Could the sea be conscious? Research reveals how tiny plankton behave like a marine 'megamind'

ORIGINAL: Daily Mail

By DAMIEN GAYLE

13 February 2013

U.S. researchers find that different forms of picoplankton react as one to environmental changes

Although as different as humans and fungi, the creatures' behaviour was linked

Findings could help researchers understand why some species are impossible to grow in isolation

Vastly different species of sea microbes work together to respond as one to their surroundings as if they have one 'megamind', new research has revealed.

U.S. researchers have discovered communities of infinitesimal creatures in our oceans react in unison to changes in their environment.

The links between them are not well understood, but findings suggest the creatures rely on each other to almost the same extent as the different cells in a human body.

Megamind: Despite the amazing diversity of marine microbes, a new research paper shows that many different groups work together to react in unison to their surroundings

As an example, if one set of the microbes were, say, creating energy through photosynthesis, which would then produce carbon dioxide, another set of microbes would somehow know and react - perhaps preparing to absorb the carbon dioxide.

The open sea contains an amazing diversity of extremely tiny organisms called picoplankton, which include relatively simple life forms such as marine bacteria, as well as more complicated organisms.

Microbiologists who study wild marine microbes, as opposed to the lab-grown variety, face enormous challenges in getting a clear picture of the daily activities of their subjects.

To take a look at these creatures in their natural habitat, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute used a new method for collecting marine microbes.

They created a robotic sampling device which dangled beneath the waves to collect samples of one billion microbes every four hours.

Similar to fast photography that stops action, the robotic device 'fixed' each sample so that whatever genes the microbes were expressing at the moment of capture were preserved for later study.

After returning the samples to the lab, researchers used cutting-edge analysis techniques to figure out which genes within the microbes were actively being used at different times of day.

This involved sorting through millions of billions of fragments of genetic material and then assigning each fragment to a specific gene and a specific type of microbe.

In so doing they created a time-lapse montage of the daily labours of a range of microbial species over a two-day period.

A research vessel drifts near the buoy supporting the Environmental Sample Processor used to collect microbes for the experiment. Inset shows the yellow float with the ESP pressure housing suspended in the water

'A naturalist like Sir David Attenborough can follow a herd of elk and see how the elk’s behavior changes hour to hour, day to day and week to week,' said Edward DeLong, professor of environmental systems at MIT.

HOW RESEARCHERS 'FROZE TIME' TO MAKE THEIR FINDINGS

Using their robot microbe collecting device, researchers were able to gather samples of one billion microbes every four hours and keep them 'fixed' at the moment of collection.

This meant that whatever genes the microbes were expressing at the moment of capture were preserved for later study in the lab.

Microbes are extraordinarily sensitive to slight environmental changes, altering their gene expression rapidly in response to fluctuations in temperature, light, nutrient availability and other environmental variables.

Because of this, the genes they express tell a story about their habitat and their interactions with it.

In essence, changes in their gene expression provide information on the good times and the bad times they experience.

In a sense, each naturally occurring microbe is a living sensor and the researchers can read the sensors’ outputs by studying their gene expression.

By studying these environmental responses the MIT/MBARI team were able to make completely new findings about the behaviour of the creatures.

'But we haven’t been able to observe naturally occurring microbes with that kind of resolution until now.'

Professor DeLong, who is lead author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailing the research, added: 'We've essentially captured a day in the life of these microbes.

'As little as three years ago, I wouldn’t have even have considered it possible to get such a high resolution picture of microbial population dynamics and activity in the "real world".'

The montage showed photosynthetic microbes, which create the oxygen, energy and organic carbon used by the rest of the food web, ramped up their light-utilising activities in the morning and powered those down at night, just as their domestic brethren do in response to light and dark in the lab.

But the underwater scenes also showed something scientists had never seen before.

Non-photosynthetic, carbon-eating microbes of very different species displayed synchronised, rapidly varying metabolic gene expression - despite the fact that they came from groups as different as humans and fungi.

Some of the genes simultaneously expressed by different species shared the same function — for instance, genes associated with growth or respiration.

Others encoded very different functions, mirroring the varied metabolic capabilities of the disparate species.

'We've essentially captured a day in the life of these microbes': Researchers readying the robotic device connected to a buoy for its two-day sampling journey off the coast of California

The researchers hypothesised that all these microbes were reacting to the same environmental changes, but that different groups of microbes were responding in different ways.

Although the researchers cannot tell exactly which environmental changes the microbes were responding to, they suspect that the different groups of microbes were working together to obtain different types of food.

For example, some picoplankton could have been consuming large organic compounds such as proteins and fats. In the process, they could have produced simpler organic compounds, such as amino acids, which were then released into the surrounding seawater and consumed by other picoplankton.

'These results show a surprising amount of coordination between marine microbes,' said a spokesman for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

'They also suggest that, as in the food webs of larger organisms, many different groups of marine microbes rely on each other to survive on a day-to-day basis.

'This could help explain why so many species of marine microbes are difficult or impossible to grow by themselves in the lab.'

Meet The Man Who Just Geo-Hacked The Ocean

ORIGINAL: FastCoExist

WRITTEN BY: Scientific American

IMAGE: Waves via Shutterstock

Russ George recently dumped 120 tons of iron ore into the ocean to take the idea of geoengineering the ocean’s plankton to suck up carbon dioxide from theory to reality. He’s been both celebrated and vilified for his actions. Here is why he did it.

David Biello

Click here for the original article

This past July Russ George served as chief scientist on a cruise to fertilize the northeastern Pacific Ocean with iron--the latest in a long string of similar, and usually controversial, efforts he has led. He has been attempting to commercialize such ocean fertilization efforts for years, including setting up the failed company Planktos. In parallel, he has also been promoting plans to generate carbon credits[/url for companies and governments, allowing them to emit greenhouse gases in exchange for replanting carbon dioxide-absorbing forests from Canada to Europe.

The ocean fertilization experiment is similar. The idea is that by providing missing nutrients, a plankton bloom can be created. Such a bloom sucks up CO2 as it grows, like plants on land, and then, potentially, buries that carbon at sea as the tiny corpses sink to the bottom. But at the same time, George is hoping the bloom will trickle up the food chain and feed salmon, restoring their historic abundance. Of course, if the bloom is eaten, then animal metabolism will reemit the CO2, sending it back to the atmosphere and defeating the purpose of reducing CO2 emissions, as prior scientific studies have shown. A plankton bloom sucks up CO2 as it grows, like plants on land, and then, potentially, buries that carbon at sea as the tiny corpses sink to the bottom

George says he is convinced that iron fertilization can be a solution to global warming, and he’s pitched the idea to everyone from the Haida people of British Columbia to would-be "seasteaders" looking for a business proposition for their floating cities. Given the controversy surrounding George’s latest bid--which is billed as an attempt to restore salmon populations but also aims to earn saleable carbon credits--Scientific American spoke with him on October 19.

An edited transcript of the interview follows.

Scientific American: How did this Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. project start?

Russ George: This is a village project. They started it, they own it, they run it. It’s not the Russ George rogue geoengineering story.

You’ve seen the vile and vehement twisting of this story. You can probably imagine how I feel. I was the faith and trust and hopes and dreams of a village whose environment is dying, whose culture is dying because the salmon are dying. And now the world is saying they were duped.

So did the iron fertilization work?

We don’t know. A really famous scientist once told me: "Russ, keep in mind: you don’t know." The correct attitude is: "Data, speak to me." Do the work, get the data, let it speak to you and tell you what the facts might be. Don’t assume you have this prescient knowledge of how everything is.

But we do know that in 2008 when 450 million sockeye salmon left the Fraser River, the expectation was that fewer than one million would return. More and more baby salmon go to sea and fewer and fewer adult salmon return. But in August 2008 a volcano dusted ash, and the northeastern Pacific Ocean turned into a massive plankton bloom. The plankton bloom was of larger proportion than what we did in the area. So 40 million fish came home instead of a million. That offered some hope. Those fish don’t do fishy science, they do good science. Their physical bodies are data.

There have been three volcanic events in the last 100 years paired with record sockeye salmon runs. That’s pretty good data. Those fish don’t do fishy science, they do good science. Their physical bodies are data, you can track where they’ve been because of the discrete isotopic characteristics of different parts of the ocean.

But did it bury any carbon? Previous studies suggested that most of it will end up back in the atmosphere.

We don’t know that yet. I don’t agree with you that most of it will end up back in the atmosphere. Look at the [Victor] Smetacek paper [this year in Nature]. A significant amount of carbon ended up on the seafloor. Diatoms [a type of shelled algae] are big carbon sinkers because of their stony shells and powered buoyancy. When they run out of power they sink.

Tell me about the 120 metric tons of iron you dumped.

We didn’t choose the simplest form of iron and dump it in the ocean. We did a carefully thought through, planned process that asked, "What forms of iron does the ocean use today and historically? How might we determine what’s the right form or composition or method of preparation or method of distribution of the forms of iron that we know are effective?" So we had an experimental matrix that we believe will answer that and we have the data now.

Mother Nature blows dust in the wind, which carries fully reduced iron oxides. That’s the form of iron in dust in the wind. Upstart scientists, humans, say, "We can do better than Mother Nature. We won’t use that natural source of iron that nature uses; we’ll use commercial fertilizer. We’ll use iron sulfate because iron sulfate has greater solubility and greater biological availability."

We tested both. Our data will tell us. Do you get a different plankton bloom if you exactly mimic Mother Nature than if you exactly mimic some supplier of agricultural chemicals?

Where did you get the iron?

It’s an extremely commonly available material. Iron ore dust is in use everywhere. Australia sells 600 million tons of it to China [to make steel]. The amount of sweepings, the fugitive dust from the 600 million tons shipped from Australia to China is infinitely more than we used.

We’re not at liberty to divulge precise details of suppliers and such. Anybody associated with this project is viciously attacked.

Why did you pick the location you did?

Where could you do a more perfect experiment than in between a normal, natural similar phenomenon and an enormous unnatural absence? The best experimental design is to go in between two natural controls, which is where our bloom was placed. That’s why [the late marine biologist] John Martin picked west of the Galapagos, because those islands are a massive source of iron. Here’s a massive iron stimulated bloom that goes off to the west of the Galapagos for hundreds of miles and here’s the most iron-depleted ocean in the southeast Pacific.

The best place to do science on this and get knowledge is to put the bloom in between. See what natural iron-stimulated blooms produce and what the non-blooming ocean has. Test whether or not the characteristics of what you’ve created [are] different in any way to a natural system.

So what did you observe at sea?

Life appeared. The nightly migration of zooplankton from the thermocline [a layer of in the ocean that marks the transition from warmer surface waters to colder deep waters] to the surface, we saw that. Copepods, salps, all the little fish. We have thousands and thousands of biological samples now going under microscopes around the world to be identified and quantified. We didn’t have a ship with 58 scientists. We didn’t have a lab on board, and it’s not a great big ship with the stability to do microscopy on board. What we could do is work 24/7 and the Haida crew on the ship worked literally 24/7. Their job was to collect an unimaginably vast collection of samples.

We had instrumentation of every sort. Does Woods Hole [Oceanographic Institution] have two Slocum gliders? They may have one. The Canadian Institute for Ocean Science provided us with two gliders. We talked to [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] as the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. and said our intention is to go out to the eddies, identify an eddy and there try to understand how it could be restored and replenished. They say they didn’t know what we were doing.This is world-class science done by one of the least likely suspects: a small, native peoples village.

We started by using ships of opportunity to collect water samples last December for months. This is not willy-nilly. This is not go out, throw iron in the water and stay there for as little as possible because the costs are so high. We were gathering baseline data months ahead. We sent gliders out long before the ship set sail to survey the whole region. We have baseline data for the whole region, on natural blooms and eddies that were blooming and weren’t blooming to get the full picture. That’s indicative of good, careful science planning

This is world-class science done by one of the least likely suspects: a small, native peoples village. That’s the charm of the story.

That’s kind of a preliminary glimpse. Now there is an incredible amount of data to plow through. The book has to be read and we’re trying to get to that job.

How long before you share the data or report some results?

We have 10,000 water samples to be analyzed for 20 different characteristics. The first few hundred samples we sent to a commercial lab to give us a glimpse to make a determination of the ultimate cost. We sent them three weeks ago and no peep out of them yet. It takes a long time and a lot of money.

Read the rest of the interview with George at Scientific American.

From ScientificAmerican.com (find the original story here); reprinted with permission.

Scientific American is a trademark of Scientific American, Inc., used with permission.

La expedición que descubre un millón de especies marinas

ORIGINAL: BBC

La nave científica Tara ha completado recientemente su viaje de 112.000 kilómetros alrededor del mundo, durante el que ha recogido datos sobre la diversidad del plancton.

El equipo internacional de científicos a bordo del Tara descubrió más de un millón de especies en su viaje y volvió con información detallada de distintos tipos de este organismo de los océanos.

Un camarógrafo marino tomó imágenes usando una cámara de alta definición con una lente macro, la primera vez que se utiliza esta tecnología para capturar instantáneas de estos organismos microscópicos.

El equipo del Tara, cuya misión era estudiar el impacto del cambio climático en ecosistemas marinos, señaló que el 90% de las especies que detectaron no se conocían previamente.

Vea este video de BBC Mundo sobre los secretos mejor guardados en las profundidades marinas.

Radioactive bluefin tuna from Japan found in U.S. waters

ORIGINAL: Raw Story

By David Ferguson

Monday, May 28, 2012 17:28 EDT 

For the first time, scientists have discovered that tuna contaminated by last year’s radiation leak from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have crossed the Pacific Ocean into U.S. waters, according to the Associated Press. Scientists have been started to discover the radioactive fish some 6,000 miles from their place of origin, the first time that large, migrating fish have been shown to carry contaminants over such a great distance.

Normally, radiation and other contaminants are found in smaller fish and plankton, and only in waters close to the source of contamination. However, levels of radioactive cesium have been found at ten times the normal levels in fish off of the coast of California. The current levels, say officials, are still below the levels considered unsafe by the U.S. and Japanese governments.

In March of 2011, a massive earthquake and devastating tsunami struck northeastern Japan, killing thousands and reducing entire towns to mud and rubble. The Fukushima nuclear plant was caught unprepared for the disaster, and subsequently multiple reactors at the plant melted down, spewing radioactive materials into the air and water and triggering mass evacuations. Bluefin tuna are large, fast-swimming fish, growing up to ten feet in length and weighing up to half a ton. The fish swim at “breakneck” speeds and cross the oceans to feed and mate.

Scientists tested tuna from other regions to discover if the cesium-134 and cesium-137 found in the fish might have come from somewhere else, or if the fish had ingested plankton from water affected by the radiation leak.

Ken Woeller of the Woods Hole National Oceanographic Institute is an outside researcher who consulted by the investigation. He said the results “are unequivocal. Fukushima was the source.”

(image via WikiMedia Commons)

My secret life as plankton

ORIGINAL: TEDEducation

"...a tea spoon of sea water can contain more than a million living creatures..."

New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex. Marine biologist Tierney Thys teamed with Christian Sardet (CNRS/Tara Oceans), Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak to use footage from the Plankton Chronicles project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.

Check out "My secret life as plankton" for a fish-eye look at the unseen life teeming within each drop of the ocean's water. We spoke with producer and marine biologist Tierney Thys to get an inside perspective on creating the film. 

What inspired you to make this video?

I've been in natural history filmmaking for many years and have a deep love and respect for the ocean. I also believe strongly in the power of film to raise awareness and educate. The idea for an ocean series for TED Ed was originally suggested to me by Chris Anderson, curator of TED. We brainstormed on possible topics and it grew out from there.

Where did you get the idea to cast a fish as the narrator?

As a group, our little production team all brainstormed on how best to tell the story of plankton. We knew we wanted to start topside and then dive in to the strange world of plankton. We brainstormed up all sorts of places, and with Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak we agreed that we should start in a fish market and see where that took us. When I went to write the script, it was the fish that started speaking—I listened and wrote down what that lovely snapper said.

What message do you hope to convey to viewers with this video?

As we all know many of our food fishes are suffering greatly due to global overfishing, perverse subsidies and piracy on the high seas. We've lost 90 percent of our big fishes since the 1950s and the majority of our fisheries are over-exploited. I hope dearly to highlight in a fun and engaging way that every fish is much more than a simple slab of protein. Marine fishes lead amazing life in that wildest of places, our beautiful, fragile ocean. Food fishes have a huge diversity of life histories—I show only one—but there are literally thousands of amazing fish tales that could and hopefully will be told. I hope to put a face on the fishes so we are more conscious and respectful of what it is we are consuming and overexploiting at such breakneck speed.

Do you recall the first time you saw plankton under a microscope?

I first saw plankton under a scope when I was very little—perhaps age 4 or 5 or so. My parents had a lovely microscope when I was growing up. (Incidentally that is a great item to have in any house!) Swimming at the other end of that microscope's ocular I saw a whole spectacular world that was so unlike anything I'd ever seen on land. And when I could get that darn focus knob to work, I was hooked!

What’s your favorite species of plankton and why?

Oh, that is a tough one. I just adore all of them. The ctenophores are gorgeous. The pteropods and heteropods are supremely graceful. The phytoplankton are luminous and so vital to our survival. I must say I am utterly enchanted by diatoms—they never cease to amaze me. All the mind-blowing larvae that populate the seas are spectacular—in particular the urchin pluteus—what a rocket ship! The jellies—their diversity, size and beauty astound me. Phronima and its crazy maternal antics rivet me... In truth I can't choose a favorite! I love them all.

What are the Plankton Chronicles? 

The Plankton Chronicles project combines art and science, revealing the beauty and diversity of planktonic organisms. Plankton samples are collected and filmed at the Villefranche-sur-Mer Marine Station and on board the schooner, Tara, using dark field optics and macro lenses or microscopes equipped with HD SLR cameras. Christian Sardet from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Noe Sardet and Sharif Mirshak from Parafilms in Montreal initiated the project in the context of the Tara Oceans expedition. The Plankton Chronicles are sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris and the Groupement d'Interet Scientifique IBISA.

Thumbnail Image Credit: idua_japan, Flickr 

Las primeras plantas terrestres pueden haber sumido a la Tierra en una serie de las edades de hielo

ORIGINAL: TheGuardian

Ian Sample, corresponsal de ciencia

01 de febrero 2012

Científicos afirman que la difusión de las primeras plantas terrestres redujeron el carbono en la atmósfera y enfriaron el planeta

Plantas antiguas podrían haber disuelto rocas de silicatos liberando iones metálicos, que reaccionaron con carbono en la atmósfera. Foto: Reuters

Las primeras plantas en echar raíces en tierra firme pueden haber enfriado la Tierra lo suficiente como para provocar una serie de las edades de hielo, afirman los científicos.

Mientras que las plantas que se diseminaron en los continentes, extraían minerales de las rocas en las que se aferraban disminuían los niveles de carbono en la atmósfera, provocando que las temperaturas cayeran marcadamente, dicen los investigadores.

El escenario explica una glaciaciones desconcertantes que vieron adelantando que muestran capas de hielo previas al período Ordovíciano entre 488m y 444m años atrás. En ese momento, los continentes de la Tierra se agrupaban sobre el polo sur y se extendían hacia el norte hasta el Ecuador.

Escribiendo en la revista Nature Geoscience, un equipo dirigido por Timothy Lenton de la Universidad de Exeter describe experimentos para investigar el impacto ambiental de las primeras plantas terrestres de la Tierra. Tomaron piedras y cubrieron alguunas con musgo para imitar la vida de las plantas sencillas que florecieron en el Ordovícico, luego las incubaron durante tres meses.

Los experimentos en el Centro John Innes en Norwich revelan cómo la vida de las plantas podrían haber alterado la geoquímica lo suficiente para hacer descender la temperatura y dar paso a un período de glaciación del planeta.

A medida que las plantas crecieron, disolvieron las rocas de silicatos, como el granito, causando la liberación de iones de calcio y magnesio. Estos iones se combinan con el carbono atmosférico y cayeron en los océanos donde se precipitaron en forma de rocas carbonatadas. Este proceso sólo podría haber causado que la temperatura cayera alrededor de cinco grados centígrados.

En otro proceso, las plantas extraen el fósforo y el hierro de las rocas, pero a medida que las plantas murieron estos elementos han encontrado su camino hacia el mar. El aumento de nutrientes era probable que haya impulsado el crecimiento del plancton, criaturas microscópicas que secuestran carbono al crecer y al final lo llevan al fondo del mar cuando mueren, donde se forman la rocas.

Los científicos asumieron que el 15% de la superficie de la Tierra estaba cubierta de vida vegetal primitiva, pero incluso con una cobertura del 5% de la tierra, los efectos de enfriamiento que han sido sustanciales, dijo Lenton.

"Aunque las plantas están todavía enfriamiento el clima de la Tierra mediante la reducción de los niveles de carbono atmosférico, ésto no puede equipararse con la velocidad del cambio actual del clima inducido por el hombre", dijo Lenton. "Se necesitarían millones de años para que las plantas eliminaran las emisiones actuales de carbono de la atmósfera."

Liam Dolan, un científico en plantas de la Universidad de Oxford que trabajó con Lenton, dijo que la invasión de la tierra por las plantas fue un momento crucial en la historia del planeta que produjo enormes cambios climáticos. "Nuestro descubrimiento pone de relieve que las plantas tienen un papel central de regulación en el control del clima:. Lo hicieron ayer, que hoy en día, y seguramente en el futuro"