 1999.

The Vent Ecosystems of the Deep Sea

• Quick introduction. From ABC News On Line, January 25, 2000.
• The so-called Pompeii worms. From New Scientist, July 1998.
• Exploring the life around volcanic vents on the deep sea floor. Article by Robert Kunzig for Discover magazine. This article was rewritten as a chapter in Kunzig's fine book The Restless Sea, highly recommended.
• After a seafloor eruption. Short piece from Discover magazine.
• How do organisms find the vents?. From New Scientist, December 1998.
• The tube-worms on cold vents live a very long time. Press release, February 3, 2000, also available here. This is in strong contrast to the tubeworms on hot vents, which grow fast and have "normal" life-times.
• There may be some toxic side-effects from vent chemistry. This is a short news article about mercury emanating from the vents, from New Scientist, October 1999.

Bioluminescence in Dark Waters

• First of all, a comprehensive Bioluminescence page from UC Santa Barbara, with great photos.
• Bioluminescence in squid. From Science News, September 1996.
• Long and fascinating article from BioScience about the way that baby squid find the bacterial partners that give them their luminescence. April 1998 report on research in progress.
• More about baby squid gathering bacteria. New research, August 2000.
• Bioluminescence in octopus.. From Science News, March 1999.
• Nature placed the original research article on the Web.
• Beware of the cookie-cutter shark. From Science News, August 1998.
• The dragon fish and its special adaptations for seeing in dark waters.
  • Article from New Scientist, March 1999.
  • A longer and more in-depth treatment from the UC Santa Barbara luminescence Web site.

Shoreline Ecology

• The impact of floating icebergs on shallow-water ecology.

Marine Bacteria and Protists

• The largest bacteria ever discovered (April 1999):
  • Story from the New York Times, April 1999.
  • ABC News
  • Science News. Science News, April 1999.
• The huge role of bacteria in "blue water" of the central ocean. From Science News, July 1998.

Red Tides

• Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Toxin PSPT, produced not by bacteria but by single-celled protist "algae": Update article, April 14, 2000.
• PSP Fact Sheet from the State of Washington Department of Health.

Marine Invertebrates

• Sponges
  • Sponge defense system. So what do you do if you are a fairly large animal with no nervous system? How do you defend yourself? Here's the astonishing way in which some glass sponges have evolved a nervous system without nerves:
    From Nature news service, April 1999.
  • New anti-fungal compounds found in sponges. Press release, October 2000. Sponges live by passing water right through their tissues, so they essentially invite bacteria and fungi to attack them. Accordingly, sponges have wonderful antibiotic adaptations. Drug companies are beginning to realize the possibilities.

• Cnidarians (Corals, jellyfish, anemones, etc.)
  • Midwater medusae (jellyfish), a site from Kevin Raskoff at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. [But go to the aquarium and see them if you can!]
  • What keeps Australians out of the water? Certainly not sharks.... The answer is "stingers", small floating jellyfish. Story from New Scientist, November 1999.
  • Corals produce a natural weedkiller. Story from New Scientist, February 5, 2000.
  • Gorgonians (cnidarians, "sea fans"). From Pacific Discovery, now called California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Summer 1996.

• Cephalopods
  • The octopus. From the New York Times, August 1998.
  • Trying to catch a giant squid: an interview with Clyde Roper in New Scientist. [No luck so far.]
  • Squid sex. If you think that sexual relations among humans are complex and confusing and often difficult, take comfort from the complexities of squid sex.
  • Why would cuttlefish be able to see polarized light?. From Woods Hole Marine Laboratory.
  • Young squid learn fast: one of Lee Dye's columns from ABC News Online. April 2000.
  • Long and fascinating article from BioScience about the way that baby squid find the bacterial partners that give them their luminescence. April 1998 report on research in progress.
  • The nose of the nautilus. From Nature news service, April 2000.

• Gastropods (snails)
  • The evolution of the poisons of the cone shell, from Nature's news updates, June 1999.
  • How about a marine snail that navigates by magnetic field?. Nature news update.

• Bivalves
  How a mussel glues itself to a rock (and how can we make a dollar from that?) Story from the DyeHard column, ABC News OnLine, December 1999.

• Marine Arthropods
  • The horseshoe crab, a living fossil; same page is also at this site.
  • The secret weapon of planktonic copepods. From Nature's news updates, April 1999.

Fishes

• Why are reef fishes so colorful?. Feature from New Scientist, 2000.
• How the pufferfish got its puff by Carl Zimmer from Discover magazine.
• The boxfish: so clumsy, apparently, yet it survives. News item from Nature news service.
• Fatherly care of eggs by the weedy sea dragon. Story from the New York Times, May 2000.
• How long does a grenadier fish live?.
• Four new species of fishes discovered in the Antarctic, April 1999.
• A new species of giant roughy, found in deep water off Australia.
• Coelacanths
  • Research on coelacanths over the years, from the Washington Post, November 1998.
• Sharks and Rays
  • An expedition to study lemon sharks off Brazil, March 7, 2000.
  • Beyond "Jaws", an article of research into shark behavior (and seals) along the California coast. From the San Francisco Chronicle, January 1999.
  • Great White: an article about the great white shark off California. From Discover magazine, June 1999.
  • Shark stories collected by the Sydney Morning Herald
  • Whale sharks, the biggest of all fishes. Background information from the Whaleshark Home Page.
  • Site describing research on basking sharks.
  • If stingrays have cartilage jaws, how can they bite hard enough to crush clams?: the answer from the Nature news service, March 2000.
  • Watching rays throw up (with images!). Story from BBC News OnLine, April 2000.

Marine Mammals

• The swimming ability of marine mammals.
  • New research on diving mammals, from Science News, April 2000.
  • Studying the fantastic diving ability of the elephant seal. Story from the UC Santa Cruz scientific writing program's Web site, 1997.
  • Adaptations for swimming
  • Adaptations of dolphins. By Carl Zimmer, from Discover magazine.
  • Using bioluminescence to study dolphin swimming. From New Scientist, November 20, 1999.

• Behavior of marine mammals
  • Studying sea otter behavior. From Pacific Discovery, now called California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, Fall 1996.
  • How killer whales hunt herring: they kill them by the dozen with tail-slaps, then turn round and eat them. Research news report from Nature news service, January 2000. You can also read the abstract of the research paper, from the Journal of Experimental Biology
  • Even more astounding facts about humpback whale songs. News story from Nature Science Update, November 1999.

• Ecology of marine mammals
  • Feature on the successful re-introduction of the sea otter to the Washington coast. From the Seattle Times, February 13, 2000.
  • Elephant seals doing well on the Northern California coast. From the San Francisco Chronicle, January 15, 1998.
  • Seals vs. fishermen in Australia. Story from the Sydney Morning Herald, January 22, 2000.
  • Harp seals are doing well in Greenland waters, perhaps too well for their own good!, New York Tines, October 17, 2000.
  • Humpback whales off Madagascar. From the Discovery Web site.
  • Gray whale information, from the controversial salt works in Baja California, jointly owned by the Mexican Government and Mitsubishi.

  Miscellanea on marine mammals

  • How to tell the sex of a whale, another in the series of "Things You Didn't Really Need to Know". Sydney Morning Herald, August 25, 1999.
  • Why seals have whiskers. From Nature's news updates, July 1998.
  • Keeping seal whiskers working in cold water. From Nature's news updates, November 1998.

El Niņo and Marine Life

• El Niņo and California seabirds. From New Scientist.
• El Niņo and California fisheries, Spring 1998. From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 1998.

Last updated November 8, 2000

Return to main page of oceanography links

Go to The Oceans Home Page

Return to Geology Department Home Page