Arctic Microbes

Pictured here is Vincent Warwick, a biologist from the Universite Laval and his crew sampling tiny microbes that live in the Canadian Arctic waters/ice. He plans on studying the environment in which such microbes live, and their effects on other life. Vincent believes that these microbes live in these extreme environments of cold temperatures and darkness for a reason. With global warming, the temperatures of the water has been incresing drastically. If the microbes are linked to other types of life, the global warming could lead to the extinction of seals, fish and other species that live in the area. Warwick is also the Canadian Research Chair in Aquatic Ecosystems Studies. He claims that with the breakup of ice, many natural habitats are being lost in the area. He is trying to study these habitats before it is too late and they are completely lost.

Frilled Shark

This is a photograph of a female frilled shark taken shortly before it died last week. The shark, photographed by a Japanese scientist, normally lives approximately 2,000 feet below the surface and is rarely seen alive. The shark in this photo is 5 feet long and was weak due to illness or shallow waters. The scientists moved the shark to a marine park where it died shortly after. Because of the habitat of the species (deep waters, often where humans cannot explore), these sharks are normally seen after they have already died. They are usually found caught in trawlers nets and are hauled up dead. This particular shark did not live more than 2 hours after reaching shallow depths. The frilled shark is known as the "living fossil" because it has hardly changed since prehistoric times.

An Inconvenient Truth

This evening I attended the screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" put on by the Environmental Society and Ecology Action Centre. As you probably know, it is a film about global warming, presented by Al Gore. Anyways, while at the film I noticed many references to the oceans in connection with global warming. I thought I would share a few points. First off is the image above, taken from the movie. It shows Florida, with the coastlines covered by water. Apparently, with the melting of polar ice and a 20ft rise in sea level, this is what Florida would look like. So many people currently live in those areaa and I was suprised to see how much damage 20 feet could do. the film covered the idea of water current interruption due to the warming and many other basics that we all enjoyed in 203 and other introductory courses. However, I was interested on little tidbits of information. One of these was about polar bears. Apparently, many polar bears are being found each year having drowned because there is no ice to rest on. The film says that these bears can swim up to 60 miles looking for ice for rest and eventually drown because so much has melted to to increase in temperature, that there is none to be found. I can only imagine all of the other impacts that global warming would have on the oceans and life.

Sense of Smell

I was researching baby fish and came across some interesting information about some that can smell their way home. The research was conducted on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Apparently, when many tropical fish are born, they are unable to swim well and are carried away from their home reef. The fish prefer the reef in which they were born. After the first few weeks of life, and being unable to swim, baby fish can be carried up to 20 miles from their home. By this time they are able to swim and use their sense of smell to find their way home again. Researchers of a few different articles that I found on the subject said that all reefs smell different from the last. I guess the fish can remember what their home smells like and are able to find where they were born by the way it physically smells. Pictured above is the "neon damselfish" which is not quite as picky. It can live on several different reefs but still remembers the smells and uses its nose to find a way home when currents carry it to open waters.

Furry Lobster?

In an article I found published by the BBC in March, 2006, marine biologists claimed to have discovered a crustacean in the South Pacific that was covered in fur. It has been nicknamed the "Yeti Crab" and was discovered 1,500 km south of Easter Island. Scientists have not been able to fully understand the use of this "hair" but have speculated that it could be used for either detoxifyong of poisons near hydrothermals vents for survival purposes, or possibly for feeding on the bacteria that lives in the hair strands. This second hypothesis, however, is unlikely due to observations leading scientists to believe it is a carnivore. Another interesting fact about these crabs is that they are completely blind. Due to the fact that the crab is so different from other types of crustaceans, it has been given its own taxonomic family, called the "Kiwa hirsuta". In Polynesian mythology, "Kiwa" is the goddess of crustaceans.

Blame Canada...

Today in class we discussed Ocean floor trawling. This is a short non-scientific video to describe the situation with the UN and the moratorium regarding trawling. Unfortunately, the video targets Canada as a major flaw in the plan in a sense that the country was trying to block the moratorium. However, in November of 2006, this was changed, says the video.

I found it interesting that Canada was targeted in such a way, because as a Canadian I had little knowledge of this subject before seeing the video.

An interesting point that I found out while searching the video, however, was that each year on the Ocean floors, an area approximately the size of the United States is trawled and destroyed. That's huge!

Algae

This image was taken from an article found at www.physorg.com and was published on January 12th, 2007. The image is a a picture (under a microscope) of a previously unknown algae that was found in the Arctic waters. The article states that this newly found algae is only a few thousandths of a millimetre. The algae is part of the microscopic category known as "phytoplankton". Apparently, up to 90 percent of this type of algae is still to be discovered, due to its tiny size and often the location (Arctic waters in this case). The article also states that as much as 50 percent of the globe's photosynthesis is conducted in areas of ocean that contain such microscopic algae. As suggested by the author, with findings like this and knowing that up to 90 percent of its kind is still to be discovered, it can be wondered how much in the Ocean waters has yet to be discovered.

H.M.S. Challenger

Seen here are two instruments that were used on the H.M.S. Challenger as bottom samplers. As stated in the article where the drawings were found, many sites provided a wide variety of samples from the floor. It is hard to believe that devices that were so simplistic looking were capable of collecting such samples. The device on the right was used for deep sea water while the one on the left was for more shallow waters. The images were found on a website titled "The Voyage of the Challenger" which can be visited at: http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/challenger.html

The article also describes these devices and gives the impression that they were lacking in many areas such as strength and the ability to close and trap samples inside. Therefore, it was believed that many samples were lost in the hauling process and it seems to me that perhaps there was many things that were left behind. I suppose it is impossible to see everything though, especially where enough information was collected to write 50 volumes.