DrPlanktonguy

DrPlanktonguy, 4 days ago to random

The terrible thing about these organized crime #poaching operations of highly threatened American Eel #elvers is that because they were seized at the airport DFO can't return them to the location the were captured, so they have to be destroyed. At 107 kg of weight this translates out to about 1.3 million elver glass eels. This is a terrible loss to their threatened populations.
#fisheries #SpeciesAtRisk #eel
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-ont-elver-seizure-1.7208615

DrPlanktonguy, 5 days ago to random

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
There is a well-known ecological relationship called Bergmann's Rule which states that populations & species of larger size tend to be found in colder environments at higher latitudes. This pattern also holds true for #phytoplankton and #zooplankton. Polar #copepods like Calanus hyperboreus (~5 mm) are relative giants compared to tiny tropical Parvocalanus crassirostris or Oithona spp. (300-400 µm). These tiny copepods were regularly missed by coarse mesh nets.

image/png a darkly pigmented cylindrical crustacean with long outward facing antenna is shown in a microscope image. The scale bar of 100 microns suggest it is 0.5 mm long. Parvocalanus crassirostris.

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to climate

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
A new paper on #mixotrophs. These protists are both plants or animals. Some algae, often #dinoflagellates, can consume other organisms in addition to being able to photosynthesize. They switch as needed, and during the recent heat-waves driven by #ClimateChange, they become dominant. The fate of this production isn't well known because some species are often not preferred for grazing #zooplankton because of toxicity or armoured cell walls.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neither-plants-nor-animals-these-ocean-organisms-protect-their-ecosystems/

image/jpeg illustration of an armoured organism with three extremely long sharp curved pointed spines. Original name Ceratium tripos (O.F.Müller, 1776). Now accepted as Tripos muelleri (Bory de Saint-Vincent, 1824). This dinoflagellate is recognizable by its U-shaped horns. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ceratium_tripos.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to science

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
The ubiquitous tool of #zooplankton #science is the Plankton Net. The first documented use was by British surgeon Dr John Vaughan Thompson to catch the brightly coloured copepods Sapphirina and barnacle larvae. Darwin brought these nets on the HMS Beagle. Originally fine muslin, then silk, now are highly accurate sized meshes of nylon. Modern quantitative #oceanography nets with removable cod-end have been standardized since late 1800s and named for Victor Hensen.

image/jpeg sketch of a bagged net hanging from a bar with a hoop opening and tied at the bottom. From HMS Challenger Expedition. Public Domain.
Photo of a plankton net being retrieved via a winch from a sampling stage on a ship by a technican. Photo from DFO. Public Domain.
image/jpeg a microscopic photo of a highly accurate grid of white nylon plastic against a black background. Nitex mesh.

Sheril, 1 month ago to random

We traveled to Toledo, Ohio last night for today’s #eclipse. The journey from here depends on the clouds.

Wishing everyone clear skies & great viewing. Have fun & make sure to protect your eyes. https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to climate

This really is not good. If the wind patterns continue to shift to bring lower latitude air to the Antarctic, this will accelerate the loss of polar ice and make the ecosystem changes happening there more abrupt.
#ClimateChange #Antarctica
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to random

This is an excellent storyboard article with plenty of images and video about "lost rivers" in #Canadian cities that have been buried and disconnected from the open. It is a major hydrological problem for many #cities, because you can try to infill and bury a #river, but they will reappear when a storm comes.
Thanks to @GeriAQuin for posting.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2024/daylighting-rivers/

NickEast, 1 month ago to scifi

I didn't realise this was a thing, do people really think Mary Shelly wasn't the first SciFi author? 🤔

@sciencefiction @writers @writingcommunity @writing

#MaryShelly #Frankenstein #Monster #SciFi #Author #Writerdons #Writers #Writer #Writing #WritingCommunity #Writinglife #WritersOfMastodon
#BoostingIsSharing

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to SciComm

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
An important grouping of marine #zooplankton is "temporary" #Meroplankton, where only some life stages (almost always juvenile) are planktonic, but others are benthic. They use this stage for dispersal. Meroplankton often have fantastical body forms, and one of my favourites is the weird and wacky larvae of Stomatopods (mantis shrimp). The lab next door at Berkeley had a colony of these, and they are just as strange when adults. #SciComm
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/stomatopoda.html

image/jpeg a microscope image of a transparent elongated crustacean having long forward legs with pincers, prominent stalked eyes and leaf-like extensions from the head. Photo from abyssalfauna.

marcioaleks, 1 month ago to random

These are leaf sheep (Costasiella kuroshimae). They live in the sea, grazing on algae.

video/mp4

DrPlanktonguy, 1 month ago to climate

The loss of stable ice is a massive impact to remote northern #Indigenous communities because these #IceRoads provide the only time of year they can bring in bulky supplies such as building materials or stocking stores. The period when ice is thin and breaking up is also a huge risk to the sick and elderly, since emergency services can not access them because boats can't be used during this time.
#ClimateChange #reconciliation
https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/short-season-on-ontario-southern-ice-road-makes-first-nation-life-unpredictable-1.6820022

DrPlanktonguy, 2 months ago to history

The Marine Museum of the Great Lakes is an amazing place to visit when in #Kingston, ON. The recent acquisition of the SS Keewatin just makes it better. The volunteers who maintain this facility's operations definitely deserve this award.
#GreatLakes #History

https://www.kingstonist.com/news/volunteers-of-the-great-lakes-museum-recognized-with-historical-society-award/

DrPlanktonguy, 2 months ago to privacy

When local news becomes interesting internationally, it is rarely because it is good. In this case because vending machine companies feel that #surveillance on customers using image recognition is more important than #privacy. The only reason the students knew was that glitchy #software threw an error for:
"Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognition.App.exe"
That will get attention at a university renowned for its computer science programs 🤓

Fixed by gum stuck on the pinhole 📷.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/23/vending-machine-facial-recognition-canada-univeristy-waterloo

DrPlanktonguy, 3 months ago to worldwithoutus

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
For #zooplankton, there are few true rules about feeding. Herbivores will consume prey, and omnivores will consume anything they can handle - live or dead. #Jellyfish are often viewed as poor food, rarely consumed, so "jellyfication" of the oceans was thought a concern. While #metabarcoding has its issues, it makes possible identification of trace prey, and #Arctic amphipods are confirmed to eat gelatinous zooplankton esp if food is scarce.
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-tiny-crustaceans-preying-jellyfish-harsh.amp

image/jpeg a yellow-orange coloured, stout, shrimp-like creature with a large eye and dangling swimming legs. Orchomenella sp. https://species.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Orchomenella

DrPlanktonguy, 3 months ago to climate

It is the end of the first week of Feb 2024 and Lake Superior is practically ice-free, and even embayments like Thunder Bay are only partially frozen. This occurs about half the years now.

My friend Jay Austin says it well:
"the mildly unnerving aspect of this is that if you look prior to about 1998, we didn't really have these sort of low ice years."

This is going to have a radical effect on lake chemistry, algal biology and fish survival.

#ClimateChange #GreatLakes

https://www.sootoday.com/local-news/lake-superior-on-pace-for-record-low-ice-cover-8217127

DrPlanktonguy, 4 months ago to random

This seems like a great use of the buckets of cash some people are accumulating these days.

Family of Josh Kirby looking for a benefactor to preserve the artist's legacy. Any #Pratchett fan billionaires out there?
@rhipratchett

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/jan/20/family-of-discworld-illustrator-josh-kirby-seek-wealthy-patron-to-conserve-legacy-of-one-of-the-great-artists-of-our-time

dave, 4 months ago to ocean

The #ocean is hotter than ever, destabilizing the #polarvortex, causing waves of #arctic #weather air to dip south. Looks like a chilly day! 🥶

image/png
image/png

DrPlanktonguy, 4 months ago to SciComm

An excellent accessible #scicomm #Oceanography article in the @guardian by
@helenczerski. Nice background about being on a research ship in the Arctic, and the importance of measuring gas exchange in the cold-water regions. #ClimateChange
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/07/ocean-breathing-climate-crisis-carbon-oxygen-helen-czerski-blue-machine

DrPlanktonguy, 4 months ago to climate

Another #CBC story about the lack of ice on Lake Erie this winter, with an interview of Mike McKay, Dir. of U Windsor's Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research. He points out that ice is important not only for local coastal impacts (erosion, snowfall) but also the ecology of the lake (fish spawning, food webs). The story might be using one of our zooplankton photos from winter sampling, but I've posted so many I can't remember 🙂.
#LakeErie #Ice #ClimateChange
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/lake-erie-no-ice-1.7075773

DrPlanktonguy, 4 months ago to random

It always seems to be a Tesla.
This is not the first time this has happened either.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/5-injured-after-tesla-crashes-into-toronto-townhouse-1.6712535#:~:text=Five%20people%20are%20in%20hospital,into%20the%20three%2Dstorey%20building.

DrPlanktonguy, 4 months ago to random

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
For decades, Klaus Kemp (1937-2022) would painstakingly arrange fossil diatom #algae on a microscope slide to create lovely images. Here is his Christmas tree.
Happy Holidays everyone.
https://frameweb.com/article/klaus-kemp-arranges-microscopic-organisms-into-intricate-patterns

DrPlanktonguy, 5 months ago to random

This will be a huge undertaking by a rowing crew of these four Canadian women marine scientists to raise funds for marine conservation and education. This is a significant chunk of time to devote to this, and I wish them fair winds and following seas. #SaltyScience
#WorldsToughestRow #Atlantic
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/crew-of-marine-scientists-to-row-across-the-atlantic-for-ocean-conservation-1.6685053
To follow their progress or to donate is in the link here:
https://linktr.ee/saltyscience/

DrPlanktonguy, 5 months ago to mastodon

So I have been on #Mastodon now for just over a year casually posting #scicomm on plankton, oceanography, Great Lakes ecology, and climate. Not high-end popular topics 😁, but I just reached my 1000th posting and have 500 followers. Less activity than on DeadBird site, but *so much happier, and many more cool interactions with non-scientists. Very few of my professional colleagues have left horrible Xitter, which makes me sad, but I love my new, nicer community. ❤️ #fediverse