Researchers from Japan and Thailand investigating microplastics in coral have found that all three parts of the coral anatomy—surface mucus, tissue, and skeleton—contain microplastics. The findings were made possible thanks to a new microplastic detection technique developed by the team and applied to coral for the first time.

These findings may also explain the "missing plastic problem" that has puzzled scientists, where about 70% of the plastic litter that has entered the oceans cannot be found. The team hypothesizes that coral may be acting as a "sink" for microplastics by absorbing it from the oceans. Their findings were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Read more at Phys.org

Without plankton, the modern ocean ecosystem – the very idea of the ocean as we understand it – would collapse. Earth would have no complex life of any kind

When I arrived at Wickford Harbor in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, early one June morning, the sea was moderately calm, with a distinct metallic sheen, like a wrinkled sheet of foil someone had tried to rub smooth. Vitul Agarwal, a young oceanographer, waved to me from beside a research trawler with the name Cap’n Bert painted on its hull. Dressed in jeans and a diamond-patterned sweater, Agarwal welcomed me aboard and introduced me to the captain, Steve Barber, whose grey hair spilled from the back of a baseball cap.

A few minutes later, we motored slowly into Narragansett Bay. The sun was low. Directly behind the boat, the sea churned shades of grey and green. “I think we’re going to find a lot out here today,” Agarwal said, gesturing toward our frothing wake. “Because of the colour?” I asked. He nodded.

Every week since 1957, in one of the longest-running surveys of its kind anywhere in the world, scientists have come to this exact spot to study some of the most abundant and important life forms in the ocean: creatures so tiny that the vast majority are invisible to the naked eye, yet so essential to Earth’s ecosystems that our planet would be virtually barren without them – creatures we call plankton.

Plankton, from the Greek planktos for “wandering” or “drifting”, are a large and diverse collection of water-dwelling organisms that tend to flow with currents and tides. Nearly every liquid environment on the planet is home to plankton: the ocean, of course, but also rivers, lakes, wetlands, geysers, ponds, puddles and even raindrops. Although most plankton are microscopic, a few large animals also qualify as plankton because they are such listless swimmers. Bacteria and viruses populate the smallest end of the plankton spectrum. Certain jellyfish and their relatives, some of which are more than 40 metres long with their tentacles fully extended, inhabit the other. In between bobs a panoply of strange and wondrous creatures, many of which are little known and poorly studied – despite their power to change the planet.

Read more at The Guardian

Bacteria and fungi are evolving to eat plastic but their impact will likely be limited to specific applications, researchers say

Scientists in Germany have identified a type of fungi that is capable of breaking down synthetic plastics, offering a potential new weapon in the global fight against plastic pollution.

A team at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin found that certain microfungi can survive exclusively on plastics, degrading them into simpler forms.

While this is a promising breakthrough, especially when it comes to tackling oceanic plastic pollution, experts cautioned that it is not a silver bullet.

Researchers observed that microfungi in Lake Stechlin in northeastern Germany can thrive on synthetic polymers without any other carbon source.

Read more at The Independent

The global economy is facing $197bn (£153bn) of economic damage by 2030 and up to $434bn by 2050 if plastic waste continues to flow into oceans at its current rate.

That is according to a new report by financial services firm Allianz, which warns that marine wildlife, fishing and aquaculture, coastal tourism and the shipping industry are all facing risks from ocean plastic waste.

Indeed, if the world’s oceans were an economy, it would be the seventh largest in the world, with the total value of its goods and services projected at $2.5trn every year.

If plastic production increases over the next few decades without new waste mitigation measures, the report claims that the economic cost could hit $229bn by 2030, and as much as $731bn by 2050.

"The ocean’s capacity to regulate our climate, provide food, and support livelihoods is being eroded by unsustainable practices and short-term thinking," said Barbara Karuth-Zelle, member of Allianz's board of management.

“This report serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for action. It is a call to arms for governments, businesses, and individuals to recognise the critical role the ocean plays in our lives and to take decisive steps to safeguard its health and vitality."

Production processes of the energy, industrial and consumer staples sectors have the most damaging effects on ocean ecosystem services, according to the report, creating a “vicious cycle” that poses risks to industrial production itself.

Read more on IEMA

I love exploring the shoreline. I wander along my local Devon beach at least once a week, and my curiosity is naturally pulled to the high water line. I enjoy discovering pretty shells but also the rubbish that the sea has washed in. The colours, shapes and sizes of this human-made waste stand out from the sand and seaweed.

Finding an old 1990s sweet wrapper is not only nostalgic, it’s also a stark reminder that this rubbish doesn’t go away and is an ongoing and growing problem that needs to be addressed. So once I have investigated what it is that’s caught my eye, I add it to my small bag of rubbish to take back to the bin. It feels good and it’s fun.

Removing that litter is not only good for the ocean, but also for me and everyone else who cleans up a beach. My research shows that participating in beach cleans is good for our mental health and encourages people to adopt more environmentally friendly behaviours.

Read more at The Conversation

How do we sustainably feed the world? It’s one of the most pressing issues of our time given the enormous pressures placed on natural resources.

In June 2024, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published its biennial flagship report: the State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA). It laid bare a stark reality of the challenges facing global food security. Already, over 3.1 billion people – more than 40% of the world population – cannot afford a healthy diet, with hunger and malnutrition occurring unevenly across and within continents and countries.

It’s hardly surprising, then, to learn from SOFIA 2024 that aquatic systems – the world’s oceans and inland water bodies – are increasingly recognized as vital for food and nutrition security. But how can this service be secured if demand outstrips supply? What if the act of “harvesting” aquatic foods – through fishing and aquaculture – damages or destroys the ecosystems that nurture it?

Over the past decades we’ve gotten better at finding and catching fish. Despite this, SOFIA shows us that since the late 1980s, global capture fisheries production has fluctuated between 86 and 94 million tonnes per year. The stocks are simply not there in the numbers for our improved techniques to yield greater returns. To make matters worse, the proportion of this production coming from stocks not fished within biologically sustainable limits has been increasing since 1974 when it was 10%, to the current SOFIA 2024 estimates showing 37.7%.

Read more at WWF

The nonprofit PADI Aware holds regular cleanup dives in waterways around the world. The number one thing they find is plastic in all its forms.

Watch on CNN

A fifth of world’s ocean surface particularly vulnerable to threats driven by burning fossil fuel and deforestation, new research finds

The world’s oceans are facing a “triple threat” of extreme heating, a loss of oxygen and acidification, with extreme conditions becoming far more intense in recent decades and placing enormous stress upon the planet’s panoply of marine life, new research has found.

About a fifth of the world’s ocean surface is particularly vulnerable to the three threats hitting at once, spurred by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, the study found. In the top 300 meters of affected ocean, these compound events now last three times longer and are six times more intense than they were in the early 1960s, the research states.

Read more at The Guardian

It turns out plastics in the ocean do more than suffocate turtles, fish and other marine life.

A new study co-authored by Northeastern researcher Aron Stubbins shows that microplastics may reduce the ability of the ocean to help offset the climate crisis by slowing down the rate at which carbon is taken from the sea surface to the depths.

For millennia, the ocean has been part of a carbon sink process in which dead phytoplankton clump together and fall into the deep ocean in showers of what look like "marine snow," says Stubbins, a professor of marine and environmental science.

The resulting carbon sequestration is a marine version of how trees and plants on terrestrial Earth take carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soil, he says.

Read more at Phys.org

Motion sets out worldwide target in alignment with Paris agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C

Countries are for the first time considering restrictions on the global production of plastic – to reduce it by 40% in 15 years – in an attempt to protect human health and the environment.

As the world attempts to make a treaty to cut plastic waste at UN talks in Ottawa, Canada, two countries have put forward the first concrete proposal to limit production to reduce its harmful effects including the huge carbon emissions from producing it.

The motion submitted by Rwanda and Peru sets out a global reduction target, ambitiously termed a “north star”, to cut the production of primary plastic polymers across the world by 40% by 2040, from a 2025 baseline.

Read more at The Guardian