The winter aggregation of sharks near the Orot Rabin power plant is largely composed of large, female dusky sharks and smaller, male sandbar sharks. It is, therefore, possible that the female sharks are using the warmer waters of the effluent at some stage of their reproductive cycle. In 2016, a pregnant dusky shark washed ashore near Hadera with 8 mid-stage fetuses in her uterus. Further evidence of pregnant sharks was…
Roee Diamant, Dep. of Marine Technologies. Aviad Scheinin, The Morris Kahn Marine Research Station. University of Haifa.Aquatic animals rely on underwater sound for critical life functions such as localization, communications, foraging, and mating.With the large increase in human marine activity, our seas have become populated with boats and ships projecting underwater radiated noise (URN) of extremely high power that propagates over areas of sometimes 20 square km.The effects of shipping…
HighlightsFirst seasonal high sensitivity nutrients in the Pelagic Eastern Mediterranean.Excess Nitrate during winter mixing decreasing to Nutrient depleted in late stratified season.Phosphate depleted entire year with low DOP (40-30 nM) in photic zone.The measured N:P ratio depends on seasonality and not just location.Calculated Export Production and other biogeochemical properties confirm EMS behaves like a P depleted ocean gyre. AbstractThe Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS), is ultra-oligotrophic with unusual anti-estuarine circulation. It is P…
Coral reefs are the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on the globe. In addition to breathtaking beauty, they have significant evolutionary and financial importance. Unfortunately, today, coral reefs face significant threats due to global climate change and other stressors of anthropogenic origin. Stony coral skeletons construct the structural foundation of the coral reef ecosystem. The biomineralization process (Mineral production by a live organism), by which stony coral build their skeleton, is…
In the image: Verification of species identity of all colonies collected as Oculina patagonica, using both genomic (CO1 gene sequencing) and morphological features. The evolutionary history was inferred using the Neighbour-Joining method and evolutionary distances were computed using the Maximum Composite Likelihood method (units: number of base substitutions per site) using the software MEGA X. Images (A–C) are of shallow colonies and (D–F) deep colonies. CS Calyx spacing, CD Calyx…
AbstractSaharan dust is an important phosphorus (P) supply to remote and oligotrophic parts of the oceans and American lowland tropical rainforests. Phosphorus speciation in aeolian dust ultimately controls the release and bioavailability of P after dust deposition, but the speciation in Saharan dust and its change during the trans-Atlantic transport remains unclear. Using P K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy, we showed that with increasing dust traveling distance…
The COST Action SEAWHEAT is kicking off today in a virtual setting with the administrators in Brussels, and the Management Committee chose over the past few months. The network is titled: TOMORROW’S ‘WHEAT OF THE SEA’: ULVA, A MODEL FOR AN INNOVATIVE MARICULTURE The innovative network has come to fruition through a lot of hard work by Professor Muki Shpigel and Dr Leigh Livne of MKMRS - it can be best…
New article published! Coral recruitment represents a key element for coral reef persistence and resilience in the face of environmental disturbances. Studying coral recruitment patterns is fundamental for assessing reef health and implementing appropriate management strategies in an era of climate change. The FluorIS system has been developed to acquire high resolution, wide field-of-view (FOV) in situ images of coral recruits fluorescence and has proven successful in shallow reef environments. However, up…
Antibiotic resistance of bacterial pathogens in marine animals of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: molecular characterization, antibiotic resistance, and virulent genes’ identification Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global issue that public health is facing nowadays, and its propagation has occurred due to the misuse of antimicrobial medicines for both humans and livestock. This has led to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant zoonotic pathogens through the acquisition of antibiotic- resistance genes (ARGs) that…
Congratulations to Prof. Muki Shpigel for being selected to chair a COST Action from this year until 2025! The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) organization runs an EU-funded program that enables scientists and innovators to link research initiatives, share innovative ideas across multiple science and technology fields and at the same time address social challenges across Europe and beyond. Prof. Shpigel, together with Dr. Leigh Livne and Dr. Amir Neori,…
