Hagfish

Hagfish, an elongated scavenger found on the bottom of the sea, is truly a weird and wonderful creature. A single fossil of hagfish shows that is has undergone little evolutionary change in the last 300 million years, and the hagfish is believed to the be oldest living connection to the first vertebrate. Its the Hagfish, an elongated scavenger found on the bottom of the sea, is truly a weird and wonderful creature. A single fossil of hagfish shows that is has undergone little evolutionary change in the last 300 million years, and the hagfish is believed to the be oldest living connection to the first vertebrate. Its eyespots can detect light but lacks both lens and extrinsic musculature, and is therefore believed to show a significant step in the evolution of more complex eyes. The hagfish is also famous for exuding vast amounts of a gel-like slime when threatened. An adult hagfish can secrete enough slime to turn a 20 litre (5 gallon) bucket of water into slime in a matter of minutes. When captured, e.g. by a human or predatory fish, it will tie itself in an overhand knot which gradually works its way from the head to the tail of the hagfish, scraping off the slime as it goes, thus freeing the hagfish from its captor and from the slime in one swift movement.

Hagfish eat dead and injured sea creatures and will borrow into the body cavity of a dead (or dying!) animal to devour it from within. Once its full, it can go several months without feeding again.

Now, a new study on hagfish caught near Vancouver Island in Canada has unveiled yet another remarkable fact about the hagfish – it seems as though this fish is actually able to eat with its skin and gills, i.e. absorb nutrients through its skin and gills instead of using its mouth.

A research team* headed by Chris Glover of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Bamfield Marine Sciences Center took skin and gill tissue from hagfish and tested the tissues’ absorption of two different amino acids.

“We wanted to start with a simple dissolved organic nutrient, and given the fact that the food source is a large decaying pile of protein, an amino acid seemed to be the best place to start,” says Glover.

When a hagfish has managed to burrow its way into a carcass, it will feed surrounded by a high concentration of dissolved nutrients, so being able to absorb food through more than just its mouth could come in handy.

The results of the study carried out by Glover and his colleges indicate that specific molecular mechanisms exist within the hagfish tissues to move the two tested amino acids into the body of the fish. When researchers increased the concentration of amino acids the tissue increased its absorption – but only up to a certain level.

“A quick and simple calculation suggests that the skin in particular may be capable of absorbing nutrients at levels equivalent to that of the digestive tract!”, says Glover.

There are quite a few invertebrates, including many mollusks and worms, that can absorb nutrients through their skin. But up until now, no vertebrates have been known to have this capacity. The hagfish may represent a transition between the feeding habits of aquatic invertebrates like mollusks and the more specialized digestive systems found in vertebrates. While some organisms exchange nutrients with the water around them in order to maintain their body fluid salt concentrations, the hagfish is – according to Glover – likely to transport amino acid molecules through its skin and gills exclusively to feed itself.

The paper “Adaptations to in situ feeding: novel nutrient acquisition pathways in an ancient vertebrate” has been published in the most recent issue of journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

* Chris N. Glover (http://www.biol.canterbury.ac.nz/people/glover.shtml) School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield, British Columbia, Canada

Carol Bucking (no bio page available) Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield, British Columbia, Canada Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada

Chris M. Wood (http://www.biology.mcmaster.ca/faculty/wood/wood.htm) Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield, British Columbia, Canada Department of Biology, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Hammerhead shark by Suneko

Using satellite tag technology, research assistant professor Neil Hammerschlag and his colleagues have tracked a hammerhead shark during 62 days, as it journeyed from the southern coast of Florida to the middle of the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey.

The straight line point-to-point distance turned out to be 1 200 kilometers (745 miles).

“This animal made an extraordinary large movement in a short amount of time,” says Hammerschlag, director of the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. “This single observation is a starting point, it shows we need to expand our efforts to learn more about them.”

The hammerhead is believed to have been following prey fish off the continental slope, and it was probably prey that caused it to enter the Gulf Stream current and open-ocean waters of the northwestern Atlantic.
The study headed by Hammerschlag is a part of a larger effort to satellite track tropical sharks to find out if any areas are especially important for their hunting, mating and rearing of young. Hammerschlag also wish to document their migration routes.

“This study provides evidence that great hammerheads can migrate into international waters, where these sharks are vulnerable to illegal fishing,” says Hammerschlag. “By knowing the areas where they are vulnerable to exploitation we can help generate information useful for conservation and management of this species.”

More information can be found in the paper “Range extension of the Endangered great hammerhead shark Sphyrna mokarran in the Northwest Atlantic: preliminary data and significance for conservation“, published in the current issue of Endangered Species Research. The paper’s co-authors include Hammerschlag, Austin J. Gallagher and Dominique M. Lazarre of the University of Miami and Curt Slonim of Curt-A-Sea Fishing Charters.

An international consortium has been formed to study the potential effects of adding iron to the ocean to promote the growth of phytoplankton. Phytoplankton use carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ocean fertilization might therefore be a way of mitigating the effects of global warming. When phytoplankton die, organic carbon sinks to the seafloor where it may remain for decades, centuries or even longer – we still do not now much about the time-line.

Iron fertilization of the ocean is far from uncontroversial, since it is very difficult to foresee the long term effects of such a project. The international consortium, which has been named In-Situ Iron Studies (ISIS) consortium , will carry out iron fertilization experiments in the open ocean in an effort in to answer some of the questions regarding how iron affects the ocean’s capacity for dragging carbon dioxide from the air and into the water. All experiments will adhere to the London Convention/London Protocol regarding ocean iron fertilization research.

“A great deal remains to be learned about ocean iron fertilization and how effective it could be in storing carbon dioxide in the oceans, and the formation of this consortium is an important first step,” says Lewis Rothstein, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. “This is not a call for climate engineering; on the contrary this is a research consortium. It is premature to advocate for large-scale ocean iron fertilization, but it is time to conduct a focused research experiment that will examine the concept as comprehensively as we can. We want to make sure that it doesn’t generate harmful side effects that might negatively affect the marine ecosystem.”

The twelve ISIS-members are the following:
University of Rhode Island, USA
University of Hawaii, USA
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
University of Maine, USA
University of Massachusetts Boston, USA
University of Plymouth, UK
Xiamen University, Fujian, China
The Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Australia
Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, The Netherlands
The National Oceanography Centre, UK
Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, California, USA
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, USA

Photo by: L. Brian Stauffer.

‘A species of giant crayfish native to Tennessee in the United States has been scientifically described and given the name Barbicambarus simmonis.

Barbicambarus simmonis can reach a size of at least 5 inches (12,5 cm) which is twice the size of an average North American crayfish.

The researchers behind the paper in which Barbicambarus simmonis was described are Christopher Taylor from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and Guenter Schuster from Eastern Kentucky University.

The first specimen was found by Tennessee Valley Authority scientist Jeffrey Simmons in 2010, and that is why the species bears his name. This specimen, as well as the specimen encountered by Taylor and Schuster, lived in Shoal Creek, a stream in southern Tennessee that ultimately drains into the Tennessee River. The creek has attracted the attention of researchers for at least half a century, which makes it reasonable to assume that Barbicambarus simmonis is either rare or very difficult to find.

You can find out more about Barbicambarus simmonis in the paper “Monotypic no more, a description of a new crayfish of the genus Barbicambarus Hobbs, 1969 (Decapoda: Cambaridae) from the Tennessee River drainage using morphology and molecules”  published in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

Barbicambarus simmonsi

Barbicambarus is a genus of freshwater crayfish that up until now had only one member: Barbicambarus cornutus. Barbicambarus cornutus is known only from the Barren River and Green River systems of Tennessee. The largest known specimens are 23 cm (9 inches) long, so this crayfish is even larger than Barbicambarus simmonis and one of the largest species of crayfish in North America*. It was scientifically described in 1884, but not seen again by scientists until the 1960s.

North America is rich in crayfish and also a comparatively well explored part of the world. Of the roughly 600 scientifically described species of crayfish, roughly 50% are native to North America. However, even though North America is such a well surveyed part of the world, new species are regularly described by scientists. The Pearl Map Turtle, Graptemys pearlensis, was for instance described in the summer of 2010. Just like Barbicambarus simmonis, this turtle is native to the southern part of the U.S. It lives in the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi.

NASA-funded scientific research has just blown us away, by changing the way we look at life on Earth.

Scientists who were researching and testing the harsh environments of Mono Lake in California have uncovered the first organism on the planet which can reproduce and thrive in arsenic – a deadly poison. The organism actually uses arsenic in place of phosphorous in the cell components.

“The definition of life has just expanded,” commented NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington, Ed Weiler. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

This has turned everything we have known on its head. Science textbooks will need to be changed, and we will need to readjust our point of view when it comes to looking for extra terrestrial life in the universe. The findings of the study were published in this week’s edition of Science Express.

Now, an organism which lives in arsenic is one thing, but this little guy actually is made out of it!

“We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we’ve found is a microbe doing something new — building parts of itself out of arsenic,” explains a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team’s lead scientist, Felisa Wolfe-Simon. “If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven’t seen yet?”

Yes, we will now need to go over all the old data for the moon.. It’s possible we missed something..
This new data means a whole lot more work, but a whole lot more excitement is around the bend as well.

White Shark - Terry Gross

A simple wrong turn, no doubt by one or two pregnant females, somewhere in the vicinity of 450,000 years ago during climate changes, could have caused sharks to show up in a place they were no supposed to be. This is according to research which was Published this past Wednesday, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (It should however be noted that we don´t necessarily agree with the findings here at AC as competition for space is an easier explanation on why some fish first swam into the Mediterraneanan.)

And of course liking the area, they have stayed on in the Mediterranean – albeit in small groups – because much like salmon they go back to where they were born. It is also believed that the narrow channels in the Mediterranean have made it nigh impossible for the sharks to get back out again.

Researchers believe this “wrong turn” happened due to a mixture of climate change, high sea levels, and changing currents at the time, and as a result the sharks gained a permanent foothold in the Mediterranean.

Thanks to genetic analysis and tagging, researchers now know that sharks do indeed swim between Australia and Africa, and actually have a tendency to swim towards the east to where they were born, making their way using cues from the ocean currents they swim through.

However, in the case of long long ago, scientists still believe that some sharks simply became confused, and wound up a little bit off course, and as a result, permanently made a change in the way the world we live in today is.

Sealion

It seems that sea lions have once again pulled the wool over the eyes of researchers. We all know it’s a rough world, and no less is true of those poor orphaned sea lion pups. However, decades of painstaking research has proven that the sea lion females shun any sea lion pups which aren’t there own.. Or do they?

A new bit of genetic research of the populations of Californian sea lions, published this past Monday in the online journal PloS ONE, now sheds some new light on the subject, and states that sea lions are not as cold as they are made out to be.

Up to seventeen percent of the females in the California sea lions populations off of Mexico’s coast will actually take on an orphaned pup as one of their own offspring, according to the new research. What is even more amazing, is that the researchers were able to watch the females care for these pups year after year.
“Females are incredibly aggressive toward pups that aren’t theirs. They’ll bare teeth and bark, sometimes grab and toss pups that aren’t their own away,” explains a marine biologist at Arizona State University who made the discovery through an unrelated research effort, Ramona Flatz. “That they adopt at all really surprised us. We didn’t think it happened.”

So, while the chances are not that high that an orphaned pup can find an adoptive mother, the chance still exists, so like people, there are some decent sea lions out there…

Goldfish

That’s right.. The new team which has been charged with looking out for the safety and wellbeing of the representatives of the G20 summit are six goldfish.

The people in charge at the Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, have sworn in this “seal team” of fish to help keep tabs on the purity of the water in the bathrooms of the facility, in the hope that they will be able to sound the alarm if something is fishy.

Oh Su-Young, who heads up public relations for the venue, has told the AFP that the crack team of goldfish are being utilized as part of the process of inspecting the venue before the representatives arrive for the G20 summit, adding: “The fish also symbolize an eco-friendly water policy, which recycles used water for restrooms.” There was no mention made of exactly where this recycled water came from..

One of the people who will benefit from the efforts of these goldfish is British prime minister David Cameron when the summit takes place this 11th and 12th of November.

However, this is not the first time this year where animals have been trained and put to good use for the safety and wellbeing of our world leaders.

During the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the police force of India scooped up monkeys and trained them to run regular patrols in the athlete’s village as well as the venues of the event.

These unlikely bouncers with long tails were meant to protect spectators and athletes alike, from the notorious Bonnet monkey, which supposedly holds a grudge against us humans.

Photo Dr P Andreas Svensson

Scientists out at the Monasah University have stumbled onto an amazing discovery. It appears that male Australian desert goby fish are smart when it comes to getting in the sack. They tend to adapt their ways of thinking when females are scarce.

The goby fish devote an abundant amount of time, energy, and risk their lives looking for a mate. Previous studies have shown that the male gobies are more likely to court bigger females as they can carry more eggs than the smaller females.

However, our clever little goby fish knows when he is beat, and knows when to settle. A new study, recently published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, shows that if the male goby finds himself with a lack of females in his area, he will go after any that he finds, regardless of how big they are.

Doctors Bob Wong, Topi Lehtonen and Andreas Svenson have expanded upon their previous studies by getting their hands on goby fish from Central Australia, and keeping their eyes on them, in controlled conditions of course.

Dr Bob Wong, who is a senior lecturer in the Science Faculty at the university, has commented that the study has indicated that when the male goby ran into more females, they were far more picky about who they mated with, and how much energy they would use in the attempt.

“By contrast, males will court females vigorously irrespective of her attractiveness if passing females are few and far between,” Dr Wong explained.

This just goes to show that the male goby “like big butts and they cannot lie”, but more importantly know when they are licked, and know that beggars cannot be choosers.

Salmon fry

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the speculation, which was tossed around this week, that a volcanic eruption on an Alaskan island back in 2008 is somehow responsible for the boom in the salmon population this year in the rivers of British Columbia in Canada.

If this speculation proves to be correct, it will help biologist’s to shed some new light on the rather unpredictable sizes of the populations of salmon year in and year out. It will also lend credence to the controversial idea of seeding the oceans of the world with iron to help lend a helping hand to other fish species, who have seen a decline in their populations. However, some scientists, who were contacted by Nature, have cautioned that the theory is “far fetched”.

After the salmon population took a nose dive back in 2009, the sockeye salmon made a big comeback in British Columbia’s Fraser River this year. It has been suggested that the reasoning behind this is that the iron in the ash from the volcanic eruption on Kasatochi island, which created a rather huge influx of phytoplankton, may have indirectly provided the salmon with the food they needed to stage a miraculous comeback. This suggestion was made by Tim Parsons, a prominent Canadian scientist, and has a government-awarded medal named after him for ocean scientists.

It looks like he may be getting yet another feather in his hat, if the scientific community chooses to explore this theory further. If its possible to refurnish fish stocks around the globe by seeding the ocean with some iron, we should take the opportunity.