Multi-stressor experiments on three coral species demonstrate hypoxia produces mostly additive effects with acidification but synergistically amplifies physiological stress under elevated temperature...

As marine heat waves intensify, coral reef adaptation may struggle to keep pace. This perspective presents an operational framework that integrates heat-wave exposure and larval dispersal patterns to identify reef functional roles and management needs, helping guide evolution-informed interventions that support coral reef persistence under climate change.

Scientists fear unique corals that fringe Australia’s remote Norfolk Island could disappear because of a triple threat of disease, El Niño and a federal government plan to dredge a neighbouring shipping channel. A failure to manage sediment and pollution washing into bays from cattle farming, cleared land along with wastewater has been blamed for widespread disease and outbreaks of algae over the corals. One expert said most of the island’s corals were likely to be species that have not been formally described by science, and would be unlikely to recover if lost. “We could rapidly lose the coral reefs and we won’t get them back,” said Prof Bill Leggat, a coral expert at the University of Newcastle who has been monitoring the island’s corals and the disease outbreak for five years. Speaking from the island 1,600km north-east of Sydney, Leggat said since March there had been a three-fold increase in diseased corals during of one of the longest-running coral disease events recorded on Australian reefs. Water quality was a key problem, he said, where pollution and sediment would wash into the coral lagoons during heavy rain, promoting disease and algae. “The main issue is the nutrients that increase coral disease...

Corals harbor intracellular algal symbionts in specialized organelles that enable them to build diverse reef ecosystems. Corals and other cnidarians have repeatedly evolved this symbiosis through the ...

In marine environments, sponges tend to eat other organisms to get their nutrients. But a new study, published by the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) researchers in Functional Ecology, demonstrates how sponges may also use photosynthesis, just like plants. This phenomenon can help with the productivity – or amount of energy and food produced – in tropical coral reefs, and perhaps in other ecosystems where sponges are common too.

A fully funded PhD opportunity is available in ecotoxicology to investigate the effects of PFAS pollution on coral reef fish in Okinawa, Japan. The project combines transcriptomics, field ecology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, and environmental risk assessment through collaboration between CNRS, LIEC, and OIST.

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Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

Editors invite manuscripts that advance the scientific understanding of coral stress responses and climate resilience across molecular, physiological, ...

The purpose of these awards is to provide support for students entering U.S.-based Ph.D. programs with a plan to perform research in ecology and evolution. While we will consider all projects in ecolo...

Fish are running out of breath. 🌊🐟 A new open-access book explains how warming waters threaten aquatic life.

A new study shows some reefs still have a meaningful chance to survive and recover from climate impacts – provided they are protected

Fish are running out of breath. 🌊🐟 A new open-access book explains how warming waters threaten aquatic life.

Arctic marine heatwaves are influenced by unique, overlooked drivers including sea ice (which modulates air-sea heat fluxes, mixed layer depth, and temperature variability) and upward fluxes of Arctic...

NOAA experts have determined that the fourth global coral bleaching event likely concluded in mid-2025 following unprecedented heat stress across the world’s coral reefs.

Field measurements of photosynthesis and respiration rates on shallow reefs in Australia and Hawaiʻi find that habitat rugosity explains 56–58% of variation in daytime community metabolic rates, and t...

The debate over whether reefs are carbon sinks may have missed the bigger picture

In the midst of a mass coral bleaching event along the West Australian coast, a group of scientists have discovered a section of reef that has been able to withstand the heat.

There's always money for war. But when it comes to protecting people from climate disasters, suddenly we're told the cupboard is bare.

Job #AJO32034, Lecturer, Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, US