For years, scientists have asked whether fossils record how ocean ecosystems actually worked, not just which species were there. A new study answers that question with a careful field test along the North Carolina coast.

Humans are some of the greatest builders on the planet, but we’re not the only ones. Beneath the ocean, some unlikely creatures build breathtakingly intricate structures with a variety of clever techniques and materials. Underwater homes serve many purposes: they shelter offspring, offer refuge from predators, and in some cases, support entire ecosystems. Some of these creatures even open their homes to other species. And some can even be kept in a home aquarium, where you can watch them build their homes.

Humans began to alter environments long before records were kept of the things that lived in them, making it difficult for scientists to determine what healthy ecosystems should look like. The researchers have now shown that the recent fossil record preserves an authoritative snapshot of marine environments as they existed before humans.

As we plunge into Earth’s sixth stage of mass extinction (that we are aware of), biologists looking to conserve and restore ecosystems that have been stripped of plant and animal life can face a pretty daunting task. However, help is on the way in the form of some of the ocean’s worms, mollusks, and crabs. A study published July 11 in the journal PeerJ, finds that fossils from these groups are actually preserved in the fossil record in proportion to their diversity, making for a solid source of information about past ecosystems.

Researchers from the University of Nevada Las Vegas have published findings in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, highlighting how by looking at marine food web fossils, we can get a glimpse into the future of climate change effects.

Have we damaged marine life too much for it to recover?

What a tangled web we weave. Well, when it comes to the climate crisis' impact on marine food webs, we apparently didn't know the half of it. That's according to a new UNLV study which compared ancient and modern ocean ecosystems in a bid to understand how to make them healthier and more resilient.

What a tangled web we weave. When it comes to the impact of the climate crisis on marine food webs, we apparently have not known the half of it. That's according to a new University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) study, which compared ancient and modern ocean ecosystems in a bid to understand how to make them healthier and more resilient.