bahamas – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Leatherback sea turtles

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2014Naturebahamas, caribbean coast, costa rica, costa rican culture, doug tallamy, environmental research, leatherback sea turtles, leatherback trust, local costa ricans, nesting ecology, pacific coast, puerto rico, sea turtle, sex ratio, topography, university of delaware

UD alumna studies leatherback sea turtles in Costa Rica

It’s not every day that you get to see a creature that has been around for 110 million years emerge from the ocean and lay its eggs on the beach. Unless, of course, you’re like University of Delaware graduate Lauren Cruz, who spends her days in Costa Rica with the Leatherback Trust studying leatherback sea turtle nesting ecology.

Cruz, a 2013 graduate who studied wildlife conservation in UD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, is tracking the demographics of the turtles that nest at Playa Grande and Parque Nacional de las baulas — which translates to the park of leatherback sea turtles — and spends her nights with a team patrolling the beach looking for nesting turtles. (more…)

Seahorse Heads have a ‘No Wake Zone’ That’s Made for Catching Prey

By Guest PostDecember 1, 2013Nature3d holography techniques, austin, bahamas, brad gemmell, catching prey, copepods, dwarf seahorse, ed buskey, hippocampus zosterae, jian sheng, marine food web, method, no wake zone, pipefish, pivot feeding, sea dragons, seahorse heads, seahorse nostrils, small crustaceans, source of energy, syngnathid family, texas tech university, university of texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Seahorses are slow, docile creatures, but their heads are perfectly shaped to sneak up and quickly snatch prey, according to marine scientists from The University of Texas at Austin.

“A seahorse is one the slowest swimming fish that we know of, but it’s able to capture prey that swim at incredible speeds for their size,” said Brad Gemmell, research associate at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, which is part of the College of Natural Sciences. (more…)

Rising Oceans – Too Late to Turn the Tide?

By Guest PostJuly 16, 2011Environmentantarctic ice sheets, anthropogenic reasons, atmosphere, atmosphere ocean interactions, bahamas, barbados, bette otto bliesner, cause and effect relationships, climate, climate models, computer simulations, current global warming, earth, global distribution of sea surface temperatures, great polar ice sheets, greenhouse gas concentrations, greenhouse gases, greenland, ice caps, jonathan overpeck, last interglacial period, melting ice sheets, mountain glaciers, natural reasons, nicholas mckay, paleoceanic records, paleoclimate, rising sea levels, sea level, thermal expansion of seawater, thermal expansion of warming ocean waters, university of arizona

*Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, a UA-led team of researchers has found. The results further suggest that ocean levels continue to rise long after warming of the atmosphere levels off.*

Thermal expansion of seawater contributed only slightly to rising sea levels compared to melting ice sheets during the Last Interglacial Period, a University of Arizona-led team of researchers has found.

The study combined paleoclimate records with computer simulations of atmosphere-ocean interactions and the team’s co-authored paper is accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. (more…)

Tag Archives: bahamas

Leatherback sea turtles

Seahorse Heads have a ‘No Wake Zone’ That’s Made for Catching Prey

Rising Oceans – Too Late to Turn the Tide?