The Next Swell

06/11/2026

06/06/2026

On Monday, June 8th, it is World Ocean Day, but we’re popping in two days early because the festivities have already kicked off 🌊🐋🐙🐬🦭🧜🪸🪼🫍!

Officially recognised by the United Nations 🇺🇳 in 2008, World Ocean Day aims to unite the world 🌍🌎🌏 in protecting and restoring the marine environment! Today, the World Ocean Day network incorporates over 2,000 organisations across 180 countries!

With the commitment to protect 30% of the planet by 2030 (30x30) and the recent ratification of the High Seas Treaty 🥳🎉, which focuses on protecting marine biodiversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction, the 2026 theme for World Ocean Day is “Strong Marine Protected Areas for Our Blue Planet”.

We’re featuring a few events below, but check out the link 🔗 below to find a World Ocean Day Event near you 🗓️, and join in on the important fun 🙂!

https://worldoceanday.org/events-calendar/

🦞 Boston, MA: World Ocean Day Celebration at th New England Aqaurium (7 June)
🦀 Woods Hole (Falmouth, MA): Women on the Water screening (6 June)
🏛️ Washington, DC: World Ocean Day at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (8 June)
🍑 Savannah, GA: World Ocean Day at the UGA Aquarium (6 June)
🌴 Miami, FL: Frost Science World Ocean Day (6 June)
🙌 Key Biscayne, FL: World Ocean Celebration: International Ocean Film Festival (6 June)
😎 Laguna Beach, CA: KelpFest 2026 (6 June)
🏝️ Honolulu, HI: Hawaii Environmental Film Festival - OUR OCEAN (6 June)

https://worldoceanday.org/

06/05/2026

For years, ocean conservation has rallied around bold global targets such as protect 30%, restore ecosystems, reduce emissions. And yet we keep missing them. We’re trying to manage a borderless ocean with bordered thinking, and it’s quietly failing.

A recent perspective argues the solution isn’t better targets, but stronger relationships: trust between governments, collaboration with local communities, and shared ownership of outcomes. That perspective is true, but it's not the full story.

Targets fail visibly. Relationships fail quietly. Collaboration takes time, while ecosystems continue to degrade. Power imbalances persist, and without enforcement, agreements rarely scale.

This isn’t a choice between targets and relationships; rather, it’s a systems problem. The ocean is interconnected and boundaryless, while governance is fragmented and misaligned. Relationships help bridge that gap. But lasting impact requires clear targets, accountable governance, and sustained collaboration working in concert.

The real challenge isn’t intent. It’s alignment between ecological reality and the systems we use to manage it.

Credit: https://theconversation.com/ocean-conservation-needs-strong-relationships-not-just-targets-283433

06/01/2026

I don’t know about you, but when I was little, Sesame Street was always a favorite…along with My Little Ponies 🐴, of course!

And while Bert and Ernie have always had my heart ♥️, Mr. Snuffleupagus (aka Snuffy) has always been a top contender 🥹. That’s why I was SO excited to share this article.

A new species of ghost pipefish has just been idenfitifed by marine biologists Graham Short and David Harasti. Its name… Solenostomus SNUFFLEUPAGUS— because its hairy, shaggy bright red appearance and long trunk-like snout…which is actually a form of camouflage!

Ghost pipefish are distantly related to seahorses. They are found in the tropical Indo-Pacific in coral reefs, seagrass, and algal beds 🪸 🌱.

While the animal was spotted over two decades ago, it wasn’t correctly identified as a new species until more recently — with a thorough examination 🧬 revealing the SNUFFY had more vertebrae than other known ghost pipefish, and unique skin structures.

We love to see the intersect between science and childhood discovery and education…especially with our favorite little Snuffy!

Short, G. & Harasti, D. (2026). Solenostomus snuffleupagus sp. nov., a hairy ghost pipefish (Teleostei: Solenostomidae) from the Southwest Pacific, with an integrative comparison to S. paegnius. Journal of Fish Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.70497

https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/new-species-of-ghost-pipefish-named-after-sesame-street-character-found-in-australia/

📸 David Harasti via Journal of Fish Biology (CC BY 4.0).

05/15/2026

There’s a quiet kind of hope in knowing that saving a species is possible 💓🌏. We've seen the results when people care enough to take action:

o Bald eagles once hovered on the brink 🦅
o Sea turtles were disappearing from our shores 🌊🐢
o Gray wolves had nearly vanished from entire landscapes 🐺

But people cared. Laws changed ⚖️. Protection worked. These species recovered and in many cases are thriving 💪. With that hope, we seek to achieve the same results with other endangered species, like the Manatee.

Endangered Species Day—created by the Endangered Species Coalition—reminds us that the Endangered Species Act has helped pull countless species back from the edge. 🌱

On Friday, May 15th, we celebrate the creatures still fighting to survive across North America 🌎… and the people choosing, every single day, to fight for them.

Because extinction isn’t inevitable. Hope is a decision.

Learn more: www.endangered.org/endangered-species-day/⁠

05/09/2026

There are so many different COPs (Conference of the Parties 🤝🏻), they become hard to keep track of! But they are all so important.

The most recent COP focused on migratory species, or species who move long distances 🚶🏻‍♀️🚶🏻‍♂️ over the course of their lifetimes.

CMS COP15 focused specifically on measures to reduce bycatch, expand protections for several threatened species (adding striped hyena, thresher sharks 🦈 and the snowy owl 🦉 to the Appendices) and reinforce commitments to advance ecological connectivity across land and sea 🌍🌎🌏.

Commitments to advance ecological connectivity across land have become commonplace to discuss (e.g. the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative) but 'blue connectivity' is a newer focal point. Marine connectivity 🌊 poses it's own specific issues as some ocean creatures float along on ocean currents (which vary over time) while others propel themselves 🚣🏻, making it hard to predict migratory/dispersal patterns of many marine species.

At CMS COP15, a new resolution on Important Marine Turtle Areas 🐢 was adopted to help deliver on 's Blue Corridors for Turtles Initiative. Hopefully other initiatives focused on other important marine migratory species (or that focus on many species at a time) are soon to come 🌊.

Source: https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?15836966/CMS-COP15-delivers-progress-for-migratory-species-including-jaguars-sharks-marine-turtles-and-birds

05/05/2026

Did you know the Southern Ocean plays a huge role in fighting climate change? 🌍 This region helps absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) by supporting tiny ocean plants that turn carbon into organic matter. This process fuels the ocean’s “carbon pump” 🦠✨ which helps regulate the CO₂ in the atmosphere, and at the most basic level supports the food chain 🍲⛓️ for everything from the smallest fish 🐠 to the ocean's largest megafauna 🐋.

New research suggests this process is much stronger than we thought.  Previous models and research underestimate ocean productivity and miscalculate how CO₂ moves between the ocean and atmosphere, especially when those models focus on data collected during summer months ☀️.  

Scientists found the Southern Ocean captures more carbon annually than many earlier estimates indicated. This means this critical part of our marine ecosystem is doing more of the heavy lifting in slowing climate change 💪.

Identifying these biases and increasing the accuracy of the models across all seasons will result in better  CO₂ predictions. Improving how we model ocean processes could cut uncertainty in future climate projections by over 50%.

📷:  A research vessel plows through the Southern Ocean, whose rough waters play an outsize role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. Photo Credit: Nicolas Metzl, LOCEAN/IPSL Laboratory

Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-026-01944-z

04/29/2026

This has been such a fun week for us as we get to introduce you to another ocean rockstar 😊, Liyu - a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Davis.

Liyu has just been awarded a The Next Swell Grant for the spring of 2026!

Liyu Mekonnen is a nearshore biogeochemist who explores the carbon storage potential of vegetated coastal ecosystems as a nature-based climate solution. Liyu’s doctoral research investigates how seagrass meadows, a vegetated coastal ecosystem that exists along nearly every continent’s coastlines, can naturally mitigate carbon emissions and ocean acidification through alkalinity production. Studying alkalinity production in contrasting seagrass sediments will help (1) elucidate the true carbon capture potential of seagrass beds, (2) further resolve our understanding of global carbon cycling, and (3) promote the future conservation of these critical marine ecosystems.

Congratulations, Liyu 🎉!

04/28/2026

And last, but not least, introducing our final 2026 The Next Swell Scholarship winner, Milan 🎉 - a PhD researcher at Lehigh University’s Oceans Research Center!

“I am broadly interested in deep-sea ecology, specifically how biodiversity is structured across different environmental gradients, and utilizing the power of environmental DNA (eDNA) to illuminate these patterns. My research focuses on vulnerable marine ecosystems, including hydrothermal vents and deep-sea coral ecosystems, to better understand the ecological mechanisms that support their diversity and persistence in the deep-sea. As these valuable habitats face growing pressure from human activities like deep-sea mining, my goal is to build baseline biodiversity data using eDNA to support conservation and long-term monitoring efforts.

In this picture I am preparing our eDNA sampler to dive down to 400 m in search of cold seeps in the Argentine basin and the animal community that inhabit these incredible ecosystems.”

So cool 🤩! Congrats, Milan!

📸 Milan on board R/V Falkor (too) prepping eDNA samplers on ROV SuBastian. PC: Schmidt Ocean Institute