The whale shark Rhincodon typus is an endangered, highly migratory species with a wide, albeit patchy, distribution through tropical oceans. Ten aerial survey flights along the southern Mozambican coast, conducted between 2004-2008, documented a relatively high density of whale sharks along a 200 km stretch of the Inhambane Province, with a pronounced hotspot adjacent to Praia do Tofo. To exami...

Accurate retrieval of particulate backscattering coefficients has been a great challenge in optically complex Case 2 waters. Although several models exist for retrieval of the Inherent Optical Properties (IOP’s) such as particulate backscattering (bbp) from the remote sensing reflectance, these models produce bbp with high errors mainly because of improper parameterization or inappropriate defi...

Is it possible to derive accurately Total Suspended Matter concentration or its proxy, turbidity, from remote sensing data in tropical coastal lagoon waters? To investigate this question, hyperspectral remote sensing reflectance, turbidity and chlorophyll pigment concentration were measured in three coral reef lagoons. The three sites enabled us to get data over very diverse environments: oligo...

Bacteria are recognized as important drivers of biogeochemical processes in all aquatic ecosystems. Temporal and geographical patterns in ocean bacterial communities have been observed in many studies, but the temporal and spatial patterns in the bacterial communities from the South China Sea remained unexplored. To determine the spatiotemporal patterns, we generated 16S rRNA datasets for 15 sa...

Phototrophs underpin most ecosystem processes, but to do this they need sufficient light. This critical resource, however, is compromised along many marine shores by increased loads of sediments and nutrients from degraded inland habitats. Increased attenuation of total irradiance within coastal water columns due to turbidity is known to reduce species' depth limits and affect the taxonomic str...

In-situ data of optically active water constituents and their inherent optical properties were collected during a four-week field cruise in Namibian coastal waters and Atlantic Ocean to validate MERIS geophysical products. The in-situ data set covered a wide range of different water types from very productive coastal upwelling waters to clear open ocean waters where the water color varied from ...

The coastal marine environment of Japan is characterized by its high biological productivity, which contributes to generally high fishery yields. However, both the productivity of coastal ecosystems and coastal fisheries are being threatened by substantial changes in the coastal marine environment. This situation is making it increasingly imperative to take an ecosystems approach to management ...

-Trichodesmium is a filamentous cyanobacteria which forms dense blooms along the west coast of India. These are high biomass blooms which are mostly surface floating. The chlorophyll a content of water crossed >100 μgl -1 during active bloom and hence was ideal for the detection by space. Besides the Arabian Sea, the Lakshadweep Sea, the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal are also well known sit...

This study focuses on Anguilliformes specimens revising which collected during 2006-08 in some Iranian museums. For this study, all museum samples from Iranian coastal waters of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea were investigated. The results indicated that species diversity in the Iranian waters can be classified into six families of Anguiliformes (Eels and Morays fishes). A total of 11 species...

Cultural eutrophication is frequently invoked as one factor in the global increase in harmful algal blooms, but is difficult to definitively prove due to themyriad of factors influencing coastal phytoplankton bloom development. To assess whether eutrophication could be a factor in the development of harmful algal blooms in California (USA), we review the ecophysiological potential for urea upta...