Correspondence |
Featured
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News |
Forecast warns when sea life will get tangled in nets — one year in advance
Computational model uses sea surface temperatures to predict when whales and turtles are likely to get stuck in fishing gear.
- Carissa Wong
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Comment |
With the arrival of El Niño, prepare for stronger marine heatwaves
Record-high ocean temperatures, combined with a confluence of extreme climate and weather patterns, are pushing the world into uncharted waters. Researchers must help communities to plan how best to reduce the risks.
- Alistair J. Hobday
- , Michael T. Burrows
- & Thomas Wernberg
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News & Views |
Rethinking the effect of marine heatwaves on fish
Marine heatwaves are on the rise. A surprising result from the analysis of data for fish populations in Europe and North America could change ways of thinking about the ecological consequences of such events.
- Mark R. Payne
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Correspondence |
Shark culling at a World Heritage site
- Philippe Borsa
- , Martine Cornaille
- & Bertrand Richer de Forges
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News |
Threatened coastal species absent from Chinese protection lists
The lack of legal protections for large coastal animals is leaving them — and their ecosystems — at risk, researchers say.
- Dyani Lewis
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News Explainer |
When will global warming actually hit the landmark 1.5 ºC limit?
The planet is on track to reach the 1.5 ºC average by the 2030s — although a new report suggests a single year will probably cross the line much sooner.
- Nicola Jones
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News Explainer |
The ocean is hotter than ever: what happens next?
Record temperature combined with an anticipated El Niño could devastate marine life and increase the chances of extreme weather.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
Why Earth’s giant kelp forests are worth $500 billion a year
Analysis estimates that kelp forests are at least three times more valuable for food and the planet than previously thought.
- Gemma Conroy
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News Feature |
The Arctic after dark: a secret world of hidden life
An international team braved the far north in January to unlock secrets of how marine organisms tell day from night during the polar winter.
- Randall Hyman
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News & Views |
Blue foods brought to the table to improve fish-policy decisions
What are the benefits of a fish-rich diet, not only for nutrition and health but also for the environment, economies and sustainability? A new framework offers a way to assess the benefits and trade-offs on national and global scales.
- Nanna Roos
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Career Column |
Fieldwork: how to gain access to research participants
It took experience and emotional investment to improve my ability to get close to research participants. Here’s how I did it, says Anna Lena Bercht.
- Anna Lena Bercht
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Research Highlight |
Ancient DNA reveals how Viking-era fishers helped to make herring scarce
Genomes in fragments of bone show that medieval fish harvests starting around 800 years ago eroded herring stocks in the western Baltic Sea.
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News |
Tuna catch rates soared after creation of no-fishing zone in Hawaii
Enormous size of protected area and its shape could be helping populations to rebound.
- Giorgia Guglielmi
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Research Briefing |
Marine predators aggregate in anticyclonic ocean eddies
A diverse range of marine predators — including tunas, billfishes and sharks — in the North Pacific Ocean cluster together in clockwise-rotating eddies, seemingly to hunt deep-ocean prey, which are unusually abundant there. This suggests that there is a relationship between the foraging opportunities of predators and the energetics of this marine biome.
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Comment |
Sustainable small-scale fisheries can help people and the planet
Artisanal fishing can improve livelihoods, boost nutrition and strengthen food systems, but fishers’ input is needed at local, national and global levels.
- Sheryl L. Hendriks
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News & Views |
From the archive: Tutankhanum’s tomb, and a floating fish nest from Bermuda
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Where I Work |
Monitoring the snap, crackle and pop of the sea
A sea-bed buoy in a busy shipping lane helps marine biologist Antonio Codarin to record underwater noise and its impact on marine species.
- James Mitchell Crow
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News & Views |
River conservation by an Indigenous community
Populations of river fish are threatened by pressures on land and water resources. Networks of reserves managed by Indigenous people at community level offer a way to conserve fish diversity and enhance yields of nearby fisheries.
- Edward H. Allison
- & Violet Cho
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Outlook |
Can aquaculture overcome its sustainability challenges?
Increasing the amount of protein produced through aquaculture is essential to feed a growing global population. But scientists want to ensure the industry grows sustainably.
- Sarah DeWeerdt
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Research Highlight |
The grim truth behind eyewitness accounts of sea serpents
Centuries-old ‘unidentified marine objects’ hint that sea creatures have been getting entangled in fishing lines since before the invention of plastic.
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Comment |
The oceans’ twilight zone must be studied now, before it is too late
Exploitation and degradation of the mysterious layer between the sunlit ocean surface and the abyss jeopardize fish stocks and the climate.
- Adrian Martin
- , Philip Boyd
- & Lionel Guidi
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Correspondence |
Brazil’s mystery oil spill: an ongoing social disaster
- Richard J. Ladle
- , Ana C. M. Malhado
- & Barbara R. Pinheiro
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Career Q&A |
Swapping academia for aquaculture
Marine scientist turned aquaculturalist discusses how she moved from the laboratory to an oyster farm.
- Laura Poppick
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Editorial |
Let fishers in Africa and Asia keep more of their catches
Fish farms are depriving children of essential micronutrients.
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News & Views |
How the global fish market contributes to human micronutrient deficiencies
Analysis of the nutrient composition of fish caught around the globe reveals locations where the retention of fish for consumption by local populations could help to tackle human disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.
- Daniel Pauly
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Correspondence |
China fortifies marine protection areas against climate change
- Yunzhou Li
- , Yiping Ren
- & Yong Chen
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News & Views |
From the archive
How Nature reported hominid remains in 1969 and sea-fishery investigations in 1919.
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News & Views |
From the archive
How Nature reported an owl invasion in 1919, and efforts to establish prawn farming in the United Kingdom in 1969.
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Correspondence |
A new World Heritage site for Aboriginal engineering
- Damein Bell
- , Lawrence Molloy
- & Martin Tomko
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News |
Sharks squeezed out by longline fishing vessels
One-quarter of animals’ ocean habitats is disrupted by fisheries.
- Matthew Warren
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News Feature |
Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions
Plans are advancing to harvest precious ores from the ocean floor, but scientists say that companies have not tested them enough to avoid devastating damage.
- Olive Heffernan
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Correspondence |
Fisheries subsidies wreck ecosystems, don’t bring them back
- U. Rashid Sumaila
- , Sebastian Villasante
- & Frédéric Le Manach
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Books & Arts |
World of addiction, zen cosmology, and the impending aquacalypse: Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week’s best science picks.
- Barbara Kiser
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Correspondence |
Dams threaten world’s largest inland fishery
- Peng Bun Ngor
- , Sovan Lek
- & Zeb S. Hogan
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Toolbox |
Machine learning gets to grips with plankton challenge
Marine biologists are using artificial intelligence to help them identify objects in millions of images.
- Jeffrey M. Perkel
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News |
How tax havens threaten Earth’s environment
Industries involved in deforestation and illegal fishing operations have strong ties to territories considered as tax havens.
- Matthew Warren
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Nature Index |
Casting a net for knowledge
Collaboration following the Fukushima disaster led to discoveries that could improve management of bluefin tuna.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Editorial |
Reform the Antarctic Treaty
Political protection for the planet’s last great wilderness is no longer fit for purpose. Make its governance democratic: scrap the veto that lets individual interests rule.
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News Feature |
How to save the high seas
As the United Nations prepares a historic treaty to protect the oceans, scientists highlight what’s needed for success.
- Olive Heffernan
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Comment |
Protect the neglected half of our blue planet
Maintaining momentum is crucial as nations build a treaty to safeguard the high seas, argue Glen Wright, Julien Rochette, Kristina M. Gjerde and Lisa A. Levin.
- Glen Wright
- , Julien Rochette
- & Lisa A. Levin
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News |
Investigation finds Swedish scientists committed scientific misconduct
Probe centered on controversial paper that claimed microplastic pollution harms fish.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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News |
South Africa tackles crime at sea with ship-spotting satellites
Automated vessel-tracking system aims to spy poachers and smugglers.
- Linda Nordling
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News |
Plans rejected for East Antarctic marine park
Negotiations to conserve unique ecosystems fail for the sixth year running.
- April Reese
Poaching Lake Victoria’s fish for traditional Chinese medicine