Friday, September 10, 2021

NSF announces new sci-tech center to study ocean chemical-microbe network and climate change

The WHOI-Based Center includes 13 institutional partners

WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

Sampling occurs day and night — IMAGE: A NEW NSF-FUNDED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER BASED AT WHOI WILL CONDUCT TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH, ALONG WITH EDUCATION AND OUTREACH, TO PROMOTE A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF THE CHEMICALS AND CHEMICAL PROCESSES THAT UNDERPIN OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS. view more
CREDIT: LIZ KUJAWINSKI /©WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

Woods Hole, MA (September 9, 2021) --A new Science and Technology Center, which the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today, will conduct transformative research, along with education and outreach, to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of the chemicals and chemical processes that underpin ocean ecosystems.

The Center for Chemical Currencies of a Microbial Planet (C-CoMP), which will be based at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is one of six centers that NSF announced today. NSF has made an initial commitment for five years of support with the possibility of continued support for five additional years.

At a time when increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are causing global temperatures to dramatically rise and make the ocean warmer and more acidic, C-CoMP will strive to bring rapid and transformative advances to understanding the behavior of bioreactive molecules and ocean microbes that are involved in one-quarter of the Earth’s annual organic carbon cycle.

The center will integrate research, education, and knowledge transfer activities and support interdisciplinary science teams to close knowledge gaps in the identities and dynamics of molecules that serve as the “currencies” of elemental transfer within marine microbial communities and between the ocean and atmosphere.

“NSF's Science and Technology Centers in ocean sciences have been beacons of scientific and technological leadership, and they have led to some of our deepest understandings of the critical role of the ocean in sustaining our planet,” said Richard Murray, WHOI’s deputy director and vice president for science and engineering. “This new center, led by WHOI and the University of Georgia, will undoubtedly have a big impact not only at these lead institutions and their partners, but throughout the scientific community, given the breadth of interdisciplinary study encompassing biology, chemistry, modeling, and informatics.”

Gaining a better understanding of this carbon flux is important because so much of the carbon derived from photosynthesis on Earth is involved in a rapid cycle in which biologically reactive molecules are released into seawater and converted back into inorganic form by marine bacteria within a matter of hours to days. The central mechanism of this fast cycle is a chemical-microbe network, connecting the production, release, and consumption of dissolved molecules by surface ocean microbes. These chemical currencies can include growth substrates and vitamins that sustain mixed microbial communities that underpin the surface ocean ecosystem. However, the controls on this network, and its links to carbon sequestration in the deep ocean, are not known. Consequently, its sensitivities to changing ocean conditions are also unknown, and responses to future climate scenarios are not predictable.

“If we don’t know the resilience of this chemical-microbe network to a changing climate, we’re missing a pretty fundamental mechanism in the way the planet works,” said Elizabeth Kujawinski, a senior scientist in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department, and the director of C-CoMP. “The overarching questions are what are the key molecules within this carbon pool, how quickly do they cycle, and what is the pool’s sensitivity to the changing climate. The ocean is already changing, and we don’t have time to wait to understand these fundamental questions.”

Other science themes include understanding the rules of the chemical-microbial network, including the connections between different organisms; and understanding the network sensitivity and feedbacks on climate.

“We can’t actually watch what ocean microbes are doing, because of their extremely small size. Yet, they are literally driving the major carbon and nutrient cycles that keep the planet alive. Better understanding of the network of microbes and chemicals will improve our ability to predict the way the ocean works, now and in the future” said Mary Ann Moran, Regents' Professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Marine Sciences. Moran is C-CoMP’s co-director and research coordinator.

To tackle critical challenges, C-CoMP will leverage emerging tools and technologies, including advanced chemical tools to isolate and identify molecules produced by marine microbes, emerging molecular biology tools to link physiology to function across groups of microbes, and new informatics tools to leverage existing datasets of marine microbial and environmental parameters.

A major emphasis of the center will be working to expand ocean literacy among students of all ages and to broaden workforce diversity in the ocean sciences.

“I would like the center’s legacy to be a community of scientists and others who can support and advance this important work; a more diverse ocean science community; and a more collaborative approach to these questions that incorporates chemistry, biology, modeling, and other disciplines to better understand fundamental oceanographic mechanisms,” Kujawinski said.

C-CoMP’s participating institutions include WHOI and UGA as well as the University of Virginia, Columbia University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Stanford University, Boston College, Ohio State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the University of Florida.

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. WHOI’s pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu

Doing Poseidon’s work: How citizen scientists are restoring NSW’s endangered seagrass meadows

Citizen scientist volunteers known as the ‘storm squad’ collected seagrass fragments to successfully rehabilitate populations of NSW’s endangered Posidonia australis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Giulia planting — IMAGE: UNSW SCIENCE'S GIULIA FERRETTO PLANTING POSIDONIA AUSTRALIS INTO OLD BOAT MOORING SCARS IN PORT STEPHENS. view more
CREDIT: PHOTO: GRUMPY TURTLE CREATIVE.

An endangered seagrass which supports seahorses, blue swimmer crabs and snapper is being successfully rehabilitated thanks to the help of citizen scientists and UNSW scientists.

A study led by UNSW Science PhD student Giulia Ferretto and published in Biological Conservation, enlisted the help of 80 citizen scientists to restore Posidonia australis in Port Stephens.

“We have been restoring Posidonia in mooring scars in Port Stephens, the second most impacted estuary by boat moorings in NSW,” Ms Ferretto says.

“We launched Operation Posidonia – a collaboration between UNSW, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and UWA – in 2018 and engaged over 5000 people through our social media channels and guided seagrass meetings with local groups and high schools.

“Over two years, our ‘army’ of volunteer citizen scientists – a ‘Storm Squad’ of beach goers, dog walkers and kayakers – collected a total of 1500 naturally detached Posidonia shoots washed up on the beach after storms, strong winds and high tides.” Ms Ferretto says when conditions were favourable, a one-hour beach walk could collect as many as 30 viable seagrass fragments.

The shoots were kept in large floating boxes before being replanted by divers in a variety of underwater locations, including the scars caused by boat mooring.

Ms Ferretto says most transplanted fragments produced new shoots after only a few months and are beginning to re-establish on their own, expanding in nearby areas.

“We found that fragments planted in winter survived better that those planted in summer, with some replanted areas reaching 70 per cent survival after one year,” Ms Ferretto says.

“This is a great result considering that otherwise those fragments wouldn’t have had another chance than drying up at sun.”

The team is now expanding Operation Posidonia in Lake Macquarie and Botany Bay, two of the estuaries where Posidonia is formally listed as endangered.

The method of collecting washed up, naturally detached fragments of Posidonia (from heaps known as wrack), was adapted from an Italian study which also used Posidonia.

“One of the main problems with restoring an endangered plant is obtaining the material for the revegetation,” Ms Ferretto says.

CAPTION

A healthy Posidonia australis seagrass meadow (L) and a fragmented seagrass meadow due to boat mooring scars in Shoal Bay, Port Stephens (R).

CREDIT

Photos: Grumpy Turtle Creative (L) and DPI Fisheries NSW Spatial Data Portal (R).

USAGE RESTRICTIONS

Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

“Posidonia [species] have an interesting distribution, they are only found in Australia and in the Mediterranean Sea.

“The idea of using storm-generated fragments for restoration was initially developed by a group of scientists in Italy and applied to [their] local seagrass, Posidonia oceanica.

“We then combined this idea with the use of citizen science to speed up the collection of the fragments.”

Posidonia australis is a foundation species of seagrass which creates a complex and three-dimensional habitat that supports and sustains hundreds of other species, Ms Ferretto says.

“It provides food and shelter to many species of fish and invertebrates, which live amongst seagrass leaves to look for food or find protection from predators,” she says.

“Some of the more ‘famous’ species supported by Posidonia are the White’s seahorse (which is also endangered) and commercially important species like blue swimmer crabs, bream, snapper and luderick.”

“Seagrass meadows are also extremely effective at capturing and sequestering carbon and can slow down climate change by storing carbon more efficiently than terrestrial forests, as well stabilising sediments and protecting our shorelines from erosion.”

She says the trouble is that Posidonia’s preferred habitat – of clear waters and sheltered coves – is also the preferred habitat for recreational boating.

The traditional mooring of these boats, which involves a chain and concrete ‘block’ that harrows the seagrass bed, creates raw ‘sand scars’, which join up to form larger uninhabitable zones.

Some of these mooring sites, around Port Stephens, have been replaced by less destructive environmentally friendly moorings and it’s these sites that the team is restoring.

She says the response from the Port Stephens community to the project was awesome.

“The planting moment for me was the best part, especially when the marine life just started to swim around us divers,” she says.

“There was one site, in particular, where every time we’d dive there, there was a group of cuttlefish following us from the moment we would jump in till the end of the dive, as if they were checking if we were doing a good job.

“Turning around after a long dive and seeing that patch that before had only sand now having beautiful green Posidonia leaves gave me a wonderful sensation every time.”

The citizen scientist call-out was part of ‘Operation Posidonia’, a collaboration between UNSW, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and the University of Western Australia.

###

JOURNAL

Conservation Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109308

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Naturally-detached fragments of the endangered seagrass Posidonia australis collected by citizen scientists can be used to successfully restore fragmented meadows

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

15-Aug-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Biodiversity loss may have serious consequences for water courses in well-conserved areas

The University of the Basque Country leads GLoBE, a collaborative research network that spans the rivers of 23 countries

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Studying the functioning of river ecosystems — IMAGE: THE STREAM ECOLOGY GROUP FROM THE UPV/EHU-UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY LEADS AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK TO STUDY THE FUNCTIONING OF RIVER ECOSYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD. view more
CREDIT: STREAM ECOLOGY GROUP. UPV/EHU

GLoBE is an international research network that conducts pioneering studies on the functioning of river ecosystems at a global scale, and which has a growing number of collaborators in different countries. Luz Boyero, an Ikerbasque Professor from the Stream Ecology group at the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country, is the founder and coordinator of the research network, which now comprises over 50 research teams: 'We formulated a hypothesis, designed an experiment and proposed a protocol to all members of the network. Every team follows exactly the same protocol, so that we can be sure that the data generated are truly global and are obtained using the same methodology'. The network members analyse how different stressors, such as biodiversity loss, affect the functioning of river ecosystems.

The latest studies carried out by the network span 40 rivers and headwater streams located in little disturbed regions in 23 countries all over the world. The results, which have been published in the prestigious scientific journals Science Advances and Nature Communications, demonstrate, for the first time at a global scale, the relationship between biodiversity loss (both detritivore and plant) and ecosystem functioning (decomposition of leaf fall and plant litter) in different climate zones. 'The plant litter decomposition process is a good indicator of the health of the ecosystem; it tells us whether the ecosystem is functioning as it should or if something has changed', explains the researcher from the Plant Biology and Ecology Department of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country.

All alterations to ecosystems have their consequences

As the ecologist, who is an expert in biodiversity and the functioning of river ecosystems, explains, one of the principal conclusions drawn by these studies is that 'diversity is very important and biodiversity loss may have serious consequences for the functioning of pristine river ecosystems'. 'Any alteration to any ecosystem will eventually have consequences: species are lost and this alters the processes that take place in them', she adds.

The two studies also demonstrate that 'the severity of these consequences may differ in different regions of the world, depending on the climate zone in question. It seems that the greatest impacts are occurring in the tropics, where regulations are less strict in terms of ecosystem alteration, land use, pesticides and the disturbance of riverside areas. In these regions, the likelihood of certain species being lost is greater than in Europe, for example, where regulations are much stricter in this area', she points out. The international team has observed that 'in the tropics, the impact of species loss is greater, and we also know that more species are being lost due to more severe habitat disturbance'.

Boyero also talks about the difficulties involved in conducting this type of global study: 'the logistics are tricky because there are so many collaborators, since one team cannot travel the world conducting all the experiments'. The researcher has high praise for the work carried out by the network: 'It is very important that many different researchers who are all interested in the same issues remain in contact and agree to work together to demonstrate things at a planetary scale, because the worst impacts are currently occurring at that scale, and it is important to try and find global responses to global problems'. Nevertheless, Boyero also remarks that 'it is difficult to find the money required to conduct this type of project, because there are no global entities that provide this kind of funding, although it is also true that there is increasing awareness of the importance of this kind of work'. The researcher goes on to point out that the network is currently trying to find collaborators in those parts of Africa and Asia where less work has been carried out to date.

Boyero's team is also drafting a protocol for a new global study on microplastic pollution. 'It is as yet unclear whether or not microplastics are present in the ecosystems in which we work, which are mainly rivers and streams in well-conserved areas. We have conducted several experiments locally, as well as in the lab, and now we want to determine whether or not the microplastics that may be present in the atmosphere have reached these ecosystems, and if so, what effects they may be having', concludes Boyero.

All alterations to ecosystems have their consequences

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-23930-2

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Impacts of detritivore diversity loss on instream decomposition are greatest in the tropics

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jun-2021

Transforming marine biodiversity discovery and monitoring

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

Water samples being collected on an ocean-going ferry pic1 — IMAGE: WATER SAMPLES BEING COLLECTED ON AN OCEAN-GOING FERRY view more
CREDIT: IVO BONATO

A new system for sampling fragments of DNA from marine organisms drifting in the ocean is set to create new opportunities for research on biodiversity and ways of supporting conservation activities.

Over the past decade biodiversity researchers have increasingly used DNA sequences extracted from environmental samples such as soil, marine and fresh water, and even air — termed environmental DNA (eDNA) — to identify the organisms present in a huge range of habitats.

Sequencing these tiny traces of DNA has proved to be a powerful technique for detecting elusive species that may only rarely be observed directly, or in early life stage, when they may be difficult to identify, revolutionising biodiversity discovery and monitoring.

Researchers from the University of Leeds and University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy have developed an innovative new approach for collecting marine eDNA samples which promises to open up biodiversity monitoring of remote offshore ocean locations.

The team has developed a novel system for easy sampling that can be deployed from ocean-going ferries and other commercial vessels such as container ships, allowing the possibility of using the global commercial shipping fleet to help monitor marine biodiversity.

Although DNA sequencing is becoming more cost-effective every year, the biggest challenge is often collecting samples over the large geographic areas needed to scale up these new monitoring techniques to a global reach.

Sampling marine eDNA far from land usually depends on access to dedicated research vessels, which are complex and expensive to operate. These logistical constraints limit the geographic scope and frequency of surveys, impeding the expansion of large scale eDNA surveys.

The new system does not require complex equipment deployed from a ship; water is collected from the engine cooling system with simple apparatus and can be carried out by non-specialists. Since commercial vessels regularly cross remote corners of most of the world’s oceans, they could provide almost limitless opportunities for sample collection to contribute to biodiversity monitoring programmes.

The team collaborated with the company Corsica-Sardinia Ferries, which supports a long-term visual survey programme for cetaceans run by ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research; also a partner in the current study), to test the system, on their route between Livorno in Tuscany, and Golfo Aranci in Sardinia.

The results showed the ferry-collected samples had traces of DNA from all parts of the vertebrate ecosystem, ranging from small prey fish at the base of the food chain, such as anchovies and sardines, through small and larger predatory fish such as tuna and swordfish, all the way to dolphins, and ocean giants including fin and sperm whales.

Co-lead author Dr Simon Goodman, from the School of Biology, University of Leeds, is co-lead author of the report, published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

He said: “When we first started to dig into the sequencing results I was astounded as to how well it had captured the structure of the vertebrate ecosystem.

“It’s a really exciting result and highlights the power that eDNA has for revealing fine scale ecological variation”.

One of the study leads, Dr Elena Valsecchi from the Department of Environmental and Earth Sciences, the University of Milano-Bicocca, said: “This innovative methodology applied to environmental DNA allows us to make a sort of CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan of the sea.

“Next we will be scanning multiple ferry routes in the Mediterranean in order to produce a high-resolution "image" on the state of biodiversity in our seas.”

Overall eDNA from 100 unique vertebrate species were detected, with species composition proving to be a good match for that known from the Mediterranean from conventional survey techniques.

In addition, the team detected fine scale variation in species occurrence related to environmental factors, such as that the relative abundance of sequences for anchovy and sardines correlated with the different water temperatures the species are known to prefer for spawning.

Sequences from deep-sea species such as lantern fish, were more frequent at night for some samples, corresponding with the daily vertical migrations through the water column such bathypelagic species are known to make.