Articles

The Marine Science Institute's monthly column, Science and the SeaTM, is an informative and entertaining article that explains many interesting features of the marine environment and the creatures that live there.  Science and the SeaTM articles appear monthly in one of Texas' most widely read fishing magazines, Texas Saltwater Fishing, the Port Aransas South Jetty newspaper, the Flour Bluff News, and the Island Moon newspaper. Our article archive is available also on our website.

November 1, 2014

Cooperation is Survival
An ocean dandelion is made of of many individual animals cooperatiing. Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Fields of dandelions are a familiar sight each spring, but another kind of dandelion is so rare that scientists are just beginning to learn more about it – the ocean dandelion.

Living in the deepest parts of the sea, the ocean dandelion is not a plant, yet it’s not exactly a single animal either. Rather, the ocean dandelion is a siphonophore, a unique type of organism composed of many smaller animals that together form a colony. The individual animals, known as zooids, are the “petals” of the ocean dandelion.

October 1, 2014

Serious Sibling Rivalry
Sand tiger sharks are predators even before they are born. Credit: Tara Haelle, www.tarahaelle.com

Survival of the fittest has been a law of nature since the beginning of life, but sometimes that struggle begins earlier than we might think. For baby sand tiger sharks, the fight literally begins even before they are born.

The female sand tiger has two wombs, but she does not have litters twice as large as other sharks. In fact, she only gives birth to two particularly strong, feisty pups. Newborn sand tiger sharks have keen eyesight and sharp teeth that have already tasted the blood of their siblings – or half siblings.

September 1, 2014

Of Boneworms and Shipworms
Left: a boneworm on a fish bone. Credit: Greg Rouse. Right: shipworms burrowed into a piece of wood. Credit: Christina Bienhold, MPI for Marine Microbiology.

For almost any object in the sea, there’s a creature who will feed on it – even if it’s a whale skeleton or a shipwreck. Though not related to one another, boneworms and shipworms share the remarkable ability to locate their meals in the vast ocean. Boneworms consume the bones of mammals, fish, reptiles and other animals, while shipworms – actually a type of mollusk – use their tiny shells to burrow into the wood of wrecked ships, trees adrift, or other wooden structures in the sea. Despite having neither stomachs nor mouths, both boneworms and shipworms have symbiotic bacteria in their gut that release nutrients from the bones or wood which these “worms” absorb as food.

August 1, 2014

By the Light of a Bioluminescent Bay
Bioluminescent waves containing billions of dinoflagellates. Credit: Wikipedia. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a full moon so bright you can read by its light. But what if you could also read by the light of ocean waves — at night, with no moonlight at all? If you’re in one of Puerto Rico’s famous “bioluminescent bays,” you might be able to. In these three bays, the water is full of tiny plankton called dinoflagellates which produce neon blue light called bioluminescence.

July 1, 2014

Living Shorelines
Salt marsh in Redfish Bay, Texas. Credit: Charles Foster, University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

When we think of a pristine shoreline, we don’t usually picture man-made structures in the scene, but jetties and retaining walls are common sights along many waterways. Waves that continually crash against the shore release energy that can erode waterfront property. Bulkheads, retaining walls, and revetments are designed to protect shorelines by minimizing erosion. Over time, however, these structures may actually increase erosion by altering nature’s ability to replenish sensitive coastal areas.

June 1, 2014

An Upside-Down Garden of Icy Surprises
Anemones protrude from the bottom surface of the Ross Ice Shelf

Sometimes scientists searching for one thing stumble unexpectedly onto another. A few years ago, a research team did just that, they drilled into an Antarctic ice sheet and opened up a can of anemones — almost literally. When the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) Program lowered a 4.5- foot cylindrical robot through the ice off the coast of west Antarctica, they were hoping to use the robot’s two cameras to learn about ocean currents while gathering data for modeling the drill’s use. In the process, their cameras captured an icy garden of sea anemones that no one knew existed.

May 1, 2014

When Changing Sex Improves Survival
If Finding Nemo had been more scientifically accurate, it may have caught Disney fans off guard: Nemo’s dad, Marlin, would have become more than a single dad when Nemo’s mother died. Among clownfish, the most dominant male will actually transform into a female if the matriarch of the community dies. Clownfish generally spend their entire lives in one small area, making it difficult to find a new mate, especially one of the opposite sex.
April 1, 2014

Shocking Differences Between Electric Animals

Most people know that electricity and water don’t mix, but it’s not a problem for fish that produce their own electricity. The best-known electric fish is probably the electric eel, but it is far from the only “shocking” creature underwater. In fact, the electric eel, a single species that dwells only in the rivers of South America, is outnumbered by more than 60 species of electric rays that live in the oceans.

March 1, 2014

Seahorses Use Their Heads to Their Advantage

Seahorses and pipefish may be beautiful and graceful creatures, but they’re not the speediest of fish. In fact, they swim more slowly than most marine animals, yet they manage to catch some of the fastest prey in the sea nearly every time. Their secret weapon? Seahorses use their unusually shaped heads.

February 1, 2014

The Sweet Smell of Romance?
Getting a good whiff of your partner to decide if he’s the right man for you may sound familiar — a good cologne can certainly attract women as much as a nice perfume can pique a man’s interest. Similarly, female lobsters seek out their mates using males’ smell, but the details may not seem as familiar — or pleasant.

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