ANDRZEJ KRAUZEJuly always puts me in mind of the doo wop refrain: Summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime (my favorite version). My family decamped to the Jersey Shore every summer, and the months I spent there left me with a lifelong love of the ocean: beachcombing for hours to see what the sea had spit onto the sand, surfcasting for bluefish or yummier blowfish to cook for dinner. Later, on trips to warmer climes, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and diving in the Caribbean revealed technicolor coral reefs and fishes as astonishingly beautiful as the marine organisms pictured on this month’s cover.
But the oceans of my youth mean something different to me now—less mysterious on some levels, yet even more fascinating. Much more is known about their denizens, thanks to marine scientists and advances in research technology: undersea exploration vehicles can probe to extraordinary depths; worldwide expeditions have collected specimens ranging in size from viruses to whales.
Unfortunately, a lot of what marine biologists are learning is alarming. In “Changing Oceans Breed Disease,” science writer Christie Wilcox reports on the effects of rising ocean temperatures and acidity on a wide range of sea creatures. “The barrier reef north of Cairns will not look again how it did in my lifetime,” Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Resource Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, told ...
