There is growing scientific concern that corals could retreat from equatorial seas and oceans as the Earth continues to warm, marine researchers have warned. Working on clues in the fossil coral record from the last major episode of global warming, the period between the last two ice ages about 125,000 years ago, the researchers found evidence of a sharp decline in coral diversity near the equator.

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Researchers have published findings about a unique trade and its long-term implications.

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A group of marine biologists from Japan has discovered two new species of encrusting anemone, thousands of kilometers away from the single other known species of the group. The first species from Madagascar was found in 1972 and never reported again, while the new species are from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and southern Japan.

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Areopaguristes tudgei is a new species of hermit crab recently discovered on the barrier reef off the coast of Belize.

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Archaeologists have significantly narrowed down the time frame during which the last major chapter in human colonization, the Polynesian triangle, occurred.

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Big fish that have grown up in marine reserves don't seem to know enough to avoid fishers armed with spear guns waiting outside the reserve. The latest research by an Australian team working in the Philippines into the effects of marine reserves has found there is an unexpected windfall awaiting fishers who obey the rules and respect reserve boundaries -- in the form of big, innocent fish wandering out of the reserve.

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Corals under attack by toxic seaweed do what anyone might do when threatened -- they call for help. A new study shows that threatened corals send signals to fish "bodyguards" that quickly respond to trim back the noxious alga -- which can kill the coral if not promptly removed.

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Australian marine scientists have unearthed evidence of an historic coral collapse in Queensland's Palm Islands following development on the nearby mainland. Cores taken through the coral reef at Pelorus Island confirm a healthy community of branching Acropora corals flourished for centuries before European settlement of the area, despite frequent floods and cyclone events. Then, between 1920 and 1955, the branching Acropora failed to recover.

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