Saving Seafood

Are offshore wind turbines changing Jonah crab behavior?

July 29, 2026 — Researchers at the University of Rhode Island (URI) are studying whether offshore wind turbines are changing the movement and feeding behavior of Jonah crabs, work they say could have implications for fisheries management and future offshore wind development.

According to ecoRI, first-year URI Ph.D. student Emmanuel Oyewole is using isotopic analysis to determine whether Jonah crabs found around offshore wind turbines are migrating from traditional fishing grounds or spending their entire lives at turbine sites. The research is being conducted with Kelton McMahon, an associate professor of oceanography at URI.

“It’s really, really important for understanding the impact of these wind farms on biodiversity, on ecosystem structure and function, and on fisheries production,” McMahon told ecoRI.

The study builds on years of research showing that offshore wind turbine foundations can act as artificial reefs, supporting algae, coral and other marine life that create habitat for a range of species.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

White House Releases New Strategies to Advance Sustainable Ocean Management

June 5, 2024 — The following was released by the White House:

This National Ocean Month, the White House announced three new federal strategies that advance President Biden’s commitment to conserving and protecting our ocean, and harnessing its power to strengthen our economy and address the climate and nature crises. A thriving ocean holds immense benefits for all life, and President Biden has made clear that preserving this natural resource is key to protecting our livelihoods. Since Day One, the Biden-Harris Administration has advanced America’s leadership in ocean health and resilience, environmental justice, and policies that strengthen research opportunities. Today’s announcements reflect the President’s push to address critical challenges that threaten the ocean’s future, including overfishing, warming from climate change, increased acidity due to carbon emissions, and loss of biodiversity.

“Earth’s ocean make life possible. It hosts vibrant ecosystems, feeds billions of people, sustains livelihoods, and connects us all,” said Arati Prabhakar, President Biden’s chief advisor on science and technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). “These reports point the way to work with this precious natural resource to address inequities and injustice, and to meet the challenges of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.”

“President Biden has been leading the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history while accelerating locally-led conservation efforts, creating good paying jobs, and enhancing coastal community resilience to the effects of climate change,” said Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). “The reports announced today help us better understand how to achieve our shared conservation and ecosystem restoration goals, and integrate climate action and environmental justice into a sustainable ocean economy.”

Each of today’s strategies outlines a whole-of-government approach that will lead to effective ocean-based solutions by:

Achieving a sustainable ocean economy

The U.S. National Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy will guide U.S. ocean policies to conserve healthy ecosystems, support resilient communities, and advance sustainable economic development. This strategy focuses on how to build a sustainable ocean economy that will increase the quality of life for all communities and allow ecosystems and economies to thrive while prioritizing the effective creation, management, and dissemination of knowledge and information, including Indigenous Knowledge, basic and applied research, and ocean data.

Protecting and restoring ocean life

The National Ocean Biodiversity Strategy will expand and use biodiversity information to help protect and conserve marine ecosystems and maximize the ocean’s benefits to people. This strategy aims to understand and restore ocean life, which provides food, clean air and water, climate regulation, and cultural identity to people across the country.

Using environmental DNA (eDNA) technology to study ocean life

The National Aquatic eDNA Strategy will advance fast, low-cost, and effective eDNA technologies to understand life in the ocean and how it’s changing. Analyzing the DNA in a body of water to identify the species present is much more efficient than conducting traditional censuses of different species. The strategy outlines opportunities to improve and deploy eDNA processes to inform the development of more effective ocean policies.

These three new strategies complement actions taken previously by the Biden-Harris Administration to achieve a healthy ocean that supports people and the economy: The Ocean Climate Action Plan (OCAP), the first-ever comprehensive national strategy to harness the power of the ocean and coasts to address and respond to the climate crisis, and the Ocean Justice Strategy,  which identifies barriers and opportunities to fully integrate environmental justice principles into the federal government’s ocean activities. Since its release, federal agencies have advanced ocean actions across the government to accelerate nature-based solutions and enhance community resilience to changes in the ocean environment, including ones driven by climate change.

Read the release here

Biodiversity makes reef fish more resilient in the face of climate change, research confirms

May 17, 2016 — New research confirms that biodiversity can help reef fish weather the impacts of global warming.

Reef systems with greater numbers of fish species are not just more productive but also more resilient to rising sea-surface temperatures and the temperature swings associated with climate change, according to a new study led by researchers with the Smithsonian’s Tennenbaum Marine Observatories Network.

After analyzing data from more than 4,500 fish surveys of reefs around the world to compare the effects of biodiversity and other environmental factors on global reef fish biomass, the authors of the study found that biodiversity, measured by the number of species (species diversity) and the variety of functional traits (functional diversity) within a reef system, was one of the strongest predictors of fish biomass, second only to mean sea-surface temperature.

A direct impact of the carbon emissions that continue to concentrate in Earth’s atmosphere is warmer, more acidic ocean waters, which has contributed to the bleaching of reefs around the world. Just last month, scientists announced that 99 percent of coral reefs surveyed in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have been hit by the global bleaching event that has already taken a toll on reefs at the Pacific islands of Hawaii, Vanuatu, American Samoa, and Fiji, as well as parts of the Caribbean, the Florida Keys, and the Indian Ocean.

Read the full story at Mongabay