Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Let's talk #zooplankton nets. Why, on a large ship, do we use a net with very small diameter (0.4 m), but it is long (2 m)? Efficiency! These nets filter better, while not collecting *too much. #Eutrophic systems like #LakeErie clog nets with algae, so less volume is better. We target sizes using different Nitex meshes, most often 63 or 153 μm in the #GreatLakes. To measure volume, we use a flow meter mounted just off-center in the net mouth (know why?). #Science

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Not all #autotrophs fix carbon through #photosynthesis. Some #bacteria (lithoautotrophs) use the minerals leached from rock for energy. Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans metabolizes pyrite with oxygen to produce sulfites and sulfuric acid. This causes Acid Mine Drainage #AMD in #streams that drain old coal mines. This *very acidic discharge is oxidized as it contacts air, turning iron bright orange (rust), and contains many #toxic metals.
https://uwaterloo.ca/wat-on-earth/news/acid-mine-drainage-past-presentfuture

Fresh Scent hospital deodorant smells like spaghetti. #factoid

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

One #Hakai video I just posted on was on Diel Vertical Migration of #zooplankton (also motile #phytoplankton). DVM is the largest movement on biomass on the planet, occurring every morning and evening in #lakes and #oceans, as much as 100s of meters (impressive for something a couple mm long). They swim up to feed on algae at night and to avoid visual predators. They also save on energy because deeper cooler water means slower metabolism.
https://youtu.be/OSCZ6athDGI?list=PLD5wTqJwsmGxI9G2B8rM7zV7TIG-mJ_c8

Random #factoid...

#EleanorRoosevelt was in a 40 year lesbian relationship with a journalist, #LorenaHickok, who was apparently her exclusive partner after president #Roosevelt died. Before #FDR was president, this was considered exotic, but not important enough to report. After FDR died, it was considered too scandalous to report, as cold-war era anti-LGBTQ sentiment had begun. It was revealed in letters long after they'd all died.

Just some #Queer #History for y'all.

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Related to my FLIP post, this ship was vital to study of Langmuir Circulation. Wind on water results in alternating spirals forming sequential zones of convergence downwelling and divergence upwelling. Bubbles & buoyant flotsam collect in downwelling zones forming distinctive "windrows". The diffuse upwelling zone aggregates sinking / swimming #zooplankton (depends on swimming speed) targetting food particles in the current. #Oceanography
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.4319/LO.1980.25.5.0840

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Copepods (latin: oar footed) are the most abundant metazoan (multicellular) organisms on our planet. They live anywhere there is water: oceans, lakes, rivers, ponds, caves, pitcher plants (really), under polar ice, in tropics, even around the hot water near hydrothermal vents. Over 21,000 described species with wildly diverse shapes, avg 1-2mm length in 3 groupings: calanoids, cyclopoids, harpacticoids. Impressive swimmers.
Spongebob's S.J. Plankton is a copepod.

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

You've likely heard that ½ the world's #oxygen comes from the ocean. Given #algae are only 1% of the biomass of land plants, how can that be? #Phytoplankton grow rapidly, doubling every day or so, and don't have structural elements like trunks or roots.
*But all living things respire using O2 as well (incl algae), so this % is a very long view since O2 levels have been stable for ~500 M years. #carbon

Paul Falkowski: "Power of Plankton"
https://www.nature.com/articles/483S17a

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

An important yet not well understood component of the plankton are #viruses. They are ubiquitous in all aquatic systems, infecting #zooplankton, #phytoplankton, #microbes & more. They are vital for carbon flux, algal bloom #lysis (cell death), which can lead to toxin release. As you might expect, because of their small size (often >60 nm) they are hard to sample and measure.
A story on the recently documented mirusvirus 🤓😏 here.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/microbiology/bizarre-never-before-seen-viruses-discovered-thriving-throughout-the-worlds-oceans

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

The story on "greening of the oceans" has been covered recently, but kudos to the Guardian on this article. The collaborative study (link in article) led by the National Oceanography Centre, Southhampton uses #MODIS satellite data from 56% of the ocean surface and a #biogeochemistry model to measure increased green colour (chlorophyll-a in #phytoplankton), esp in the temperate ocean, over the last 20 years (which is short!). #ClimateChange
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/12/worlds-oceans-changing-colour-due-to-climate-breakdown-study-suggests

🥥 Little-known #factoid: #Cornwall actor #RobertNewton, #Mexican actor #Cantinflas, and #Spanish entertainer #SeñorWences are the only non-Scandinavians permitted to own the rare and coveted #NorwegianBlueParrot by order of the #NorwegianKing. 🥥

Time for updated #introduction with the new influx of users from dysfunctional Twitter.

I'm a #GreatLakes Research Scientist working for Fisheries and Oceans #Canada (#DFO) based out of the Canada Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington. My group is responsible for lower trophic #FoodWebs (microbes, phytoplankton, #zooplankton and diets of forage #fishes). This supports recreational & commercial fisheries and ecosystem health in the lakes.

Sunday #plankton #factoid
#photography #music #theatre

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Several news articles recently about #bioluminescence showing glowing waves crashing against beaches. Usually caused by #dinoflagellates, this #chemoluminescence reaction (luciferin with luciferase) is widespread throughout the water column by many organisms (fish, jellyfish, zooplankton, mollusks, bacteria...). Very common in the deep sea for communication, predation, and escape, and often due to bacterial #symbiosis. Most light is blue or green but can be red.

After several meetings on DH #infrastructure (e.g. how to organise shared access to GPU-clusters?), supervising two #PhD candidates (on #distantviewing #Newsreels and on interdisciplinary #digitalScholarlyEditions, preparing for a presentation on #srmanticweb and #regesta if #medieval #charters (#diplomaticsrulez), teaching #Persona methods to a DH course on the example of #endangeredlanguages #digitalarchives and conversion of book #indices into #factoid #prosopography I finally conclude my #dayofdh2023 #dayofdh with bottle of beer ...

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

#Noctiluca scintillans has been in the news lately. Called sea-sparkle for its bioluminescence. It's a heterotrophic (no photosynthesis) athecate (no shell) #dinoflagellate that feeds by phagotrophy (engulfing). Quite large for a single-celled organism, up to 2 mm in diameter. Though not algae it can form colorful orange harmful blooms by releasing ammonium toxic to invertebrate and fish gills. #HABs
Also available as a giant microbe plush.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.king5.com/amp/article/tech/science/environment/water-orange-noctiluca-bloom-west-seattle/281-a137d138-cce3-4537-a8d5-8da0e1a04014

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

Ocean autotrophs are vital to the carbon cycle via Biological Pump. #Phytoplankton take up carbon dioxide #CO2 to form glucose (photosynthesis). Some CO2 is lost to respiration (which all living things do), but more carbon is fixed than lost. Heterotrophs respire as well, and decay also releases CO2 (remineralization). Once organic carbon sinks to a certain depth (temperature influenced), remineralization is slow, so carbon gets stored in the ocean. #ClimateChange

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

While many #zooplankton have eye-spots of pigment, and do respond to light cues (thus diel vertical migration), some are weirdly advanced. A 🇨🇦 study found that predatory athecate #dinflagellate called Warnowiids have an almost animal-like #eye structure called an ocelloid used to track prey. The structure has organelles formed from several cell structures and endosymbionts, which form a type of retina, cornea, and lens. 👁

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150701133348.htm

#factoid

Sunday #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠

With invention of the microscope in the 1600s, one of the first #zooplankton species described were #rotifers by John Harris and Antonie van Leuwenhoek. Named "wheeled animalcules" because of their distinctive ciliated corona used for feeding. Ubiquitous in most #freshwater systems. Some can be dried out and revived, and though they are dioecious, many are parthenogenic (female clones). Very important to aquatic #FoodWebs.

(Wallace 2002)
https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/42/3/660/724027

@glizzyborden

Eat Byron (probably the cleanest), abandon Einstein (too wacky and no practical skills), so leave with Napoleon? I suppose he knew how to get shit done so might come in handy. Fun fact - in researching this (yes I did research), I found out there's an Indian cricketer called Napoleon Einstein.

#factoid