In order to search for novel bioactive substances from marine organisms, we investigated the acetone extract of the soft coral Nephthea chabrolii collected at San-Hsian-Tai, Taitong County, Taiwan. From this extract three new 19-oxygenated steroids, nebrosteroids N-P (1-3) were isolated. The structures of these compounds were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analyses.

is it that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. It is the dose only that makes a thing not a poison. Coral reefs, already one of the most delicate marine systems, are threatened by a host of pressures, including sea temperature increases , pollution, development, fishing, and tourism. Last March, the U.S. government unveiled an ambitious plan that addresses the mo...

Contemporary in-depth sequencing of environmental samples has provided novel insights into microbial community structures, revealing that their diversity had been previously underestimated. Communities in marine environments are commonly composed of a few dominant taxa and a high number of taxonomically diverse, low-abundance organisms. However, studying the roles and genomic information of the...

Coral reefs are a valuable and vulnerable marine ecosystem. The structure of coral reefs influences their health and ability to fulfill ecosystem functions and services. However, monitoring reef corals largely relies on 1D or 2D estimates of coral cover and abundance that overlook change in ecologically significant aspects of the reefs because they do not incorporate vertical or volumetric info...

Until now, it has been well-established that coral complex in the Arabian/Persian Gulf only exist in the coastal regions of Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates and it was thought that there are no coral reefs in Iraq. However, here for the first time we show the existence of a living 28 km(2) large coral reef in this country. These corals are adapted to on...

Bustling around their reef homes, Red Sea dascyllus damselfish (Dascyllus marginatus) do quite well out of their co-habiting arrangement with hood coral (Stylophora pistillata). ‘The coral provide the fish with shelter from predators and a place for social interactions and egg laying’, says Nur Garcia-Herrera, from the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Germany. Yet the agreement isn’t entirely one sided...

Parental effects are ubiquitous in nature and in many organisms play a particularly critical role in the transfer of symbionts across generations; however, their influence and relative importance in the marine environment has rarely been considered. Coral reefs are biologically diverse and productive marine ecosystems, whose success is framed by symbiosis between reef-building corals and unicel...

Bustling around their reef homes, Red Sea dascyllus damselfish (Dascyllus marginatus) do quite well out of their co-habiting arrangement with hood coral (Stylophora pistillata). ‘The coral provide the fish with shelter from predators and a place for social interactions and egg laying’, says Nur Garcia-Herrera, from the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Germany. Yet the agreement isn’t entirely one sided...

The 3,000 oil/gas structures currently deployed in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) provide hard substratum for marine organisms in a region where such has been rare since the Holocene. The major exception to this are the Flower Garden Banks (FGB). Corals are known to have colonized oil/gas platforms around the FGB, facilitating biogeographic expansion. We ask the question, what are the patter...

Global change has caused a worldwide increase in reports of Vibrio-associated diseases with ecosystem-wide impacts on humans and marine animals. In Europe, higher prevalence of human infections followed regional climatic trends with outbreaks occurring during episodes of unusually warm weather. Similar patterns were also observed in Vibrio-associated diseases affecting marine organisms such as ...