Key Largo, Fla. – April 27, 2009 – A new study appearing in Restoration Ecology describes a novel technique for reattaching large sponges that have been dislodged from coral reefs. The findings could ...

How can coral reefs, one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth, survive in nutrient-poor tropical waters, like an oasis in a marine desert? That question, also known as Darwin's ...

Marine organisms hidden in caves, such as sponges, play an extremely important role in the nutrient cycle of coral reefs. Indeed they probably play the most important role of all, says Dutch biologist ...

Although cold waters aren't known for their coral reefs, they do contain ecologically important "glass reefs" created by live sponges. Now, scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of ...

Natural communities can undergo large temporal changes in abundance and species composition that may be difficult to detect without long-term ecological monitoring. Characterizing temporal variability ...

Sponges in coral reefs, less flashy than their coral neighbors but important to the overall health of reefs, are among the earliest animals on the planet. New research examines coral reef ecosystems ...

Biologists, using a technique that explores both genes and structural characteristics, have introduced 10 new species of marine sponge. Despite their distinction as one of Earth's oldest lifeforms and ...

The Indo-Pacific is the largest marine biogeographical region on Earth and a global center of marine biodiversity. Nevertheless, there are gaps remaining in our understanding of the diversity, ...

The discovery of a 480-million-year-old sponge in China has revolutionized scientists’ understanding of early reef ecosystems and biomineralization. As published in the journal PNAS, Chinese ...

Coral reefs are one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. What are the abiotic and biotic interactions that structure this diverse ecosystem? Corals are members of the phylum Cnidaria, a ...

For centuries scientists, even Darwin, couldn’t make sense of it: Tropical water contains so few nutrients, you can see right through it. And yet coral reefs are oases that support about a quarter of ...

Coral reefs are both beautiful and utterly vital to the ocean ecosystem and the local environment. They provide homes, food and breeding sites for millions of marine plants and animals, including the ...