The Earth Story

Sorry Timon, mongeese are a warthog’s best friend.

Well this looks like a grisly scene, doesn't it? Mongeese are known for their bloodthirsty nature, regularly feasting on insects, lizards, birds, rodents, even snakes in certain Indian species. Have they grown a bit overconfident and tried to take on a warthog? And won?!

No, that isn't what’s happening here. In actual fact, Ugandan warthogs have enlisted these accommodating mongeese as their own personal groomers. When parasitic ticks are proving particularly bothersome, the warthogs will actively seek out a band of mongeese, plop down in front of them with legs held high, and allow them to climb aboard and help themselves to a meal. You can see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXW_1i1pA0w

The mongoose-warthog relationship is a type of symbiotic mutualism - where two cohabiting animal species both benefit from each other’s presence. Similar cleaning partnerships are commonly seen between birds and large herbivores, and cleaner wrasse and large fish. This, however, seems to be the first instance of a partnership between two separate mammalian species. It does make you wonder how many other animal relationships exist beneath our notice…

(In case you were wondering, the official plural form of ‘mongoose’ is ‘mongooses’, though ‘mongeese’ is acceptable too).

VP

Reference: Suiform Surroundings - page 31 (http://bit.ly/22j31yb) Image credit: Andrew Plumptre (http://bit.ly/22j31yb)

Coral Bleaching

Healthy coral gets its colouration from the algae (zooxanthellae) living inside the coral's pores. Coral bleaching occurs under stressful environments such as temperature change, pollution, overexposure to sunlight, low tides, etc. When the environment becomes too stressful the coral expels the algae from its pores, causing the coral to turn completely white. Luckily this is not a death sentence, the coral can "take a break" from the stress and then recover its algae once environments become more suitable. However, if the stressful environment persists and the algae are absent for too long, the coral can die. When the coral dies the ecosystem dies with it, resulting in a loss of habitat and a loss of organisms.

Coral bleaching is a big problem in the shores of the U.S.A., the Caribbean, and Australia. Climate change researchers fear that the weather pattern shifts caused by El Nino may pose an even bigger threat to coral reefs in the upcoming years.

~Rosie

References: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html http://bit.ly/1ZqaSWw Infographic: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html Coral Image: New Heaven Diving School: http://bit.ly/1OrDPOm

3rd global coral bleaching event underway: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1wKqgPo

A forest in miniature

Reindeer lichens (aka Cladonia and cup lichen) are a common coating on trees in the regions surrounding the Arctic Ocean, though this unusual symbiosis of algae or cyanobacteria with fungi occupy a wide variety of habitats worldwide. As their name indicates they are the only available food to the herds of reindeer and caribou during the long northern winters, and the major constituent of their diet, and the basis of the food web that keeps peoples such as the Sami alive. As well as trees, Cladonia have been found in bogs and growing on rocks, and are part of a family called 'moss like' lichens, though they are unrelated orgaisms.

The body is a mixture of algal and fungoid cells that grip tenaciously in many life poor environments, often absorbing water and nutrients from the air or rock that they grow from, needing no soil since they have no roots. As a cooperative team each gets benefits that would not accrue to them on their own. The algae photosynthesise, sharing the nutritional benefit with the fungus, that keeps it shielded from grazers and anchored to the rock or branch amongst its fibres and gathers moisture and nutrients from the environment and substrate (whether plant or rock). There are around 20,000 known 'species', though that term is not used when classifying them, since they are an alliance between kingdoms rather than a proper organism. By convention they are classified according to the fungal member while the green component uses its normal Linnean binomial genus and species name.

Nowadays experts are coming to view them as complex ecosystems in their own right, and may include a third kingdom of bacteria within the mix. They grow slowly in harsh environments and can be very long lived. They are also the first life to colonise freshly revealed rock, say after a landslide. Their slow growth rate has been used to date events (eg by measuring seizes of lichens on tombstones with known ages to date those without any text remaining). They act as excellent environmental indicators, being very sensitive to disturbance, and have been used in fields as disparate as assessing pollution, ozone depletion (via the increased UV rays damaging the lichen) and metal contamination.

Loz

Image credit: Matthew Cicanese/ Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year http://1.usa.gov/1FvcWR8

Coralline landscapes

Corals are a symbiosis (an ecological relationship in which two or more species cooperate and live together to their mutual benefit) between polyps and algae. The polyps build the structures and hunt microorganisms, providing a home for the algae that contribute energy via photosynthesis. The resulting landscapes in macro are simply amazing. Sadly corals all over the world are under threat from human activities such as fishing, ocean warming due to climate change and increased acidification of the seawater due to the rise in dissolved CO2, and a major bleaching event is now under way worldwide (see http://on.fb.me/1EhnfaO).

Loz

Image credit: Silvie de Burie

Check out our blog for some great video of coral feeding: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1qYyzIQ

Sea Struggles

This photograph captures a life-or-death struggle between two ferocious sea beasts. Only one will survive this encounter. Both are less than a millimetre long.

In the upper left is a foraminifera, Orbulina universa. This complex tangle of spines is formed by a single celled organism, much like an amoeba. The object that looks like a piece of popcorn in the centre of the spines is a porous calcite (calcium carbonate) shell that the foraminifera makes and lives around. Each of the spines protruding from the central shell is a single crystal of calcite, with a thin tendril of the cell running up it. The golden dots along these spines are photosynthetic microbes that live in these extended tendrils, which the cell "farms" for food. Each night the foraminifera brings the microbes into the safety of the central shell, where they deliver packets of sugar they have made during the day: a superb example of a symbiotic relationship.

In the lower right is a calanoid copepod, a microscopic crustacean. This complex, multi-cellular beast is a very different story. It is a powerful, ambush predator in this microscopic world. It has two sets of antennae crammed with tactile and chemical sensors, finely tuned for detecting prey and avoiding predators. The larger antennae also act as its main form of propulsion, allowing it to zip through the water with surprising speed. Its compact, transparent body has five pairs of legs, a heart and a central nervous system. A world apart from the nebulous, drifting foraminifera.

The copepod is an advanced and active predator, but it doesn't stand a chance against the foraminifera. Besides being a benevolent farmer, Orbulina universa is also a voracious predator, capable of catching and consuming prey many times its size. The foraminifera does not hunt actively, but sticky tendrils out beyond the tips of its spines can act like a microscopic cobweb - a trap for an unsuspecting visitor like the copepod. This copepod was completely devoured in just a few hours.

Image Credit: Oscar Branson More about foraminifera, and why we're interested in them (video): http://goo.gl/gufXtH How copepods hunt: http://goo.gl/WoIoDy

Mycorrhizae From the greek words myketos, fungus, and rhiza, root, mycorrhizae are a fungus with a symbiotic (generally mutualistic) relationship with the roots of vascular plants. The roots of the plant provide the fungus with carbohydrates in the form of glucose or sucrose, from photosynthesis. And the fungus provides the plant with macros nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen due its increased absorption ability. Most plant species have adapted relationships with generalist and/or specialized (species specific) mycorrhizal fungi due to gains in fitness. Aside from increases in productivity, mycorrhizal plants display higher resistance to disease, drought, soil toxins, and an increased rate of colonization. Fungal networks can be as large as four square miles, and have a large impact on what plants can colonize that particular area. Intricacies of this relationship are not well understood, but shed light on the importance of fungal communities on plant productivity.  -Greg Aegis Sources -Trees, truffles, and beasts: how forests function – Chris Maser, Andrew Claridge, James Trappe 2008, Book. -Forests Forever: Their ecology, restoration, and protection – John Berger 2008, Book. Photo Credit http://faslanyc.blogspot.com/

Bleached Coral This creature is dead. Coral reefs are structures built out of a variety of organisms including algae that exchange energy and nutrients with the coral in a symbiotic relationship. Despite living in tropical waters, the algae are very temperature sensitive. If it gets too hot, they either die off or leave the area. The coral are unable to survive without their helpful algae, so if the algae can’t survive, the coral can’t either. This area near the Florida Keys has warmed by about 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees F) over the last 30 years. That’s enough to push the algae out of their comfort zone, and as a consequence the coral are dying. This is an example of coral being bleached; killed due to environmental changes and left as a white, carbonate skeleton. -JBB Image credit: USGS Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgeologicalsurvey/15011207807/ Read more: http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/students/coral/coral3.htm http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3996#.VBMWIUvHIok