Scientists have known for years that these symbiotic microorganisms serve up nitrogen to their coral hosts, but this new study sheds light on the dynamics of the process and reveals that the algae have the ability to store excess nitrogen, a capability that could help corals cope in their chronically low-nitrogen environment.
"It was a great surprise to find the nitrogen-rich crystals inside the algae," says corresponding author Anders Meibom of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. "It all makes perfect sense now. The algae suck up the ammonium and nitrate like a sponge when the concentration of these molecules increases, then store this nitrogen as uric acid crystals for later use."
Like all reef-forming corals, the species they studied, Pocillopora damicornis, is actually a symbiosis of two different organisms: the coral provides protection to a species of photosynthetic algae called dinoflagellates, which, in turn, provide sugars and nitrogen to the coral host. The symbiosis allows the coral to thrive in clear, tropical waters that are naturally nutrient-poor. In many places, however, coral reefs are suffering from an excess of nutrients - pollution from sewage and fertilizers that impacts the symbiotic relationship and the health of coral in unknown ways.
To better understand these exchanges of materials and to determine how an excess of nutrients might affect the balance, the researchers exposed pieces of coral to varying concentrations of isotopically-labeled nitrogen-rich compounds. Using the facilities at the Aquarium Tropicale Porte Dorée in Paris, France, the scientists applied a relatively new analytic technique called nano-scale secondary ion mass-spectrometry (NanoSIMS) to follow the path of the nitrogen. NanoSIMS enabled them to visualize and quantify the uptake, movement, and accumulation of this labeled nitrogen within the coral.
When supplied with nitrogen in the form of ammonium, nitrate or aspartic acid the dinoflagellates responded by rapidly storing the nitrogen as crystals of uric acid within its cells. But the dinoflagellates don't hang onto the nitrogen for long. Starting at about six hours after exposure, the microbes begin translocating nitrogen-rich compounds to the coral host, where the nitrogen is used in specific cellular compartments all over the surface layers of the coral.
This storage and release process helps explain how these corals get through the ups and downs of nitrogen concentrations, says Meibom. "This gives the coral-algae symbiosis a very efficient way to deal with strong fluctuations in nitrogen availability," writes Meibom. "When the nitrogen availability suddenly becomes high, the algae can take-up large amounts of nitrogen on a timescale of a few hours, store it into crystals inside the algae cells and then release this stored nitrogen for metabolic processes and growth when the nitrogen levels become normal again."
To follow up on this work, Meibom says he and his colleagues are now studying how carbon-based nutrients are taken up and distributed in the same coral-algae symbiosis.
Journal Reference: C. Kopp, M. Pernice, I. Domart-Coulon, C. Djediat, J. E. Spangenberg, D. T. L. Alexander, M. Hignette, T. Meziane and A. Meibom. Highly Dynamic Cellular-Level Response of Symbiotic Coral to a Sudden Increase in Environmental Nitrogen. mBio, 2013 DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00052-13
In this video, presented by the Sustainable Aquarium Industry Association, we get an in-depth look at why and how fishermen practice dynamite fishing in the Philippines. We see first-hand how fishermen take empty brandy bottles, fill them with a mix of sand and fertilizer, and then seal it with pieces of old rubber flip-flops and a "firecracker" with a shortened fuse. These firecrackers are not what we typically call a firecracker in the States as they are larger and appear to be either as big or larger than M80's.
Later in the documentary, we see how they are employed and also talk to a fisherman that was a bit too reckless with his bomb and injured three fingers on his hand when one went off too early.
The docuentary was produced by NDR Media GmbH for german TV from 02/17/2013.
A carcass that washed up on a Seattle-area beach this spring provided a reminder that sleek fin whales, nicknamed “greyhounds of the sea,” are vulnerable to collision when they strike fast-moving ships. Knowing their swimming behaviors could help vessels avoid the animals. Understanding where and what they eat could also help support the fin whale’s slowly rebounding populations.
University of Washington oceanographers are addressing such questions using a growing number of seafloor seismometers, devices that record vibrations. A series of three papers published this winter in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America interprets whale calls found in earthquake sensor data, an inexpensive and non-invasive way to monitor the whales. The studies are the first to match whale calls with fine-scale swimming behavior, providing new hints at the animals’ movement and communication patterns.
The research began a decade ago as a project to monitor tremors on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a seismically active zone more than a mile deep off the Washington coast. That was the first time UW researchers had collected an entire year’s worth of seafloor seismic data.
“Over the winter months we recorded a lot of earthquakes, but we also had an awful lot of fin-whale calls,” said principal investigator William Wilcock, a UW professor of oceanography. At first the fin whale calls, which at 17 to 35 vibrations per second overlap with the seismic data, “were kind of just a nuisance,” he said.
In 2008 Wilcock got funding from the Office of Naval Research to study the previously discarded whale calls.
Dax Soule, a UW doctoral student in oceanography, compared the calls recorded by eight different seismometers. Previous studies have done this for just two or three animals at a time, but the UW group automated the work to analyze more than 300,000 whale calls.
The method is similar to how a smartphone’s GPS measures a person’s location by comparing paths to different satellites. Researchers looked at the fin whale’s call at the eight seismometers to calculate a position. That technique let them follow the animal’s path through the instrument grid and within 10 miles of its boundaries.
Soule created 154 individual fin whale paths and discovered three categories of vocalizing whales that swam south in winter and early spring of 2003. He also found a category of rogue whales that traveled north in the early fall, moving faster than the other groups while emitting a slightly higher-pitched call.
“One idea is that these are juvenile males that don’t have any reason to head south for the breeding season,” Soule said. “We can’t say for sure because so little is known about fin whales. To give you an idea, people don’t even know how or why they make their sound.”
The fin whale’s call is not melodic, but that’s a plus for this approach. The second-long chirp emitted roughly every 25 seconds is consistently loud and at the lower threshold of human hearing, so within range of earthquake monitoring instruments. These loud, repetitive bleeps are ideally suited for computer analysis.
Michelle Weirathmueller, a UW doctoral student in oceanography, used Soule’s triangulations to determine the loudness of the call. She found the fin whale’s call is surprisingly consistent at 190 decibels, which translates to 130 decibels in air – about as loud as a jet engine.
Knowing the consistent amplitude of the fin whale’s song will help Weirathmueller track whales with more widely spaced seismometer networks, in which a call is recorded by only one instrument at a time. Those include the Neptune Canada project, the U.S. cabled observatory component of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, and the huge 70-seismometer Cascadia Initiative array that’s begun to detect tremors off the Pacific Northwest coast.
“We’d like to know where the fin whales are at any given time and how their presence might be linked to food availability, ocean conditions and seafloor geology,” Weirathmueller said. “This is an incredibly rich dataset that can start to pull together the information we need to link the fin whales with their deep-ocean environments.”
(Press Release University of Washington)
The Zoological Society of London attempted to source a suitable breeding Mangarahara female from other public aquariums but have come up empty handed. They've now turned their attention to private fish collectors in hopes that someone somewhere has a female for the lonely males.
Two of the three known males are over 12 years old, so time is of the essence to stave off extinction. It doesn't bode well that males are notoriously picky and aggressive with their mates. The last attempt to breed these cichlids in Berlin Aquarium ended up with the male killing the female. The London Zoo is hoping their two males are more congenial.
Like many freshwater fish, the Mangarahara cichlids were driven to near extinction by human activities (in this case, with the construction of dams in Madagascar cutting off water to their limited natural distribution). And now they will require human intervention to save them.
If you have or think you have a female, please email The London Zoo at fishappeal@zsl.org. An entire species is literally at stake.
Those of you that are entranced and intrigued by the strange and wonderful world of deep sea life will enjoy this iOS app, available from iTunes for free. It was developed by the Natural History Museum and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.
According to the app's page on iTunes:
Deep Sea ID is a field guide interface to the World Register of Deep-Sea Species (WoRDSS) that currently stores on your device (for offline access) the taxonomic information for over 20,000 deep-sea species, over 350 high-resolution photographs of deep-sea specimens as well as links to online taxonomic tools, sources and important references. The app is designed for the scientific community but also offers a visual tour of the remarkable biodiversity of deep sea life that is of interest to educators and the general public.
Get it now on iTunes.
Earlier this year, Innovative Marine introduced their new MiniMax line of media reactors. These true plug-and-play reactors showcased an ingenious media cartridge-style system that made flow adjustment and media replacement the most elegant we've ever seen for a media reactor. However, while the MiniMax reactors were one of the most inspired media reactors we've seen in a long time, there was one small problem (no pun intended): the MiniMax reactors were originally designed for aquariums with tight space constraints, thus only available in small media capacities suitable for nano aquariums.
That's all changing! Innovative Marine has scaled up their MiniMax all-in-one media reactors. The new reactor MiniMax FullSize shares the same design of their smaller predecessors but now can accept up to one liter of media while still maintaining a small 4.8 inch footprint. The FullSize also features a new laser cut handle to provide improved ergonomic grip that allows for better flow control of the larger media cartridge.
Name: MiniMax FullSize
Item #: 7303
Dimensions: 5.31” x 4.8” x 17.13”
Pump: 211 GPH / 11 Watts
Acrylic Bracket: Included
Media Capacity: 1 Liter
MAP: $199
Availability: May 24th, 2013
The National Aquarium was established in 1873 in Massachusetts, then relocated to Washington DC in 1878. In 2003, DC's National Aquarium merged operations with the much larger National Aquarium at Baltimore, Maryland. Much of DC's livestock will be relocated to Baltimore.
The aquariums board of directors is considering moving the aquarium to another location in Washington DC such as the Smithsonian in order continue the long-standing tradition of having a public aquarium in the nation's capital.
National Aquarium, Washington DC's press release is provided below:
The Board of Directors of the National Aquarium, Washington, DC, has announced that, due to necessary renovations in the Department of Commerce building, the facility will be closing on September 30, 2013. The General Services Administration (GSA) requires National Aquarium to vacate its current space in the building by March 2014.
This September 30 closing date allows National Aquarium, Washington, DC, to meet GSA’s March deadline using a timeline that accommodates its main priority: the needs of its animals and staff. The collection of more than 1,500 animals will be transitioned to new homes at either National Aquarium, Baltimore, or at other accredited aquariums.
“Here at the National Aquarium, we value our DC venue’s rich history as the nation’s first public aquarium, and we are committed to maintaining a presence in the capital, where a public aquarium has existed since the late 1800s,” said Tamika Langley Tremaglio, National Aquarium, Washington, DC, Board Chair.
A task force of National Aquarium Board members is exploring opportunities and funding options that would support this goal. The closure will not impact the operation of National Aquarium, Baltimore, one of the nation’s leading aquariums.
Established in 1873, the National Aquarium, Washington, DC, first opened its doors to visitors in 1885 with a collection of 180 species of fish, reptiles and other aquatic animals.
Using the undersea habitat Aquarius--moored on Conch Reef off Key Largo, Florida--marine scientist Joseph Pawlik of the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and colleagues found that these predator-fish are the same brightly colored angelfish and parrotfish that attract scuba divers and glass-bottom boat tourists.
Pawlik is first author of the PLOS ONE paper; co-authors, all from UNCW, are Tse-Lynn Loh, Steven McMurray and Christopher Finelli.
Chemical warfare beneath the waves
The fish prey on sponges without chemical defenses--sponges missing what might be called the "yuk factor."
"Sponges that manufacture metabolites that are distasteful to fish are largely left alone," says Pawlik.
"That being said, when overfishing by humans removes these predatory fish, reefs shift toward faster-growing sponges that can out-compete reef corals for space.
"That further hinders corals' chances of recovery."
Coral cover on Caribbean reefs is at historic lows due to disease, heat stress from warming waters and waves from storms.
Photo Right: Reef-building corals overgrown by orange sponges on an overfished reef off Martinique. Credit: Joe Pawlik, UNCW
Undersea garden of sponges
"Coral reefs, especially in the Caribbean, have undergone many changes in the past few decades," says David Garrison, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.
"With the decline of reef-building corals, sponges are becoming the main organisms on many reefs. These findings provide important information about interactions between sponges and predatory fish in coral reef communities."
Previous research showed that Caribbean sponge communities were primarily structured by the availability of plankton, or tiny floating plants and animals, rather than by predators.
But sponge growth experiments performed by Pawlik and colleagues--research that used cages to exclude predators--show the opposite.
"Overfished reefs that lack spongivores [sponge-eating fish] soon become dominated by faster-growing, chemically undefended sponge species, which better compete for space with reef-building corals," says Pawlik.
Endangered corals: threatened by 'new game in town'?
That has implications for fisheries management throughout the Caribbean.
"Some coral species are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature] Red List, with four reef-building corals on the top ten list for risk of extinction."
Sponges are already overrunning certain coral reefs.
"As the effects of climate change and ocean acidification disrupt marine communities," says Pawlik, "it's likely that reef-building corals will suffer greater harm than sponges, which don't form at-risk limestone skeletons [as corals do]."
Hence, he believes, Caribbean reefs of the future are likely to be made up increasingly of sponges.
Scuba divers and glass-bottom boat tourists may visit not to view coral reefs, but to see the new game in town: the sponges.
(FYI: The Great White scenes begin at about 2:00, but the whole short video is totally worth watching).
An investigation is underway to determine the identity of the prankster. Officials are reviewing surveillance video and employee rosters. The power plant was undergoing a refueling outage, and approximately 1,000 outside contractors had access to the facilities.
The goldfish were found alive but later died.
[via Fox8 Cleveland]
Dr James Bell, who specializes in sponge ecology, is the lead author of an article published in Global Change Biology which suggests that sponges may become the dominant organisms inhabiting coral reefs when the effect of climate change and ocean acidification sets in.
"Coral reefs face an uncertain future as a result of global climate change and other stressors which have a negative impact on reefs," says Dr Bell.
"It has been predicted that many reefs will end up being dominated by algae rather than corals, which will have negative effects on biodiversity and ultimately on the ability of humans to derive protein from reefs."
"However, we propose an alternative scenario—as sponges and corals respond differently to changing ocean chemistry and environmental conditions, we may actually see some coral reefs transforming into sponge reefs."
As part of the study, the group of scientists from Victoria University, the University of Auckland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science considered evidence from a range of sources including the geological record. Paleontological evidence from over 200 million years ago suggests past ocean acidification events were followed by a mass extinction of coral species and subsequent proliferation of sponges.
The scientists have also observed several sites, including places in the Caribbean, Atlantic and Indo-Pacific, where sponges have already increased in abundance as corals have declined.
Despite the important functional roles sponges play on coral reefs including filtering nutrients and providing a habitat for other species, Dr Bell says most research to date has focused on the future of corals.
"Coral reefs provide a home for around one quarter of the world's marine species, so understanding their future is incredibly important."
"Further research on the impacts of ocean acidification and ocean warming on coral reef sponges is urgently required, so that we can help better protect reefs and understand how they might function in the future," says Dr Bell.
Dr Bell has carried out research on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which has some of the most extensive and diverse coral reef systems in the world.
(WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 6, 2013) Let your creativity go WILD! Fish tanks may not be in every household, but they certainly are works of art in high demand. Nat Geo WILD’s popular series Fish Tank Kings returns for a second season beginning Saturday, June 1, at 9 PM ET/PT, taking viewers to the center of the action as the Florida-based aquarium specialists at Living Color use their unparalleled skills, creativity and teamwork to pull off the most extreme tanks. (For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com/fishtankkings and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/NGC_PR.)
Summer heats up as season two brings not only new clients and challenges, but also a whole new set of jaw-dropping aquariums. We’ll join Mat, the “boss”; John, the “engineer”; Ben, the “project manager”; Krusty, the “builder”; Francis, the “fish geek”; and Jose, the “designer”; as they take on larger projects that bring us closer to various marine life not easily accessible, including the giant Pacific octopus, snakehead fish, mermaid's purse, pufferfish, black tip reef sharks and lionfish. Dream as big as you like, and the Fish Tank Kings are at your service to create a custom fish tank. Any shape or size, we got the hook-up!
This season, the guys go bigger and bolder than ever, taking on extreme projects that have never before been attempted before. The team will bring together their unmatched aquatic knowledge with design and expertise to create the most innovative fish tanks, including an aquarium built out of a Volkswagen minibus, a fireplace surrounded by a tank and an impressive 4,000-pound aquatic dream tank. Our cameras will follow the guys from the inception of a design to selecting fish to choosing the reefs and corals. Being there for every reveal, we’ll see clients change their minds 10 times in the process while displays are artistically created.
In addition to building some of the most astonishing tanks, the Fish Tank Kings also swim to the depths of the oceans to get as close to underwater fish and coral as possible to replicate the most accurate-looking coral for tanks. Come along as the guys go diving in the depths of south Florida waters to search for marine life. It’s a fishy job, but somebody’s gotta do it!
Fish Tank Kings: The Amazing Aqua-Van. Premieres Saturday, June 1, at 9 PM ET/PT
Thinking outside the box is at the top of the team’s minds when they are faced with the most complicated job ever — transforming a vintage Volkswagen Minibus into a fish tank for a local car dealer. The years have not been kind to this iconic hippie van, strapped with a questionable structural integrity. Engineering a tank that will weigh 4,000 pounds when filled with saltwater and fish is the
craziest and hardest task they have attempted so far. With a tight deadline looming, the team has a likely disaster on its hands. Will they shatter under pressure? Back at headquarters, fish geek Francis is looking for an assistant, but whoever he decides to hire, there’s no guarantee they’ll be up to the rigorous work schedule or mesh with the guys — all of whom are known for their strong personalities. He puts potential candidate Heather to the test by giving her a quiz on fish species, having her Go On a deep-sea dive and having her perform a risky surgical procedure on a venomous fish. Will she be able to hold her own?
Fish Tank Kings: Big Bowl of Gumbo Limbo. Premieres Saturday, June 8, at 9 PM ET/PT
Restoring a 25,000-gallon tank is no easy task, but the Fish Tank Kings are up to the challenge. The Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, an educational facility and rehab center for sea turtles, has commissioned the guys to help bring their showcase aquarium back into the aquatic oasis it once was. For the crew to pull it off, they’ll have to create a seascape that mirrors a sea turtle’s natural habitat. The obstacles only intensify during the installation as the tank’s marine life, including sharks and stingrays cannot be removed from the premises. The only way to pull off this job is for someone to go swimming with the carnivores, but there aren’t many volunteers! Then the guys are up against one tough client, Lisa, who wants three tanks in one, completed in a fraction of the time the crew allots for such complex projects. When Francis hands The Job over to his assistant Heather, the team fears they may lose The Job. But Heather is trained, eager and ready to have a project she can call her own, until she finds out she’ll be catching her least favorite marine animals — lobsters. Will she succeed?
Fish Tank Kings: Desperate House Tanks. Premieres Saturday, June 15, at 9 PM ET/PT
Although Ben is a great project manager, Mat has noticed he has gotten a bit too comfortable behind his desk. To shake things up, Mat assigns Ben The Job of installing a pair of outsized fish tanks around a fireplace at a private residence in Orlando. What seems like an ordinary job to the rest of the Living Color team proves to be quite the challenge for Ben, as he has to hone both his client relations and physical skills on the fly. If he can’t pull it off, it will jeopardize the company’s reputation and make it impossible for the family to move into their home. Meanwhile, Mat leaves South Florida for Chicago to work on a terrarium, a habitat filled with plants, for a colorful amphibian known as the Panamanian Golden Frog. Although their color resembles that of the valuable metal, it’s their numbers that make them truly precious, as this is a rare animal on the brink of extinction. If the tank isn’t perfect, the very survival of the species could be at risk.
Fish Tank Kings is produced by Sharp Entertainment for Nat Geo WILD. For Sharp Entertainment, Matt Sharp, Dan Adler, Bob Larson and Matthew Blaine are executive producers. For Nat Geo WILD, executive producer is Jenny Apostol, senior vice president of production and development is Janet Han Vissering and general manager is Geoff Daniels.
For more information, visit www.natgeowild.com.
While all fish have personalities, only a few fish have enough personalities for people to regard them as pets. For saltwater, tinker's butterflyfish and dogface puffers may come to mind. For freshwater, oscars clearly fit the bill. A big part of what makes an oscar a "pet fish" is their eagerness to interact with life outside their glass box, and not just with their owners.
Take cats for example. Cats are notoriously interested in aquariums. Oscars are notoriously interested in protecting their aquariums. When you mix the two, you get some entertaining results.
Oscar KOs Felix in under 30 seconds!
An adorable kitten is lucky there's a pane of glass between him and what he thinks is his play toy:
Who's stalking who?
Ed Young over at National Geographic posted an awesome piece yesterday on baby sand tiger sharks. It's a definite must-read on this in utero phenomenon with sand tiger shark breeding and birthing behavior.
To quote Ed:
The first embryo to emerge in each uterus—the ‘hatchling’—always cannibalizes its younger siblings. It’s so voracious that at least one scientist has been bitten by a sand tiger pup while unwisely sticking a finger in a pregnant female’s uterus.
The cannibal not only nourishes itself on its siblings’ bodies, but also gains sole access to the nutritious supply of unfertilized eggs that its mother provides. On this rich diet of yolk and flesh, the hatchling grows at a tremendous pace. When it is eventually born, it’s already a meter in length—that’s big enough to protect it from many predators. “Only really big sharks eat baby sand tigers,” says Demian Chapman from Stony Brook University in New York.
Head over to NatGeo's Phenomena: Not Exactly Rocket Science page and read all the gorey details.