Marine biology
Site news
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Recent graduate Emily Paris, PhD ’26, studies Earth’s most extreme deep-sea environments to learn about the habitability of ancient Mars and inform carbon storage efforts.
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"As an engineer, my job is to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical – taking equations of math and science and applying them to real-world solutions."
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Brief pulses of electrical current can dramatically extend the lives of sea squirts, whose rapid stem cell regeneration and simple immune systems make them a useful analog for understanding aging in humans. The findings point toward new strategies for protecting species from environmental shifts, and mitigating age-related decline.
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Manu Prakash and French collaborator Marcel Babin are being honored for their research on microbial life trapped in sea ice, enhancing our understanding of modern polar ecosystems.
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A Stanford-led effort combines bluefin tuna tag data and historical catch records to reconstruct the evolution of the fishery in the context of extensive movement and mixing.
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Ninety years of tidepool observations in Monterey Bay have taught Stanford researchers about climate change impacts on the ocean and the evolution of science.
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Stanford marine biologist Steve Palumbi uses fundamental science to find practical solutions to pressing questions about ocean life and its future. His lab’s work on the effects of heat waves on marine life has implications for the environment, economies, health, and culture.
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New research shows that when predator species like California sheephead thrive, they keep hungry sea urchins and other grazers from devouring kelp forests struggling to recover from marine heat waves. Scientists estimate kelp forests’ annual exposure to once-rare heat will more than quintuple by 2100.
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The newly renovated space offers Stanford researchers the rare opportunity to study the cellular and molecular structures of marine organisms that hold clues to the evolution of life, right on the shores of the ocean where it all started.
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Between 1997 and 2024, endangered North Pacific loggerhead sea turtles shifted their foraging northward at a rate six times faster than the average for most marine species. The turtles face risks as they adapt to ocean warming caused by climate change.
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Microscopic organisms in the ocean play a key role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A new study unveils a hidden biological factor that could change our understanding of how this process works, and make climate change predictions more accurate.
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Soaring human demand for krill in the Southern Ocean poses a challenge to the recovery of whale species once hunted nearly to extinction. Stanford researchers identify the growing food conflict and offer solutions.
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Tiny plankton play a huge role in regulating natural systems, but they remain poorly understood. Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash leads an international effort to develop innovative, low-cost tools that could help enable citizen scientists to monitor oceans and contribute to climate change solutions.
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With support from a Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Accelerator seed grant, an interdisciplinary team has developed a groundbreaking optical sensor that measures DNA and other key molecules in seawater using light, potentially revolutionizing the study of biodiversity in the enigmatic depths below the ocean’s surface.
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New research shows the major factors that help coral larvae settle and survive are the nearshore current and the physical features of the seafloor. The work could help identify sites where future reefs will be most viable and highlights a need to better protect these coral nurseries.
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An optical sensor smaller than a postage stamp could help coastal communities monitor some of the world’s largest marine protected areas.
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Understanding the movements of migratory marine animals through different countries' waters and in the open ocean beyond is vital to their management and conservation.
