News

Accolades

Nielsen Named One of Five National Academies Early-Career Research Fellows

Nielsen will use her expertise to investigate how climate change is altering the potential for dietary contaminant exposure in remote Alaskan communities.

Kristin Nielsen in a lab pipettes while wearing lab gloves

Research

A More Nuanced Approach is Needed to Manage Coral Reef Ecosystems

Instead of focusing entirely on biomass and one-size-fits-all solutions, researchers recommend finding which fish provide the most useful functions in each reef system and protecting them.

A school of colorful fish swim over a coral reef

Research

Vitamin Sea: Why Coral Reef Fish Eat Poop

A new study reveals that Caribbean parrotfishes and surgeonfishes consume plankton-eating fish feces as a nutrient-rich supplement to algae.

A Rainbow parrotfish swims in the water column, with many plankton-eating Brown chromis fish in the background. Photo by Hannah Rempel.

Features

Unlikely Partners: Bees and Turtles

Honey bees and sea turtles may seem like strange bedfellows, but through two of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve's (NERR) stewardship programs – Fennessey Ranch and the Amos Rehabilitation Keep (ARK) – these two species are connected through a unique collaboration.

A sea turtle rests on a towel as it is handled by a person in protective gloves

Features

Reading the Tea Leaves

Sometimes well known, simple household objects can be the best tools to use in a science experiment.

An aerial shot of a salt marsh showing land water and a vessel

Features

Nurdle Patrol Expands its Citizen Scientist Effort to Fight Plastic Pollution on Beaches

Plastic pollution in marine environments has no border, and now neither does the Nurdle Patrol.

Jace Tunnell of the Nurdle Patrol on the beach crouches and picks up plastic pellets to add to a tube

Research

Loss of Picky-Eating Fishes Threatens Coral Reef Food Webs

Delicate ecosystems become more precarious as specialized hunters disappear.

A school of red fish swim above a coral reef

Research

Finding the Goldilocks Zone for Fish at Oil Platforms

If you are an angler looking for the best place to fish in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil platforms offshore of Louisiana's Atchafalaya River are your best bet.

Near an oil rig underwater, fish swarm

Announcements

Bay Education Center is Fully Repaired and Reopened after Hurricane Harvey Damage

The Bay Education Center, operated by the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, a program of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, is reopening with new exhibits.

Bay Education Center exhibits show animals such as a coyote and javelina

UT News

Climate-friendly Microbes Chomp Dead Plants Without Releasing Heat-trapping Methane

Scientists have identified an entirely new group of microbes quietly living in hot springs, geothermal systems and hydrothermal sediments around the world.

Hot springs