It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
WAIT, WHAT?!
Komodo dragons have iron-coated teeth to rip apart their prey
AND REALLY BAD BREATH
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON
Scientists have discovered that the serrated edges of Komodo dragons’ teeth are tipped with iron.
Led by researchers from King’s College London, the study gives new insight into how Komodo dragons keep their teeth razor-sharp and may provide clues to how dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex killed and ate their prey.
Native to Indonesia, Komodo dragons are the largest living species of monitor lizard, averaging around 80kg. Deadly predators, Komodos have sharp, curved teeth similar to many carnivorous dinosaurs. They eat almost any kind of meat, from smaller reptiles and birds to deer, horses or water buffalo, pulling and tearing at their prey to rip flesh apart.
The researchers discovered that many reptiles have some iron in their teeth, but Komodo dragons have concentrated the iron along the cutting edges and tips of their teeth, staining them orange. Crocodiles and other monitor lizards, by comparison, have so little that the iron is often invisible.
To understand the chemical and structural make-up of Komodo dragon’s teeth, scientists scoured museums for skulls and teeth of Komodo dragons and studied the teeth of Ganas, the 15-year-old Komodo dragon who had lived at ZSL conservation zoo, London Zoo.
Through advanced imaging and chemical analysis, the team was able to observe that the iron in Komodo dragons' enamel is concentrated into a thin coating on top of their tooth serrations and tips. This protective layer keeps the serrated edges of their teeth sharp and ready to be used at a moment’s notice.
The research, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, leads to new questions and avenues for research into how extinct species such as dinosaurs lived and ate.
Dr Aaron LeBlanc, lecturer in Dental Biosciences at King’s College London and the study's lead author said: “Komodo dragons have curved, serrated teeth to rip and tear their prey just like those of meat-eating dinosaurs. We want to use this similarity to learn more about how carnivorous dinosaurs might have ate and if they used iron in their teeth the same way as the Komodo dragon.
“Unfortunately, using the technology we have at the moment, we can’t see whether fossilised dinosaur teeth had high levels of iron or not. We think that the chemical changes which take place during the fossilisation process obscure how much iron was present to start with.
“What we did find, though, was that larger meat-eating dinosaurs, like tyrannosaurs, did change the structure of the enamel itself on the cutting edges of their teeth. So, while Komodo dragons have altered the chemistry of their teeth, some dinosaurs altered the structure of their dental enamel to maintain a sharp cutting edge.
“With further analysis of the Komodo teeth we may be able to find other markers in the iron coating that aren’t changed during fossilisation. With markers like that we would know with certainty whether dinosaurs also had iron-coated teeth and have a greater understanding of these ferocious predators.”
Dr Benjamin Tapley, Curator of Reptiles and Amphibians at ZSL and co-author on the study said: “As the world’s largest lizards, Komodo dragons are inarguably impressive animals. Having worked with them for 12 years at London Zoo, I continue to be fascinated by them and these findings further emphasise just how incredible they are.
“Komodo dragons are sadly endangered, so in addition to strengthening our understanding of how iconic dinosaurs might have lived, this discovery also helps us build a deeper understanding of these amazing reptiles as we work to protect them.”
NEWPORT, Ore. – Hours after tagging an endangered basking shark off the coast of Ireland in April, researchers captured what they believe is the first ever video of a shark or any large marine animal being struck by a boat.
The data, collected by an activity measurement device similar to a FitBit and a connected camera, provided scientists a unique opportunity to learn more about the impact of vessel strikes on large marine animals, which is a rising concern around the globe, said Taylor Chapple, a shark researcher at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and lead author of the study.
“This is the first ever direct observation of a ship strike on any marine megafauna that we’re aware of,” Chapple said. “The shark was struck while feeding on the surface of the water and it immediately swam to the seafloor into deeper, offshore waters, a stark contrast to its behavior prior to the strike.”
“Our findings demonstrate the risk and impact of vessel strikes and the need for measures to reduce this risk.”
Researchers do not know whether the shark, a female about 7 meters long, eventually recovered from the strike. The tag was designed to release itself from the animal at a pre-determined time. About seven hours after the strike, the tag was released and later retrieved by researchers. The data showed the shark never resumed feeding or other normal behavior while it was being monitored, Chapple said.
The findings were just published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
Basking sharks are the second largest known fish, frequently reaching more than 8 meters in length. They are listed as globally endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Ireland is one of the only known locations worldwide where basking sharks continue to aggregate in large numbers.
They filter feed at the water’s surface, similar to some whales, which makes them more susceptible to boat strikes. But unlike the whales, basking sharks often sink when killed, making it hard to gauge mortality rates, said Chapple, assistant professor in the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Basking sharks in Ireland were protected under the country’s Wildlife Act in 2022. Earlier this year, the Irish government announced the establishment of the nation’s first National Marine Park, protecting 70,000 acres of land and sea on the coast of County Kerry where basking sharks frequent seasonally for feeding and potentially mating.
Shortly after the park’s establishment, the researchers were conducting a previously planned study in the park boundaries to learn more about basking shark foraging behavior and how such behavior corresponds to environmental factors. As part of their research, they tagged the basking shark with a camera and activity monitor system while it was feeding.
After following the shark at a safe distance for a few hours, the researchers departed the area for the day. The tag was designed to record autonomously until its scheduled release, at which time the researchers located it and recovered the data.
Data from the tag revealed that for several hours following the tagging and tracking, the shark spent most of its time on the surface, continuing its normal feeding behavior, with an occasional dive. Then the shark attempted to make a quick, evasive movement, which was followed by the keel of a boat cutting across its back, just behind its dorsal fin. The shark tumbled through the water and immediately increased the frequency of its tailbeat as it headed to the seafloor.
Video from the camera showed visible damage to the shark’s skin, paint marks and a red abrasion but no apparent bleeding or open wound. Vessel strikes are not always immediately lethal, but even non-lethal injuries can have short- and long-term consequences for the affected animal, the researchers noted.
“The fact that a shark we fitted our ‘Fitbit’ to was struck in this area within a few hours underlines just how vulnerable these animals are to boats and highlights the need for greater education in how to mitigate against such strikes,” said co-author Nicholas Payne, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Natural Sciences. “Basking sharks filter feed at the surface, like some whales, and this behavior makes them similarly susceptible to strikes.”
The incident highlights the need for additional research on the interactions between water users and basking sharks in the National Marine Park and other hotspots along the Irish coastline, said co-author Alexandra McInturf, a research associate in Chapple’s Big Fish Lab at OSU and co-coordinator of the Irish Basking Shark Group.
“This research raises additional questions about whether and how often the sharks are actually occupying such habitats when they are not clearly visible at the surface,” McInturf said. “Given that Ireland is one of the only locations globally where basking sharks are still observed persistently, addressing such questions will be critical to informing not only our ecological understanding of the basking shark, but also the conservation of this globally endangered species.”
Additional coauthors are David Cade and Jeremy Goldbogen of the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University; and Nick Massett of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group in County Kerry, Ireland.
This image depicts the keel of a boat striking a basking shark.
This image shows paint and an abrasion on the back of a basking shark that ha been struck by a boat.
Behavioral response of megafauna to boat collision measured via animal-borne camera and IMU
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
24-Jul-2024
URI partners on study that tracked whale shark for record-breaking four years
Rio Lady's movements, migration allow researchers to 'investigate whale sharks at a unprecedented degree'
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
KINGSTON, R.I. – July 22, 2024 – A team of researchers at the University of Rhode Island and Nova Southeastern University in Florida have been tracking a 26-foot endangered whale shark – named “Rio Lady” – with a satellite transmitter for more than four years – a record for whale sharks and one of the longest tracking endeavors for any species of shark.
Whale sharks, which live from 80 to 130 years, are the world’s largest fish and third largest creature in the ocean – behind blue and fin whales. The size of a small school bus, they inhabit tropical oceans and swim slowly near the surface, with their mouths wide open, scooping up whatever’s in their path – small fish, fish eggs, and plankton. Annually, they need to travel about 5,000 miles to find enough food to survive. Whale shark populations worldwide have declined, primarily as a result of interactions with humans, to the point where they are now listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List as Globally Endangered.
Researchers at URI and Nova Southeastern tracked Rio Lady for about 27,000 miles over nearly 1,700 days between 2018 and 2023. Her journey took her through the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and out into the Atlantic Ocean south of Bermuda. A study conducted by the researchers was published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research, describing movement, migration and habitat use of Rio Lady.
“This was an amazing length of time to be able to track the movements of a wild animal,” said lead author Daniel Daye, who graduated from URI in May 2023 with a master’s degree in biological and environmental sciences. “Four years of data about the movements of even a single individual has allowed us to investigate whale sharks to an unprecedented degree and investigate questions that can’t be answered with shorter tracks.”
Rio Lady was tracked by satellite telemetry using a smart-position and temperature transmitter (SPOT) affixed to her dorsal fin. The tag provided location transmissions over four years of her life. Satellite telemetry has revolutionized the study of animal movement – particularly with marine species – allowing researchers to uncover long-term movement patterns and core areas for marine animals, the study says.
“As the biggest fish in the ocean, it is challenging to follow the movements of whale sharks over long periods of time,” said Brad Wetherbee, assistant professor of biological sciences at URI and an expert on shark movement and migration, who consulted on the project. “But information on the movements of these endangered sharks is important for management of their populations.”
A primary challenge in managing large marine species, such as the whale shark, said Daye, is that they are hard to follow. Whale sharks travel great distances and routinely dive deep, which makes studying the full extent of their habitat difficult.
“Since these sharks travel such great distances, it’s important to identify when and where the sharks are located, along with what they are doing in each of these areas,” said Daye. “This way management can take a more targeted approach so that effort isn’t wasted on areas when sharks are using habitats elsewhere. While Rio Lady is only one shark, the extremely long lifespan of the SPOT tag has allowed us to start examining some of these questions in more detail regarding what sharks do on a year-to-year basis, rather than a single year.”
Rio Lady was first tagged in 2007 with a pop-up satellite archival transmitter affixed to her near the Isla Mujeres, in waters off Cancun, Mexico, that are frequented by hundreds of whale sharks annually from July through August. She was tracked for 150 days before her transmitter popped off. She was re-tagged in August 2018 in the same area by Rafael de la Parra, executive director of Ch’ooj Ajauil AC, an ocean conservation organization in Mexico. De la Parra also collaborated on the study.
During the study, Rio Lady was detected by satellite over 1,687 days – Aug. 30, 2018 to April 12, 2023. For a period of about 1,085 days – Aug. 30, 2018 to Aug. 18, 2021 – 1,354 locations were recorded at relatively frequent intervals. In that time, she traveled about 27,000 miles, covering about 25 miles a day.
Researchers found that Rio Lady occupied three distinct regions in the Gulf of Mexico and timing of when these areas were used was pretty consistent, Daye said. Between July and August, she consistently returned to the waters near Isla Mujeres. In the area known as the Afuera, hundreds of whale sharks aggregate for the largest gathering worldwide – dining on an endless fish egg “buffet,” said Daye.
After leaving the Afuera area, few detections were received during autumn and winter each year of the study. Rio Lady was believed to travel south into the Caribbean Sea, as far as Colombia for two of the years, before returning to the Gulf of Mexico early in the year. Researchers believe Rio Lady’s seasonal migration may be typical for whale sharks that aggregate off the Isla Mujeres in the summer.
“This unprecedented track of Rio Lady sheds new light on long-term consistency of movements and illustrates the type of information that this technology can generate,” said Mahmood Shivji, professor of biological sciences at Nova Southeastern University, who collaborated on the study.
Rio Lady’s continued journey can be followed on the Guy Harvey Research Institute tracking website, click on project 21.
CREDIT: ILLUSTRATED BY DANIELLE DUFAULT. COURTESY ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
A new study, led by palaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is helping resolve the evolution and ecology of Odaraia, a taco-shaped marine animal that lived during the Cambrian period. Fossils collected by ROM reveal Odaraia had mandibles. Palaeontologists are finally able to place it as belonging to the mandibulates, ending its long enigmatic classification among the arthropods since it was first discovered in the Burgess Shale over 100 years ago and revealing more about early evolution and diversification. The study The Cambrian Odaraia alata and the colonization of nektonic suspension-feeding niches by early mandibulates was published in the journal Proceedings B.
The study authors were able to identify a pair of large appendages with grasping jagged edges near its mouth, clearly indicative of mandibles which are one of the key and distinctive features of the mandibulate group of animals. This suggests that Odaraia was one of the earliest known members of this group. The researchers made another stunning discovery, a detailed analysis of its more than 30 pairs of legs, found an intricate system of small and large spines. According to the authors, these spines could intertwine, capturing smaller prey as though a fishing net, suggesting how some of these first mandibulates left the sea floor and explored the water column, setting the seeds for their future ecological success.
“The head shield of Odaraia envelops practically half of its body including its legs, almost as if it were encased in a tube. Previous researchers had suggested this shape would have allowed Odaraia to gather its prey, but the capturing mechanism had eluded us, until now,” says Alejandro Izquierdo-López, lead author, who was based at ROM during this work as a PhD student at the University of Toronto. “Odaraia had been beautifully described in the 1980s, but given the limited number of fossils at that time and its bizarre shape, two important questions had remained unanswered: is it really a mandibulate? And what was it feeding on?”
At almost 20 cm in size, the authors explain that early mandibulates like Odaraia were part of a community of large animals that could have been able to migrate from the marine bottom-dwelling ecosystems characteristic of the Cambrian period to the upper layers of the water column. These types of communities could have enriched the water column and facilitated a transition towards more complex ecosystems.
Cambrian fossils record the major divergence of animal groups originating over 500 million years ago. This period saw the evolution of innumerable innovations, such as eyes, legs or shells, and the first diversification of many animal groups, including the mandibulates, one of the major groups of arthropods (animals with jointed limbs).
Mandibulates are an example of evolutionary success, representing over half of all current species on Earth. Today, mandibulates are everywhere: from sea-dwelling crabs to centipedes lurking in the undergrowth or bees flying across meadows, but their beginnings were more humble. During the Cambrian period, the first mandibulates were marine animals, most bearing distinct head shields or carapaces.
“The Burgess Shale has been a treasure trove of paleontological information,” says Jean-Bernard Caron, Richard Ivey Curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, and co-author of the study. “Thanks to the work we have been doing at the ROM on amazing fossil animals such as Tokummia and Waptia, we already know a substantial amount about the early evolution of mandibulates. However, some other species had remained quite enigmatic, like Odaraia.”
The Royal Ontario Museum holds the largest collections of Cambrian fossils from the world-renowned Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Burgess Shale fossils are exceptional, as they preserve structures, animals and ecosystems that under normal conditions would have decayed and completely disappeared from the fossil record. Mandibulates, though, are generally rare in the fossil record. Most fossils preserve only the hard parts of animals, such as skeletons or the mineralized cuticles of the well-known trilobites, structures that mandibulates lack.
For over forty years Odaraia has been one of the most iconic animals of the Burgess Shale, with its distinctive taco-shaped carapace, its large head and eyes, and a tail that resembles a submarine's keel. The public can view specimens of Odaraia on display at the Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Photos of Odaraia fossil, ROMIP 60746.
CREDIT
Photo by Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum.
Fossil of Odaraia ROMIP 952413_1.
CREDIT
Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum
JOURNAL
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
The Cambrian Odaraia alata and the colonization of nektonic suspension-feeding niches by early mandibulates
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
23-Jul-2024
Pitt engineers partnering with county on environmental and climate justice solutions
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
As the climate warms, Pennsylvania rainfalls are becoming more extreme while flood-related risks are worsening, according to a recent report from the nonprofit organization Climate Central.
This intensity is only expected to climb with future warming – creating devastating effects on the health and stability of environmental justice communities, communities with predominantly people of color or those living below the poverty line, across Allegheny County.
The Department of Emergency Services, Department of Sustainability and Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) are providing consultation for the climate resilience plans and green stormwater infrastructure designs. Allegheny CleanWays, a local nonprofit organization that works to eliminate illegal dumping and littering in Allegheny County, will oversee the cleaning of illegal dumping grounds and removing trash from waterways.
“This partnership is emblematic of the important role universities can and should play with and in service of our communities, especially communities that are most affected by the flooding we’ve been experiencing these past few years,” said Melissa Bilec, co-director of Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, Special Assistant to the Provost for Sustainability, and the George M. and Eva M. Bevier Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pitt. “I feel honored and grateful to work with a talented team, and aim to demonstrate the service and talent of Pitt Engineering and MCSI.”
Through Pitt’s sustainability capstone course – part of the undergraduate sustainability certificate and graduate degree program in sustainable engineering – students will partner with external stakeholders and determine solutions to these complex sustainability challenges.
“We’re excited to be partnering with Pitt to achieve measurable and meaningful environmental and public health results in our environmentally vulnerable communities," said Dr. Stephen Strotmeyer, program manager, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, ACHD. "This has been a county goal since the creation of the Plan for a Healthier Allegheny to improve climate resilience and preparedness by 2027.”
As part of the grant, $93,110 will be allocated to Pitt to design small-scale green infrastructure projects that align with the climate resilience plans created by collaborations between municipal leaders and residents in environmental justice communities, the ACHD, the Steel Rivers and Turtle Creek Valley Councils of Governments (COGs), and other government and academic partners. The plans will use data from the ACHD Climate Resilience Dashboard and input from the community gathered during a series of focus groups.
“Students will meet with government councils, municipalities, and nonprofit partners to learn about the priorities of each community. The goal is that they create designs for green infrastructure projects that are cost effective within a reasonable timeframe,” said David Sanchez, MCSI associate director and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. “These projects will be created by the community, for the community to divert stormwater and reduce the impacts of flooding.”
In addition to their physical projects, students will develop a model to estimate the amount of storm water diverted per project, the total projected environmental impact, and the estimated maintenance costs.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the EJG2G program provides funding at the state, local, territorial and tribal level to support government activities that lead to measurable environmental or public health impacts in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms. For 2023, the EPA selected 88 EJC2C cooperative agreements that receive a total of $86.1 million in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and annual appropriation act funding to help underserved and overburdened communities across the country.
Colonial legacy: Goethe University Frankfurt researches international project on land use conflicts in West Africa
German Research Foundation and foreign funding institutions provide €620,000 in funding
NEWS RELEASE
GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT
IMAGE:
THROUGH TRANSHUMANCE AND CAUSE LAND USE CONFLICTS IN THE SAVANNAH FOREST ECOSYSTEM. THIS PROCESS WILL INTENSIFY IN THE FUTURE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND DWINDLING RESOURCES.
CREDIT: JUERGEN RUNGE, GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT, GERMANY
FRANKFURT. During the German and French colonial period, at the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century, around 50,000 farmers from the Kabyè ethnic group were forcibly resettled from the densely populated north to the sparsely populated south in what are now the West African states of Togo and Benin. Whereas the German colonial power needed workers to build transport routes, the French government wanted to develop the region for agriculture.
To this day, however, farming is difficult in this part of the country – naturally a tree savannah – where the soil is less fertile and the climate alternates between two wet and two dry seasons. Climate change only serves to exacerbate these agricultural problems. Beyond that, it also acts as an accelerant for land use conflicts with the semi-nomadic Peulh/Fulbe ethnic group, who graze their herds of cattle there.
In the fertile hilly north, where the Kabyè traditionally farm on terraces bordered by low stone walls, the resettlements resulted in labor shortages, market distortions and rural exodus. The indigenous population became increasingly impoverished, amid a looming threat of socio-cultural collapse, which Togo's political leadership has been trying to counteract since the country's independence.
As part of the “Indigenous People of West Africa, IPWA” project, an international team of researchers now wants to examine the consequences of the colonial era in detail and disclose current restrictive social and political structures in indigenous ethnic groups in order to promote good governance that includes indigenous leaders. The aim is to pave the way for indigenous communities to be involved in identifying innovations, solutions and pathways to adapt to and mitigate environmental and climate change.
The three-year IPWA project will start in July 2024 and will receive €620,000 in funding by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), the Canadian New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), the US National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).
IPWA is part of a consortium on global environmental and climate change among indigenous groups with researchers from Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Thailand and the USA.
Project: Confronting “Green Colonialism” – Indigenous-led Action and Solutions for Food-Water-Energy Sustainability (IPWA).
Along the shores of Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor and the Schoodic Peninsula are the vast, briny waters of Frenchman Bay. With 98 square miles of water and 39 islands, the bay is vital to shorebirds, fish, lobstermen and outdoor recreationists. University of Maine researchers, however, have discovered that Frenchman Bay and its tributaries are also home to a significant amount of microplastic pollution.
In a new study published in Environmental Engineering Science, researchers reveal there are an estimated 400 billion microplastic fibers on the surface of Frenchman Bay and several connected rivers and estuaries where freshwater from rivers meet salty seawater. The watershed contains an average of 1.8 fibers per liter of water.
“Imagine the 32-ounce water bottle you use every day. If you were to fill your water bottle with water from Frenchman Bay, you would find about two microplastics. Now imagine how many water bottles would fit in the massive volume of Frenchman Bay; that is a lot of microplastics,” said Grace Johnson, lead author and master’s student in civil and environmental engineering. Johnson collaborated with other UMaine students and faculty and researchers from the University of Notre Dame and Valparaiso University, both in Indiana.
Microplastics are smaller than five millimeters in length, tiny enough for humans and animals to ingest with ease, but trillions of them have been found in rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide. Examples include small pieces broken down from larger debris and minuscule beads manufactured for health and beauty products, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Microplastics can impair digestion and reproduction in animals, and some of their additives are associated with endocrine disruption and cancer in humans, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. They can also absorb and transport other harmful toxicants that pollute waterways, including a group of chemicals known as PFAS.
Researchers conducted two water sampling campaigns for the study in 2022 and 2023. Using glass mason jars, they collected 129 samples in the bay, river and estuaries off the side of a boat in 17 weeks. Using microscopes, the fibers were pinpointed in the samples and their properties were analyzed by measuring their light signatures — the color and wavelengths of the light that cells reflect or absorb.
Concentrations of microplastics were, on average, highest in the bay itself, followed by the connected rivers and then the estuaries. Among the rivers, Egypt Stream in Franklin had the highest average concentration of microplastic fibers, followed by Kilkenny Stream in Hancock, then Union River, which passes through Ellsworth. Among the estuaries, the one between Stave Island and Gouldsboro had the highest average concentration, followed by the Sullivan Estuary that leaves Egypt Bay, then Jordan River between Lamoine and Trenton.
“What is striking to me is that we collected water samples in the open ocean and we were still able to find one-to-two microplastic fibers in pretty much every liter we sampled,” said Onur Apul, study co-author, Johnson’s advisor and assistant professor of environmental engineering. “The quantities we are seeing in the natural environment are variable, but it is indicating that we created a new environmental domain — the ‘microplastisphere’ — during the extremely short timespan that we occupied the planet.”
The team also investigated how microplastics traveled throughout the watershed by sampling water from nine sites on Mount Desert Island, particularly within the town of Bar Harbor. In 2023, they collected water samples from the culvert at Grant Park, right across from Bubble Rock; a couple sites at Kebo Stream; and several sites at or near Cromwell Brook, including the wastewater treatment plant and a culvert for the transfer station. They sampled on clear days and during rain events, as culverts release stormwater.
The Grant Park culvert possessed the highest concentrations of microplastics by a wide margin at 15 fibers per liter, followed by the wastewater treatment plant, the transfer station and the other spots along Cromwell Brook and Kebo Stream. Average concentrations of microplastic fibers in all locations, however, were higher than those in the estuaries, rivers and Frenchman Bay.
Study findings indicate that microplastics were transported from the land through the rivers and estuaries into Frenchman Bay. According to researchers, weaker currents allow fibers to remain in the bay for longer periods. The research team recommends additional studies into contamination in the bay and surrounding watershed to support possible techniques for mitigating the spread of microplastics.
“Once the microplastics are dispersed in Frenchman Bay there is no removing them, and they pose a threat to both marine life and humans. In the Bay, fish and other marine species can ingest the microplastics, and when people eat the fish, they can also ingest microplastics. Therefore, it is important as a society that we create less plastic waste capable of ending up in the ocean,” Johnson said.
In addition to Johnson and Apul, other researchers involved in the project include UMaine graduate students Taylor Bailey, Dilara Hatinoglu and Bea Van Dam; UMaine faculty Lauren Ross and Sean Smith; Ph.D. student Ozioma Nwachukwu and associate professor Kyle Doudrick of Notre Dame; and professor Julie Peller from Valparaiso University.
“We find microplastics in fish tissue, in guano, in our beaches, in our drinking water, in the human brain and even in the human placenta,” Apul said. “Our recommendation is ‘mindful use,’ because plastics are very helpful in a lot of cases, such as medical use or food packaging, but some plastics are carelessly used and discarded. A plastic coffee stirrer, for example, has a use time of a few seconds. The second suggestion I have for people is preventing pollution by sustainability- and safety-focused policy making.”
