Novel insecticides are bad news for bee health and their guts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITÄT HALLE-WITTENBERG

 

IMAGE: BEES ARE OFTEN EXPOSED TO MULTIPLE PESTICIDES IN NATURE. view more 

CREDIT: UNI HALLE / MARKUS SCHOLZ

Insecticides containing flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor can have devastating effects on honey bee health. The substances damage the insects' intestinal flora, especially when used in conjunction with a common fungicide, making them more susceptible to disease and shortening their life span. This was recently proven in a study conducted at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), as published in Science of the Total Environment. The two insecticides were considered harmless to bees and bumblebees when approved, but their use has since been severely restricted.

For the study, honey bees that were free from environmental influences were first bred in the laboratory. "We wanted to control every aspect of the bees’ lives - from their diet to their exposure to pathogens or pesticides", says Dr Yahya Al Naggar, the biologist who led the project at MLU and who now works at Tanta University in Egypt. In the first few days, all bees were given the same food: sugar syrup. They were then divided into several groups and various pesticides were added to their food. One group was given flupyradifurone, while another was given sulfoxaflor. Both substances are approved insecticides in Germany, but their use is now limited to greenhouses.

As pesticides are often used as a mixture, the scientists also took this into account in their laboratory experiment by enriching the food administered to two other groups not only with the insecticides mentioned, but also with azoxystrobin, which has been used to protect plants from harmful fungi for many decades. The concentration of the substances was well below the legal requirements in each case. "Our approach was based on the realistic concentrations that might be found in pollen and nectar from plants that have been treated with the pesticides", says Al Naggar. A control group continued to receive the normal sugar syrup without additives.

Over a period of ten days, the team observed whether the substances had any effects on the bees and, if so, what. They found that the pesticides are anything but harmless: Around half of all bees whose diet had been supplemented with flupyradifurone died during the study - and even more when combined with azoxystrobin. While sulfoxaflor produced similar effects, more insects survived the diet. 

The scientists also analysed the bees’ intestinal flora, i.e. the bacteria and fungi living in their digestive tract. "The fungicide azoxystrobin led to a significant reduction in naturally occurring fungi. That was to be expected, as fungicides are used to control fungi", says Dr Tesfaye Wubet from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), who is also a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. Over the course of the ten-day study, however, the team was able to show that the mixture of fungi and bacteria detected in the insects differed greatly from the control group depending on the substances used. According to the researchers, the bacterium Serratia marcescens was able to spread alarmingly well in the digestive tract of the treated insects. "These bacteria are pathogenic and harmful to bees’ health. They can make it harder for the insects to fight off infection, leading to premature death", explains Al Naggar. 

As the study was conducted in a laboratory in Halle to exclude the number of external influences, it is unclear whether the same results can be found in nature. "The effects of the pesticides could well be even more dramatic - or the bees might be able to fully or at least partially compensate for the negative effects", concludes Wubet. With this in mind, the team calls for the potential effects of new pesticides on beneficial insects to be researched more rigorously before they are approved and for their effects on aspects such as intestinal flora to be included as standard in the risk assessment.

The study was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation with additional support via the EU-funded project "Poshbee". 

Study: Al Naggar Y., Singavarapu B., Paxton R.J. & Wubet T.. Bees under interactive stressors: the novel insecticides flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor along with the fungicide azoxystrobin disrupt the gut microbiota of honey bees and increase opportunistic bacterial pathogens. Science of the Total Environment (2022). doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157941

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JOURNAL

Science of The Total Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157941 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Bees under interactive stressors: the novel insecticides flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor along with the fungicide azoxystrobin disrupt the gut microbiota of honey bees and increase opportunistic bacterial pathogens

ROUNDUP

Popular herbicide weakens bumblebees’ color vision

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TURKU

 

IMAGE: INDIVIDUAL FORAGER BUMBLEBEES MARKED WITH A SMALL NUMBER TAG WERE EXPOSED EITHER TO VERY LOW ACUTE DOSE OF GLYPHOSATE-BASED HERBICIDE ROUNDUP, OR TO SUCROSE (CONTROL). THEREAFTER, BEES UNDERWENT FIVE LEARNING BOUTS IN WHICH THEY CHOOSE BETWEEN ARTIFICIAL REWARDING FLOWERS (SUCROSE) OR AVERSIVE FLOWERS (QUININE). EXPERIMENTAL BEES WERE INDIVIDUALLY ALLOWED TO ENTER THE ARENA WITH 10 DIFFERENT COLOR FLOWERS (TWO OF EACH COLOR) WITH A DROP OF SUCROSE OR QUININE. DURING THE FIVE LEARNING BOUTS CONTROL BEES LEARNED TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE REWARDING AND AVERSIVE FLOWERS, AND TWO DAYS LATER THEY WERE ABLE TO REMEMBER ALL THEY HAD LEARNED. HOWEVER, LEARNING OF THE ROUNDUP EXPOSED BEES WAS DECLINED WITHIN FEW HOURS FROM THE EXPOSURE, AND TWO DAYS LATER IN A MEMORY TEST THEY HAD LOST EVERYTHING THEY HAD LEARNED. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF TURKU

Finnish researchers found out how Roundup, a herbicide containing glyphosate, affects the learning and memory of bumblebees. Already a small dose affected their ability to learn and memorise connections between colors and taste. The weakened fine color vision can severely impair bumblebees’ foraging and nesting success.

In the study, bumblebees were exposed to an acute dose of herbicide that pollinating bumblebees might be exposed to in a sprayed field during the day. After the exposure, the bumblebees' learning and memory were tested in a 10-color discrimination task, in which the bumblebees learned to associate five specific colors with a rewarding sugar solution and another five colours with an aversive quinine solution.

Control bumblebees learned to distinguish colors associated with sweet sugar water from colors associated with a bad-tasting compound and remembered what they learned after three days. Bumblebees exposed to the herbicide learned significantly less and forgot almost everything they had learned within a few days.

The researchers also found that the herbicide treatment did not affect bumblebees' performance in an easier two-color discrimination task or a 10-odor discrimination task. The results suggest that while exposure to Roundup does not make bumblebees completely color or smell blind, it does impair their fine color vision.

"We focused on the cognitive traits of the bees because these traits determine the successful foraging and social behavior of social insects and therefore their fitness. I am really worried. Even one very small acute dose had a harmful effect on the bumblebees," says researcher, Associate Professor Marjo Helander from the University of Turku, Finland.

"The result is even more worrying when you take into account how much glyphosate-containing herbicides are used globally," states Helander.

"The results are quite worrying considering the importance of color vision for bumblebees. Even small disturbances in color vision can be catastrophic in terms of foraging and nesting success," says Docent Olli Loukola from the University of Oulu, Finland.

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JOURNAL

Science of The Total Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159298. 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Field-realistic acute exposure to glyphosate-based herbicide impairs fine-color discrimination in bumblebees

Study sheds light on how songs, movies and memories shape how people enjoy lighthearted entertainment

People have more memories associated with older media, appreciate content tied to memory more

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

LAWRENCE — That song really takes me back.

We’ve all heard a song or seen a movie that brings back a memory or reminds us of an earlier time. A new study from the University of Kansas has found that people tend to have more memories associated with older songs and movie clips than newer ones, and they tend to be happier memories as well. People also tend to appreciate content that triggers a memory more, and the findings help shed light on why people often find meaning in lighthearted entertainment such as pop music or superhero movies.

Researchers played song clips from artists either from the current day or roughly 10 years ago and did the same with movie clips, then asked research participants about any associated memories from the samples. Older entertainment evoked more memories, and people appreciated older music more as well. They appreciated both forms more when they activated memories, regardless of when it was released.

“What we’re trying to do is understand what happens when we encounter media and how that affects us. We also look at the implications regarding our sense of identity,” said Judy Watts, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU and a co-author of the studies. “People often travel mentally back to a time period when they re-encounter beloved media, but we want to unpack what exactly they’re experiencing when they do that. Did they have appreciation, happiness or other emotions? Music was picked for the first study because it tends to be especially nostalgic. The second study was designed to see if those same effects would happen with audiovisual cues.”

The studies, written with co-authors James Alex Bonus and C. Joseph Francemone of Ohio State University, was published in the Journal of Communication. 

For the music-based study, more than 400 college students heard six song selections from an artist, released either in 2020 or roughly a decade earlier, during their early adolescence from artists such as Taylor Swift, John Legend or Charli XCX. They were asked whether the song activated a memory, and if so to describe the memory. They were also asked about their memory engagement with statements such as “I was so young and naïve in this memory,” “life was so much simpler at the time of this memory” or “I felt completely immersed in this memory.”

For the second study, more than 400 college students were similarly shown clips from a recent or older movie, such as “Frozen” or “Frozen II,” or “Avengers: Endgame” or “Guardians of the Galaxy.” They were then asked the same questions about whether the media had associated memories, and of what type.

As expected by the researchers, study one results showed older music produced more memory recall and the songs were more appreciated. Additionally, the memories associated with older music were also older, more positive and had more downward temporal comparisons — meaning participants felt that while the memories were positive, they also believed their lives were better now than at the time of the memory. Whether a memory was specific or more social did not vary widely, but several variables such as memory recall, memory immersion and positive effect were predictors of appreciation. That suggests people appreciate any type of entertainment that activates a memory, the researchers wrote.

The study with movie clips replicated most of the memory-related findings from that conducted with music, particularly older pieces of media having more associated memories, and those being older, more positive and having more temporal comparisons. One notable difference was that specific memories were a predictor of appreciation of the content versus general memories — and were associated with less appreciation. Also, appreciation did not differ between older and newer movies, but people had a higher level of appreciation overall for movies versus music.

The findings help further understanding of autobiographical memory and how media effects are part of such mental processes. While it has long been understood and accepted that a song, movie or other piece of popular media can trigger a memory, little research has been conducted on whether these memories result in meaningful experiences. In contrast, media effects research tends to focus on more “meaningful” media, such as highly regarded, classic or highbrow forms of entertainment, not necessarily lighter fare such as pop songs, superhero movies or other popular forms of entertainment, Watts said. Better understanding of the emotional outcomes of such media-induced reminiscence is important as well, as such media can potentially help people deal with stress and negative feelings. That is especially true of the temporal findings explored in the study, or whether people feel like life was better at the time of a memory induced by media, or if they are doing better now than when they were younger, and what types of memories are associated with appreciation of media.

“We tend to assign meaning to pieces of entertainment we experience in formative times of our lives. That’s typically cast off as something that’s not particularly meaningful,” Watts said. “But we think it matters because it’s about how you experienced it, often with people we care about, and when we revisit it, we can feel warm, happy or other emotions. We’re interested in the psychological processes of memory and media, and it is one way, I think, to speak to a person’s memories, how they connect media to a time, place or people.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Communication

DOI

10.1093/joc/jqac028 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

When “meaningless” means more: biographic resonance and audience appreciation of popular entertainment

Listen! Birdsong is good for mental health

Study investigates the influence of birdsong on mood, paranoia, and cognition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

In the study, the researchers examined how traffic noise and birdsong affect mood, paranoia, and cognitive functioning by carrying out a randomized online experiment with 295 participants. These heard six minutes of either typical traffic noise or birdsong with varying numbers of different traffic sounds or birdsongs. Before and after hearing the sound clips, the participants filled in questionnaires assessing their mental health and performed cognitive tests. „Everyone has certain psychological dispositions. Healthy people can also experience anxious thoughts or temporary paranoid perceptions. The questionnaires enable us to identify people's tendencies without their having a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, and paranoia and to investigate the effect of the sounds of birds or traffic on these tendencies,“ says first author Emil Stobbe, Predoctoral Fellow at the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

The present study suggests that listening to birdsong reduces anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants. Birdsong did not appear to have an influence on depressive states in this experiment. Traffic noise, however, generally worsened depressive states, especially if the audio clip involved many different kinds of traffic sounds. The positive influence of birdsong on mood is already known, but to the best of the authors‘ knowledge, this study is the first to reveal an effect on paranoid states. This was independent of whether the birdsong came from two or more different bird species.The researchers also found that neither birdsong nor traffic noise influenced cognitive performance.

In the researchers‘ view, the explanation for these effects is that birdsong is a subtle indication of an intact natural environment, detracting attention from stressors that could otherwise signal an acute threat. Taken together, the results suggest interesting avenues for further research and applications, such as the active manipulation of background noise in different situations or the examination of its influence on patients with diagnosed anxiety disorders or paranoia.

„Birdsong could also be applied to prevent mental disorders. Listening to an audio CD would be a simple, easily accessible intervention. But if we could already show such effects in an online experiment performed by participants on a computer, we can assume that these are even stronger outdoors in nature,“ says Stobbe. He is a member of the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, which studies the effects of the physical environment on the individual. „We were recently able to perform a study showing that a one-hour walk in nature reduces brain activity associated with stress,“ adds the research group’s head Simone Kühn. „We cannot say yet which features of nature – smells, sounds, color, or a combination thereof – are responsible for the effect. The present study provides a further building block to clarify this issue,“ continues Kühn. What is clear is that nature improves mental health and well-being. So, out we go!

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-20841-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants

Disappearing notes in classical tune highlight the dramatic loss of Humpback Whales

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: HEBRIDES REDACTED SCORE WITH NOTES SCRUBBED OUT TO REFLECT DECLINING HUMPBACK WHALE POPULATION view more 

CREDIT: EWAN CAMPBELL

A Cambridge team frustrated by the apathetic response to biodiversity loss has developed a dramatic new way to highlight the demise of nature – and people are listening.

Driven by the observation that human activities are silencing nature, Dr Matthew Agarwala is using sound to convey the enormity of biodiversity loss - and help draw attention to what must be done to help species recover.

His collaboration with composer Dr Ewan Campbell is capturing the attention of new audiences by linking a piece of classical music: Mendelssohn’s ‘Hebrides Overture’, with the loss of an iconic species: the North Atlantic Humpback Whale.

Crucially, the roughly 30,000 notes in the original music score approximate to the number of Humpback Whales there were in the sea in 1829, when the piece was written. But then extensive commercial whaling began to cause a dramatic decline in the whale population - and by 1920, two thirds of all Humpback Whales were gone.

Campbell divided Mendelssohn’s score into decades, then scrubbed out notes in proportion to the decline of the whale population as the music - and time - progresses. The resulting piece, ‘Hebrides Redacted’, has proved to be a dramatically simple way for audiences to grasp the enormity of biodiversity loss over time.

A short film about the music, and its impact on live audiences, will be released online on Friday 14th October, 2022 as part of the Cambridge Zero Climate Change Festival.

The music was performed by the 38-piece Wilderness Orchestra at this year’s August Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire, conducted by Campbell and narrated by Agarwala. The audience response was overwhelmingly positive – and the piece received a standing ovation.

“It really was an uninitiated audience at the Wilderness Festival - people were there for a good time, not to be told that the world is falling apart through the medium of music from the 19th century. But somehow it worked,” says Campbell, Director of Music at Churchill College and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.

“Over the past century we have seen nearly a million species pushed to the brink of extinction – nature is going quiet,” said Agarwala, an Economist at the University of Cambridge’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy.  

He added: “Researchers – including me – have been sounding the alarm about the consequences of biodiversity loss for a long time, but the message isn’t landing. Music is visceral and emotional, and grabs people’s attention in ways that scientific papers just can’t.”

Hebrides Redacted doesn’t just fizzle out at the end. The duo also want to draw attention to the policies that would be needed to help Humpback Whale populations recover – so the last part of the piece looks into the future, allowing an optimistic 8% rise in whale population every decade.

“We can see when the oceans are better managed, whale populations can start to rebound,” says Agarwala.

He says that if the ocean food chain is protected through enforced marine protected areas, maritime freight re-routed to reduce the number of whales struck by ships, and ocean pollution minimised, the Humpback Whale population could fully recover. And so their music does the same.

“At its nadir, the score is thin and fragmented, with isolated notes reaching for a tune that is only partially present. But even in the face of devastating destruction, nature is resilient and always beautiful, and so even when two-thirds of the music is absent there’s still a delicate beauty, though a pale imitation of its once dramatic glory,” said Campbell.

He added: “Redaction is a word normally associated with censorship, and silencing history. I find it really apt for this piece of music - we’re showing how human activities have silenced nature.”

Agarwala and Campbell are excited by the power to engage public audiences when arts and sciences work together in this way. They have ideas for many more music projects, which they also hope will encourage policy-makers to take action to protect the natural world.

The Cambridge Zero Climate Change Festival 2022 includes a focus on ensuring the conversation around climate change is accessible to the general public. It runs from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th October.

Inspired by his 1829 trip to a sea cave - Fingal’s Cave - in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides, Mendelssohn’s original music captures the beauty, power, and vitality of the sea just before the introduction of mechanised industrial fishing.

The orchestra performs 'Hebrides Redacted' at the 2022 Wilderness Festival, UK

CREDIT

Tom Besley

First, the full score is played by the Hebrides Orchestra. Then, after 1 min 51, the same piece is played by only 1 in every 16 notes remains - this represents the precipitous decline in the whale population since 1829.  Ewan Campbell

https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/961045

Conscious perception of sound is carried by dedicated assemblies of neurons in the brain

The cerebral cortex organizes itself in specific neuronal assemblies when consciously perceiving sounds, generating “creative” patterns of activity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HUMAN BRAIN PROJECT

 

IMAGE: ACTIVITY OF A SET OF NEURONS IN THE AUDITORY CORTEX DURING WAKEFULNESS (WHITE DOT) AND UNDER ANAESTHESIA (GREEN DOTS). EACH DOT CORRESPONDS TO AN ELECTRICAL IMPULSE FROM A NEURON. THE IMAGE OF THE CELL BODIES OF THE NEURONS IS SUPERIMPOSED ON THIS GRAPH. view more 

CREDIT: © JOANNA SCHWENKGRUB, INSTITUT PASTEUR; ANTON FILIPCHUK, CNRS – INSTITUT PASTEUR

A new study co-led by Human Brain Project researchers in France has revealed how consciously listening generates sound-specific assemblies of neurons in the brain. While awake, hundreds of nerve cells at a time can coordinate to form these sound-specific patterns. Under anaesthesia, a brain response to auditory stimuli is still observed, but indistinguishable from spontaneous brain activity. The study, which combined in vivo experiments and computational modelling, has been published in Nature Neuroscience.

Even when we are unconscious, ongoing activity in the brain combines with sensory perception to respond and process stimuli. It is however still unclear if each stimulus is processed differently by this combined activity, or if the same underlying dynamics are responsible. Differentiating the neuronal activity during conscious perception, compared to non-conscious states, is still a complicated matter.

The study by HBP-researcher Alain Destexhe (Neuroscience Institute of Paris-Saclay University) and Brice Bathellier (Institut de l’Audition of Pasteur, Paris) now sheds new light on the brain’s response to sound during these states.

The scientists found that the cerebral cortex organizes itself in specific neuronal assemblies when consciously perceiving sounds, generating “creative” patterns of activity. Assemblies of hundreds of neurons are also present while the brain perceives auditory stimuli under anesthesia, but it’s only during wakefulness and awareness that specific ones emerge and become associated with specific sounds.

The researchers used an optical recording technique, calcium imaging coupled with multiphoton microscopy, to follow the activity of nearly a thousand neurons in the auditory cortex between the awake and anaesthetized states in mice.

To interpret the observed date, the team simulated different hypotheses about what determines the groups of neurons that are activated. This analysis showed that under anaesthesia, the likelyhood that a neuron becomes part of a response to sound is strongly influenced by its chances of becoming a part spontaneous activity, leaving less freedom to encode actual sound information. In the awake state, these two likelyhoods are more independent of each other, opening up larger possibilities to encode information in different ways.

Under anesthesia, the cortex responds to auditory stimuli, but this response evokes neuronal assemblies that are already present in the spontaneous activity in the absence of stimulus. If the stimulus is perceived while awake instead, the auditory cortex creates new assemblies, which are specific to each sound. By using a technique to image the auditory input fibers, the researchers also showed that the new assemblies are generated purely at the cortical level.

“Compared to unconscious states, the cerebral cortex gets more creative while awake and invents new patterns of neuronal activity in response to each sound. This creativity appears to be an important correlate of sensory perception” says Alain Destexhe.

The data, collected by the CNRS-NeuroPSI and Institut de l'Audition, and the computational analysis carried out within the Human Brain Project, will be made available on the digital research infrastructure EBRAINS.

Text by Roberto Inchingolo

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JOURNAL

Nature Neuroscience

DOI

10.1038/s41593-022-01168-5 

ARTICLE TITLE

Awake perception is associated with dedicated neuronal assemblies in the cerebral cortex

EU funding in the millions to study element formation in neutron star fusions — ERC Synergy Grant goes to international research team with GSI/FAIR participation

Grant and Award Announcement

GSI HELMHOLTZZENTRUM FÜR SCHWERIONENFORSCHUNG GMBH

 

IMAGE: THIS ARTIST’S IMPRESSION SHOWS TWO TINY BUT VERY DENSE NEUTRON STARS AT THE POINT AT WHICH THEY MERGE AND EXPLODE AS A KILONOVA. view more 

CREDIT: PICTURE: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK/MARK GARLICK/ESO

The European Union has awarded a total of 11.3 million euros over a period of six years to the HEAVYMETAL research project, which aims to investigate the synthesis of chemical elements in neutron star mergers. Privatdozent Dr. Andreas Bauswein, a researcher in the Theory Department of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, is part of the four-member international team that receives the funding as part of an ERC Synergy Grant. At GSI, currently the international accelerator center FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) is under construction. In the future, states of matter as they occur in the interior of stars, stellar explosions and neutron star mergers will be studied in the laboratory at FAIR.

Neutron stars are remnants formed during stellar collapse in a supernova explosion. They have extremely strong gravitational fields, exceptionally intense magnetic fields, and consist of matter with very high density, making them important natural laboratories for fundamental physics. In binary systems consisting of two neutron stars, mergers of these extreme objects can occur: The two high-density stars collide at about 20% of the speed of light, leading to temperatures of several 100 billion kelvin. During the collision, considerable amounts of neutron-rich matter are expelled, in which heavy chemical elements such as silver, gold, platinum and many more are formed. The ejected matter evolves into a fireball, which is visible as a so-called kilonova.

“Kilonova science is emerging as a new field in astrophysics, offering an enormous discovery potential for understanding neutron stars, the origin of the heavy elements in particular, the physics of exotic heavy nuclei, and the phases of hot, ultra-dense, and exotic matter”, Bauswein explains his research focus. “The increasing sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors, also providing improved sky localisations for follow-up observations, and the next generation of telescopes, means that we expect an abundance of new kilonovae observations in the coming years. I look forward to exploring the research field in the best possible way together with my colleagues within the framework of the ERC Synergy Grant.”

The research project HEAVYMETAL (How Neutron Star Mergers make Heavy Elements) aims to make a big step in explaining kilonova explosions by spectroscopically dissecting their emissions and connecting them quantitatively to the physical properties of the neutron star merger. In doing so, HEAVYMETAL will probe the origin of the heavy elements, and delineate the nuclear and astrophysical pathways that created them — the so-called “r-process”. The research team will try to decipher the details of the observed spectra and use that information to gain unprecedented insight into the physical processes of the neutron star merger.

HEAVYMETAL brings together experts from different fields related to kilonova research who, by working together, can exploit synergies in the ambitious goal of explaining element synthesis: Andreas Bauswein and his team at GSI/FAIR have a long and high impact track record in connecting advanced hydrodynamical simulations to r-process nucleosynthesis, kilonova modelling and the properties of high-density matter. Already in 2017, Bauswein succeeded in securing an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros with his project GreatMoves on the simulation of neutron star mergers. In addition to Bauswein, Professor Darach Watson, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Professor Padraig Dunne, University College Dublin, Ireland, and Dr. Stuart Sim, Queen's University, Belfast, UK, are also members of the research team funded by the ERC Synergy Grant.

Watson has been a key player in gaining and interpreting kilonova data and has worked in observational astronomy for two decades. Dunne is a leading experimental physicist in the area of laser plasma spectroscopy with a focus on laser plasmas of heavy elements. Sim is an expert in the modelling of radiation in explosive environments and in the development of codes designed to simulate detailed radiation-matter interactions and photon transport in rapidly expanding matter ejecta.

“We are very proud to have gained the support of the European Union for this cutting-edge research project,” says Professor Paolo Giubellino, Scientific Managing Director of GSI and FAIR. “International and interdisciplinary collaboration has always played a major role in our work. The implementation of many scientific projects is hardly conceivable without worldwide collaborations and the use of synergies between researchers. This starts with individual research areas such as the study of kilonovae in this group of experts and continues with the construction of our future research facility FAIR, which is being built in international collaboration between many researchers and nations.” FAIR is currently under construction in Darmstadt and will be connected to the GSI accelerator facility. In the future, it will be possible at FAIR to study states of matter similar to those occurring in the interior of stars, stellar explosions and neutron star mergers in the laboratory, which directly links to the HEAVYMETAL project.

ERC Synergy Grants are awarded by the European Union to research groups of two to a maximum of four scientists in any research area, exclusively on the basis of scientific excellence. The decisive factor for the grant is that the research in question cannot be carried out by the individual researchers alone, but only through joint cooperation.

Colorcoded is the density in the equatorial plane.

Matter is ejected from these violent collions expanding with several 10% the speed of light.

CREDIT

Simulation and visualization: G. Lioutas, GSI/FAIR

World-class research into Greenland's oldest ice and the Universe's densest stars win very large EU grants

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: THE GREEN2ICE TEAM. FROM THE LEFT: ANDERS SVENSSON, DORTHE DAHL-JENSEN, PIERRE-HENRI BLARD AND FRANÇOIS FRIPIAT (CREDIT: DORTHE DAHL-JENSEN) view more 

CREDIT: DORTHE DAHL-JENSEN

When was Greenland actually green? And how does the Universe make gold, platinum and uranium? Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have just received 11.4 million euro to answer these big questions. The prestigious ERC Synergy grant from the European Research Council has been awarded, among others, to the ice physicists Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Anders Svensson, and the astrophysicist Darach Watson.

The first ice cores were drilled in Greenland in 1955. But many an unsolved mystery remains in the oldest, deepest ice. For example, when was Greenland last carpeted by forest? And, when was the ice sheet formed? Niels Bohr Institute ice physicists will use a unique collection of old ice cores alongside freshly drilled ones to find answers from the past that will enlighten us about climatic change in the future.

"The answers ensconced in the oldest ice will point to the future and provide us with knowledge that is far more accurate than what we have today with regards to how much our oceans stand to rise and as to when the ice sheet will no longer be able to be saved. So, this isn't just exotic basic research, it is important knowledge about the ice sheet's robustness in the face of climate change," explains Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen of the Niels Bohr Institute.

Professor Dahl-Jensen heads GREEN2ICE, a large-scale research project that has just received a rare DKK 103 million (13.9 million euro) Synergy Grant from the European Research Council. Just over DKK 63 million (8.5 million euro) will go to the University of Copenhagen.

"This is a dream project for me - something I've been thinking about messing around with for many years. When we drill ice cores, we gain access to fascinating material from the depths, in the form of rocks, soil, small plant fossils and gases encased in air bubbles. These demonstrate that Greenland was once forested. By looking at these materials, we will be able to find out when this was, what type of forest existed and what sort of temperatures allowed for the forest to grow," explains Dorthe Dahl-Jensen.

Among other things, the researchers will be able to measure when gas in the small air bubbles in the ice was trapped. Other measurements will look at how long it has been since the stones found in the ice cores were shined upon by the sun.

Because the material is both rare and difficult to obtain, the researchers have stored it away in a freezer for many years, explains associate professor and ice physicist Anders Svensson, the other UCPH researcher involved with the project:

"We only have one chance. Indeed, the ice cores contain so little of this material and it can only be used once. That's what makes handling it is so risky and why we have never dared to do so until now, as methods have improved. But there is an enormous amount to gain if we succeed."

The experts' best guess as to when Greenland was last completely ice-free is about a million years ago. Using the new methods, the research team will test this hypothesis. Until now, it has only been possible to date ice back roughly 130,000 years.

In addition to Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Anders Svensson, the GREEN2ICE research team consists of François Fripiat of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and Pierre-Henri Blard from CNRS-Université de Lorraine, France. Other GREEN2ICE project partners are GEUS, DTU and the University of Manitoba.

An explosion of heavymetal

It's gold and platinum. It is tin and uranium. It is the vital iodine we have in our blood. It is the molybdenum that all living organisms need to use. The heavy elements are an important part of the world around us. However, it has always been a major mystery how these elements were created.

Research points to the heaviest elements in the periodic table being created in the gigantic explosion that occurs when two neutron stars collide – a phenomenon that only occurs once every 100,000 years in our galaxy. The only time the phenomenon has been observed in detail was in 2017. But how it happens physically has so far not been possible to answer.

The researchers in the second ambitious project for which the University of Copenhagen has received an ERC Synergy grant now aim to do just that. The HEAVYMETAL project has received almost DKK 84 million (11.3 million euro), of which almost 22 million kroner (2.9 million euro) has been awarded to Darach Watson from the Niels Bohr Institute, who leads the project.

“Neutron star collisions are a treasure trove of information that potentially allow us to answer some of the biggest open questions in physics and cosmology. First of all, about how a large number of the elements are created. But they have been extremely difficult to investigate. However, I believe it is possible with the outstanding team we have assembled here," says astrophysicist and associate professor Darach Watson.

The key is to decipher the spectroscopic data from the explosion, which was created during the neutron star collision in 2017. In this way, the research team will be able to see in detail the newly created heavy elements that are blown out in a radioactive fireball when neutron stars collide.

However, it first and foremost requires being able to model the very complex atomic structures of the heavy elements, which is extremely difficult.

"We expect to be able to measure both where and how the heavy elements are formed, how they are distributed, how much matter is ejected and more. We will dissect the explosion itself and then try to map in detail the nuclear physics of that process,” explains Darach Watson.

And it may also be possible to provide answers to several other important questions, such as how fast the Universe is expanding and how black holes are created.

HEAVYMETAL has assembled four different groups that work together as an international team of world-leading experts in each of their fields. In addition to Darach Watson who is the leader of the Copenhagen team, Andreas Bauswein leads the group at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Germany, Padraig Dunne the group from University College Dublin in Ireland, while Stuart Sim leads the Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland group.

"For me, this is a dream team. Normally, as a researcher, you sit a lot by yourself. The fact that we can make such direct use of each other's different expertise will make a huge difference and really turbo-charge the research so that we can reach new results much faster," concludes Darach Watson.

Dorthe Dahl-Jensen

CREDIT

Emilie Thejll-Madsen

The four PIs of HEAVYMETAL (left to right): Darach Watson, Stuart Sim, Padraig Dunne, Andreas Bauswein

CREDIT

Darach Watson

Global change may foster short-term evolutionary adaptation in microbes

This is the main conclusion of an ICM study that considers the latest DNA sequencing techniques, which make it possible to detect mutations on short time scales in the natural environment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUT DE CIÈNCIES DEL MAR (ICM-CSIC)

 

IMAGE: VIDAREBEFORDRAT MEDDELANDE. SOURCE: OPENAI view more 

CREDIT: VIDAREBEFORDRAT MEDDELANDE. SOURCE: OPENAI

A new study led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona suggests that global change is promoting the short-term evolutionary adaptation of the Earth microbiome, which constitutes ~15% of the total planetary biomass. This could have direct implications for the society, since we rely on microbes for so many important processes.

For example, fisheries rely substantially on microbial activity to sustain the marine food web. Also, marine microbes, which constitute ~70% of the marine biomass, contribute to climate regulation by capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, and are responsible for 50% of the primary production of the planet. Thus it is critical that we understand how current ocean features may affect microbial evolution, and what could happen if conditions change.

The study, just published in the journal Trends in Microbiology, focuses on the evolution of microbes over short time-scales such as years or decades, which had not been analysed directly in the wild before. This is especially relevant nowadays, as we have the technological capacity to investigate genomic changes in wild microorganisms, and can help predict the impact that environmental changes may have on the ecosystem services provided by the microbiome.

“It is important to consider the evolution of wild marine microbes in order to make accurate predictions of how they will change under future global change, yet most studies so far have focused on investigating short-term responses, using model organisms, but our theoretical approach is completely different”, explains Georgina Brennan, co-author of the study.

For his part, the other co-author, Ramiro Logares, adds that “these contemporary evolutionary processes are a consequence of rapid adaptation to biotic or abiotic factors (e.g., temperature), which may be changing fast due to climate change”.

Move, adapt or die

When confronted with environmental change, organisms have three possible reactions: move, adapt, or die. Evolution can occur at different time scales depending on factors such as the reproduction rate or population size. The fact that microbes evolve to environmental change much faster than other animals is well known thanks to several studies developed in the laboratory. For example, they have revealed that under elevated temperatures, some species can grow faster. However, reactions in the wild have been very little studied.

This requires DNA sequencing to detect mutations, although this has not been economically feasible in nature until the last decade. "We now have the resources and technology to understand how the ocean microbiome will evolve under future global climate change," indicate the authors.

According to them, it is necessary to establish genomic observatories, that is, stations monitoring microbial evolution, in different ocean regions and depths, including both pristine and degraded areas, in order to generate long DNA time-series that will allow for tracking of contemporary microbial evolution and its potential impacts on ecosystem function and health.

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DOI

10.1016/j.tim.2022.09.001 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Tracking contemporary microbial evolution in a changing ocean