He co-authored a study, published in the scientific journal Nature, on what happened at the impact zone in the first 200,000 years after the so-called K-Pg mass extinction event.
“We found the oldest fossils within a layer of the core that we know was deposited by settling from turbid waters,” explained Lowery.
These waters were full of sediment, churned up by landslides and tsunamis after the impact, which settled over the course of a few years.
“We can calculate the amount of time this took using an equation called Stokes’ Law because we know the size of the sediments, their density, and the depth of the water,” Lowery said.
“Thus, we can say with confidence that this layer was deposited within a few years. Because we find the first fossils of post-impact organisms within this layer, we know that they lived and died in the crater within years of the impact.”
Previous studies had noted slow recovery around the crater, with sites in the North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico taking longer to return to pre-extinction levels — up to 300,000 years — than regions further away.
With fish and other marine life becoming increasingly important for feeding our growing human population, science-based fisheries management is crucial to keep stocks sustainable. How can acoustic-based scientific instruments contribute in this respect, while also opening up opportunities for interdisciplinary scientific research?
To keep stocks sustainable, fishery scientists and managers need to understand the dynamics and structure of fish stocks, as well as the resources those fish depend on. What scientific instrumentation can be used in this respect? Echosounders can help us quantify the biomass and behavior of fish, as well as the plankton and/or krill that many fish species eat. Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs), on the other hand, provide information about currents, which can shape the availability of plankton.
“It used to be that the biological oceanographers could work in one place, while the physical oceanographers worked separately somewhere else,” says David Velasco, lead author of a paper on a combined ADCP and biological echosounder system called Signature100 presented at the Oceans’18 MTS/IEEE Kobe/Techno-Ocean 2018 conference.
With fisheries management beginning to take on a more holistic ecosystem approach and funding becoming more limited, collaborations between physical and biological scientists are coming to fruition more and more. Scientific instrumentation therefore needs to follow suit to match these changing needs.
Providing the tools for collaborations between physical and biological scientists
The Signature100 lends itself well to collaborations between physical and biological scientists, since it uniquely combines the capabilities of an ADCP and a biological echosounder in one. It is currently the only instrument in the world providing this combined capacity.
“The biggest advantage of combining an ADCP and a single-beam wide-band echosounder as on the Signature100 comes down to costs and logistics,” says David Velasco.
Echogram (top), vertical velocity (middle), and horizontal current speed (bottom) for the first two days of the deployment.
“Currently, scientists wanting to study both physical and biological aspects need to purchase two separate pieces of equipment, each deployed separately. With the Signature100, however, instead of having to deal with two moorings and two separate installations, you just have one,” he adds.
Since the samples from the ADCP and echosounder are already accurately synchronized with each other in the one instrument, processing the data afterwards also becomes much more efficient.
Providing information on the movement of marine life
As reported in the IEEE paper, sea trials of the Signature100 in the Mediterranean Sea have demonstrated the high performance of this novel instrument. Focusing on the echosounder performance, a 70 kHz pulse (one of the three frequencies available in the system) was able to provide information on the movement of marine life.
Acoustically, a single fish can look very similar to a school of plankton of the same volume. For users to determine whether they are looking at one fish or a mass of plankton, and assess how big the individuals are, it is important they calibrate their echosounder for absolute backscatter.
For the purposes of this initial field test, the Signature100’s echosounder was not calibrated for absolute backscatter, but from the movement patterns seen in the echograms the team is confident they detected the migration of plankton up and down the water column. Nortek is currently developing a way for users to calibrate the echosounders to enhance the instrument’s identification potential.
Echogram of diel plankton migration.
Identifying internal waves in the ocean
For those more interested in physical oceanography, the Signature100’s echosounder beam used in the field validation in the Mediterranean Sea also identified internal waves towards the bottom half of the water column. Meanwhile, setting the ADCP to transmit 60 pings at 0.25 Hz on a 5-minute repeating sequence, and with a profile of sixty 10 m depth cells, the tested instrument was able to profile currents through a maximum usable range of up to 420 m.
Enabling long-term deployments for deeper scientific understanding
Although the field test lasted only five days, thanks to the low power consumption of the unit, in other deployments the Signature100 can collect data for up to a year. The data retrieved from such a long-term deployment can help scientists understand the seasonal dynamics of an area and play a role in understanding the longer-term impacts of climate change on the ocean and implications for fisheries management.
Ship travel across the Arctic Ocean will become easier as the ocean’s ice cover dwindles, but will these changing conditions also remove barriers for plankton traveling from the Pacific to the Atlantic? New computer models of the currents moving past Alaska, Siberia, and Greenland suggest that the answer is yes.
The Pacific and Atlantic oceans are separate ecosystems, even though it would seem easy for organisms that go with the flow, such as plankton, to move between them. The average level of the Pacific is higher than that of the Atlantic because of differences in the waters’ salinity and density, maintained by the global system of ocean currents. This difference in levels causes water to flow through the available connections such as the Bering Strait in the north and the Drake Passage at the southern tip of the Americas.
Because the ice covering the Arctic Ocean makes the water beneath it cold and often dark, the long trip along the northern route is evidently too much for plankton. For instance, the remains of a species of diatoms that is plentiful in the northern Pacific, Neodenticula seminae, have been conspicuously absent from sediment cores taken from the Atlantic seabed. It seemed that these unicellular creatures were not present in the Atlantic for the last 800,000 years. Or were they?
Currents in the Arctic Ocean provide net transport from the Pacific into the Atlantic. Pacific water (red brown) usually follows three pathways but sometimes, according to model calculations, takes a shortcut through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (green). Shown also are the Beaufort Gyre (magenta) and the Atlantic inflow (dark blue). The Transpolar Drift Stream (orange) exits, together with some water from the Pacific, through the Fram Strait off northeastern Greenland. A portion of the Atlantic inflow enters the Arctic Ocean through the same passageway but farther to the east. Credit: Stephen Kelly, University of Southampton
Stephen Kelly, a physical oceanographer at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, took up the question of how this could have happened. He had been modeling the fate of virtual particles—for instance, oil droplets—released in polar waters that might result from ship accidents along newly opened northern routes.
To see, instead, how Pacific diatoms could traverse the Arctic Ocean, he dropped his virtual particles in the Bering Strait under the environmental conditions of 10 or more years ago. Then, with his model inferring the movement of ocean waters, the outflow of rivers, and the development of ice from the actual weather conditions for the decade beyond his chosen starting year, he followed the particles’ trajectories. He then looked to see how many virtual particles released during conditions present from 1980 to 2000 reached the Atlantic and how many years it had taken each one.
Kelly’s findings seem to confirm the notion that under some circumstances Pacific water can reach the Atlantic unusually quickly. He presented preliminary results last month at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.
Sign of a Shortcut?
There was one year when his model showed many particles taking a shortcut not seen in other years. Normally, after passing through the Bering Strait, they would exit into the Atlantic via the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard, with or without a stint circulating the Arctic Ocean in the Beaufort Gyre, typically taking 4 to 5 years to complete the journey. But some particles released in that particular year made it to the Atlantic faster by passing through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, getting there after 2 to 3 years, possibly allowing the diatoms to survive the journey. That year was 1998.
Does the model explain the real-world Atlantic appearance in 1999 of Neodenticula seminae? “Looking at the timescales involved, the answer is probably no,” Kelly told Eos. According to his model, the Pacific diatoms could not have been spotted in the Atlantic so soon. “But the real interesting thing is that we found this shortcut pathway,” he said. “It’s a quicker route and geographically very different, along the coast, in an area where the ice disappears quicker in the summer and the growing conditions of the ice are different as well. So regardless of whether or not it can explain the appearance of this diatom, to which the answer appears to be no, it is interesting that this route is opened, coinciding with the first year of significantly ice free waters to the north of the Canadian Archipelago.”
Warming May Accelerate Journeys
In a follow-up study, Kelly has also tried to predict whether this shortcut, seen in only one year in his simulations from 1980 to 2000, is a one-off coincidence or if it will appear more often as global temperatures rise. “In 1998, having an ice-free Arctic just north of the Archipelago was absolutely shocking news. Now it’s, depressingly, every year,” he said.
For now, he has had to work with a coarser input for his model to generate these predictions because it is forecasting ocean currents as well as conditions in the Arctic for the next few decades, instead of hindcasting currents with known conditions. With those lower-resolution data, he hasn’t seen the shortcut appear so far. But his results, which he hopes to publish later this year, do show a general decrease in the time it will take for particles to reach the Atlantic. “We need to do more to work out why it is accelerating,” he said.
Kelly is not a biologist, so it is not for him to say whether new oceanic pathways opening between the two basins would be detrimental to life in the Atlantic. He does, however, note that Neodenticula seminae is very similar to Atlantic diatoms, and its recent incursion into the Atlantic doesn’t seem to have caused any problems. “I’m not sure it would be a bad thing, but it would be a thing. Obviously, invasive species in general can cause lots and lots of problems.”
Species in Transit
Even though the models don’t yet explain the 1999 appearance of Neodenticula seminae in the Atlantic, Kelly’s research is extremely interesting, said Robert Spielhagen, a paleoceanographer at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. “From the point of view of microbiology, we want to know how such species, which apparently do not occur in the central Arctic, can make their way. Modeling studies such as these are probably the only way to answer this question.”
Spielhagen says there are similar riddles throughout the world. “For instance, there’s a certain species of planktic foraminifera which is living only in the two polar areas. DNA studies have shown the two populations are very similar, so there must have been some exchange in the last several hundreds of thousands of years, although the poles have been climatically separated for millions of years. How were genes exchanged across the equator?”
Spielhagen was not involved with Kelly’s work on pathways through the Arctic, but he made a possible contribution to it during the meeting in Vienna. He commented, after the presentation, that he had found remains of Neodenticula seminae, the Pacific diatoms Kelly tried to trace to the northwestern Atlantic, in sediments from the Fram Strait, which connects the Atlantic and Arctic oceans between Greenland and Svalbard, in layers dating from around 1989. This observation has not yet been published.
The Fram Strait is a section of the normal route from the Pacific to the Atlantic, not the shortcut route discovered by Kelly, who told Eos he is now eager to do detailed modeling studies of flows through the strait around that time. “We can look at more things—data like temperature, salinity, sunlight—to see whether or not there’s anything that might have made that period more favorable for that route.”
Jakarta - PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara bersama Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Penelitian Indonesia (LIPI) Jakarta kembali melakukan penelitian lingkungan laut dalam (Deep Sea Survey) di selatan Sumbawa Barat, Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB). Hal ini sebagai wujud komitmen berkelanjutan perusahaan untuk menerapkan standar tinggi dalam pengelolaan lingkungan.
Manager Lingkungan Amman Mineral, Jorina Waworuntu mengatakan kegiatan penelitian ini secara rutin dilakukan setiap lima tahun dan telah dilaksakanan perusahaan sejak 2003. Penelitian laut dalam ini bertujuan untuk memetakan tapak sebaran tailing dan dampak penempatan tailing di dasar laut dalam terhadap ekosistem laut.
“Pelaksanaan studi ini adalah salah satu bentuk komitmen Amman Mineral terhadap pengelolaan dan perlindungan lingkungan, secara khusus pengelolaan tailing," kata Jorina dalam keterangan tertulis di Jakarta, Selasa (29/05).
Jorina menuturkan penelitian lingkungan laut dalam akan berlangsung selama kurang lebih tiga minggu, mulai 20 Mei hingga 8 Juni 2018 mendatang. Menurut Jorina, data-data dari hasil penelitian akan digunakan untuk memperbaharui potret tapak tailing bawah laut.
“Survei ini sekaligus kami lakukan untuk memvalidasi prediksi dalam analisis mengenai dampak lingkungan (amdal), serta memenuhi persyaratan dan ketentuan perundangan yang berlaku sesuai dengan izin penempatan tailing Amman Mineral,” jelasnya.
Dikatakannya program sosialisasi kepada masyarakat mengenai penelitian lingkungan laut dalam dilakukan dalam acara Openship yang diselenggarakan pada 25 Mei kemarin. Sosialisasi itu memperkenalkan infrastruktur riset di Kapal Riset Baruna Jaya VIII serta memberikan kesempatan kepada masyarakat dan pemerintah daerah melihat secara langsung Kapal Riset Baruna yang merupakan milik Pusat Penelitian Oseanografi LIPI (P2O LIPI).
Pada kegiatan openship ini Kepala P2O LIPI didampingi oleh para tim peneliti dari P2O LIPI dan Tim lingkungan Amman Mineral memberikan penjelasan kegiatan Survey Laut Dalam kepada pengamat dari Pemerintah Daerah Kabupaten Sumbawa Barat, termasuk Dinas Kelautan dan Perikanan serta Dinas Lingkungan Hidup, Pemerintah Kecamatan dan Kepala Desa sekitar tambang, Universitas Cordova dan Universitas Mataram.
Penelitian tahun ini rencananya dilakukan di 63 stasiun pantau dengan kedalaman hingga lebih dari 4000 m dpl dan jarak dari pantai kurang lebih 66 mil laut atau 120 km. Kegiatan penelitian mencakup pengukuran batimetri, arus, kualitas air laut, profil kolom air laut, kimia dan geologi sedimen, plankton, bentos, dan sebagainya.
AKURAT.CO, Sebagai wujud komitmen perusahaan dalam standar pengelolaan lingkungan. PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (“Amman Mineral”) bersama Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Penelitian Indonesia (LIPI) Jakarta kembali melakukan penelitian lingkungan laut dalam (Deep Sea Survey) di selatan Sumbawa Barat.
Manager LingkunganAmman Mineral, Jorina Waworuntu mengatakan kegiatan penelitian ini secara rutin dilakukan setiap lima tahun dan telah dilaksanakan perusahaan sejak 2003. Penelitian laut dalam ini bertujuan untuk memetakan tapak sebaran tailing dan dampak penempatan tailing di dasar laut dalam terhadap ekosistem laut.
baca juga:
"Pelaksanaan studi ini adalah salah satu bentuk komitmen Amman Mineral terhadap pengelolaan dan perlindungan lingkungan, secara khusus pengelolaan tailing.” ujarnya di Jakarta, Selasa (29/5).
Tiga minggu penelitan itu, telah dimulai 20 Mei 2018 hingga 8 Juni 2018 mendatang. Nantinya data-data dari hasil penelitian akan digunakan untuk memperbaharui potret tapak tailing bawah laut.
Dalam memperkenalkan infrastruktur riset di KR Baruna Jaya VIII serta memberikan kesempatan kepada masyarakat dan pemerintah daerah melihat secara langsung Kapal Riset Baruna Jaya VIII yang merupakna milik Pusat Penelitian Oseanografi LIPI (P2O LIPI).
Amman melakukan kegiatan sosialisasi Survey Laut Dalam kepada pengamat dari Pemerintah Daerah Kabupaten Sumbawa Barat, termasuk Dinas Kelautan dan Perikanan serta Dinas Lingkungan Hidup, Pemerintah Kecamatan dan Kepala Desa sekitar tambang, Universitas Cordova dan Universitas Mataram.
Sementara penelitian tahun ini rencananya dilakukan di 63 stasiun pantau dengan kedalaman hingga > 4000 m dpl dan jarak dari pantai ±66 mil laut atau 120 km. Kegiatan penelitian mencakup pengukuran batimetri, arus, kualitas air laut, profil kolom air laut, kimia dan geologi sedimen, plankton, bentos, dan sebagainya.[]
TRIBUN-MEDAN.com - Sekelompok peneliti menemukan gumpalan miripotak, sebagian lagi menyebutnya miripkotoran manusia, di sebuah laguna buatan (kumpulan air asin yang terpisah dari laut) di Kanada.
Warna gumpalan itu hijau kekuning-kuningan, berlendir, lengket, dan permukaannya licin.
Jika kita memegangnya, di tangan rasanya seperti memegang sebuah bola basket atau agar-agar raksasa.
Pectinatella magnificaadalah ribuan organisme yang terikat bersama menjadi kolektif yang bertumpu atau mengapung di waduk air tawar, menyaring plankton, dan sumber nutrisi lainnya dari air.
Ia pertama kali ditemukan secara tak terduga selama ekspedisi biologi Bioblitz menjelang akhir 2017 lalu di Stanley Park’s Laguna Lost di Vancouver.
Sciencealert/Pectinatella magnifica
“Ia (gumpalan itu) baru berusia tiga hari,” ucap Kathleen Stormont dari Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPES) dilansir dariSciencealert.com.
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Hätte in der oscarprämierten Unterwasser-Romanze „The Shape of Water“ statt der stummen Elisa ein Mann seine Liebe zu einem geheimnisvollen, aquatischen Wesen entdeckt, wäre Ángel León die perfekte Besetzung gewesen. Der Andalusier ist zwar kein Schauspieler, sondern Sternekoch, aber kaum jemand liebt das Meer und vor allem seine Bewohner mehr – und nur wenige seiner Kollegen erforschen selbst die unscheinbarsten Meereswesen wohl so akribisch und vorurteilsfrei wie León, der in seinem Restaurant, dem „Aponiente“, Shrimps zum Leuchten bringt und selbst aus Plankton eine Zutat macht, die Gourmets begeistert und das Potenzial hat, den Hunger in der Welt zu lindern.
Wie ein Labor muten die neuen, vor knapp zwei Jahren bezogenen Räume am Rande des Hafens von El Puerto de Santa María aber nicht an. Ein wenig fühlt man sich wie auf hoher See, wenn man über die Planken im Innenhof der im 19. Jahrhundert erbauten Mühle ins eigentliche Restaurant geht, so raffiniert locker hat León sie verlegen lassen. Innen wartet ein fein austarierter Mix aus robustem Fischkutter und elegantem Ozeandampfer mit Blick über den Río Guadalete, auf dem ein paar Dutzend alte Fischerboote schaukeln.
Dort draußen, in der Bahía de Cádiz, fühlt sich León noch immer am wohlsten. „Wenn ich morgens um sechs mit meinem Bötchen hinaustuckere und die Angel nach einem Wolfsbarsch auswerfe, finde ich mein wahres Selbst“, sagt der 50-Jährige. „All der Stress, quasi am Ende der Welt erfolgreich ein Sternerestaurant zu führen und für über siebzig Crewmitglieder verantwortlich zu sein, fällt dann von mir ab. Ich werde eins mit dem Meer und frage mich, warum der Mensch so wenig mit ihm anzufangen weiß.“
Keiner liebt das Meer mehr als er
León möchte der Welt klarmachen, wie reichhaltig und wohlschmeckend das Meer ist. Zum Glück wurde er aber kein Ökosektenprediger, sondern ein Koch mit höchsten Ansprüchen und großem Forscherdrang. Mit seiner Crew hat er einen Ort geschaffen, an dem er seine Passion leben und die Gäste an der Vielfalt des Meeres teilhaben lassen kann. Mit einem Royal vom Seeigel an Kaviar etwa, einer Barbe in Plankton-Creme, einem Tartar vom Sepia-Tintenfisch, einer Jod-Suppe mit Muscheln oder einfach mit der getrockneten, bernsteinfarben schillernden Haut einer Muräne. Für diese puristische und gleichzeitig hochkomplexe Küche, die sich in einem rund zwanzig Gänge umfassenden „Mar de Fondo“-Menü offenbart, hat ihm der „Guide Michelin“ soeben den dritten Stern verliehen.
Fleisch hat León nicht im Programm. Das berühmte iberische Schwein, das um die Ecke in der Sierra de Cádiz gedeiht, findet allenfalls als hauchdünner Schinkenstreifen zur Garnierung einer Krebsfleischcreme Verwendung. „Mit meinen Gerichten will ich das Meer erzählen“, formuliert er beinahe postmodern sein in Europa einzigartiges Konzept. „Diese Obsession, die Leute vom Reichtum des Meeres zu überzeugen, hatte ich schon als kleiner Junge.“
Als Kind trieb er sich gern bei den Fischern am Hafen herum und fuhr oft mit ihnen hinaus. Die Schule interessierte den Sohn eines Hämatologen gerade so sehr, dass es zum Abitur reichte. Da stand sein Wunsch, Koch zu werden, schon lange fest. Statt in die Fußstapfen des Vaters zu treten und Medizin zu studieren, begab er sich auf die Ochsentour durch die Häuser der französischen Spitzengastronomie und lernte sein Handwerk von der Pike auf. Zurück in der Heimat, geriet er mitten hinein in die von Köchen wie Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak und Joan Roca ausgelöste Kochrevolution, die von Norden aus gerade die Halbinsel eroberte. Auch León begann, neue – manche sagen avantgardistische – Kochtechniken zu entwickeln, und eröffnete 2007 in einer alten Hafenspelunke im Fischerviertel von El Puerto de Santa María das „Aponiente“.
Fisch, wie’s frischer nicht geht
Quelle: ullstein bild - EFE / J.J. GUILL
Die lokale Presse und konservative Kollegen aus der Region begriffen den Ansatz von León zunächst nicht. Erst recht nicht, als er 2009 sämtliche Fleischgerichte von der Karte strich. „Die Leute erklärten mich für verrückt. Tatsächlich war es anfangs manchmal die Hölle, das kulinarische Bewusstsein war damals selbst in Spanien noch sehr viel konservativer. Gäste kamen, warfen einen Blick auf die Karte, standen auf und gingen wieder. Wäre ich nicht so ein Sturkopf, hätte ich vielleicht aufgegeben.“
Aber dann kam wie aus heiterem Himmel der erste Michelin-Stern und seine über glühenden Olivenkernen geräucherte Sardine auf Tomatencreme, die die Essenz Andalusiens in einem ebenso schlichten wie komplex schmeckenden Gericht erfasst, war plötzlich keine banale Tapa mehr, sondern Haute Cuisine, und León kein armer Irrer, sondern der unangefochtene „Chef del Mar“. Dieser Beiname ist inzwischen sein Markenzeichen; die Sardine kann man heute noch in seinem Bistro, dem inzwischen zur „Taberna del Chef del Mar“ umfunktionierten Ur-„Aponiente“, für kleines Geld bestellen. „Ich habe damals nicht auf einen Stern spekuliert,“ sagt León. „Das Einzige, was ich wollte, war, meine Vision zu verwirklichen und meine Leute bezahlen zu können. Das kam in einer vom Werftensterben und der Finanzkrise gebeutelten Region manchmal einem Himmelfahrtskommando gleich.“
Und wo dinieren die Profis?
Restaurant-Tipps
Das Archaische und Anarchische seiner Anfangstage hat er sich trotz der Sterne-Weihen bewahrt. Hummer und Kaviar gehören heute dennoch zu seinem Menü. „Für 200 Euro wollen die Leute eben High-End-Produkte sehen. Ich kann das verstehen, aber darum geht es mir nicht. Ein hochwertiges Produkt wie einen Hummer zuzubereiten kann jeder lernen. Und einen guten Thunfisch bekommen Sie mittlerweile auch in Madrid.“ Er selbst experimentiert am liebsten mit den maritimen Mauerblümchen der Region, die oft nicht einmal einen offiziellen Namen haben, destilliert immer neue Fonds, Essenzen und Extrakte, probiert frisch gefangenen Fisch mit bloßen Händen.
„Ein bisschen ist es wie beim Liebesspiel“, beschreibt León seine bacchantische Art, neue Gerichte zu entwickeln. „Ich rieche, ich schmecke, ich beiße hinein. Das sind für mich die schönsten Momente. Aber irgendwann sage ich mir, du hast hier einen Laden mit drei Sternen, und dann unterziehen wir meine wilden Kreationen einem Zivilisationsprozess, bei dem wir aus den unterschätzen Meereswesen das Optimale herauskitzeln.“ Bei diesen Explorationen verlässt er sich aber längst nicht mehr nur auf seinen Geschmack.
Algen und Plankton? Taugen bei ihm allemal für die Haute Cuisine
Quelle: picture alliance / dpa
Schon kurz nach der Eröffnung des „Aponiente“ begann er, mit dem Meeresbiologischen Institut der Universität von Cádiz zu kooperieren. Der rege Ideenaustausch führte zu so kuriosen Erfindungen wie dem leuchtenden, weil mit Glühwürmchen-DNS gepimpten Shrimp, der eine klare Consommé illuminierte. Das brachte León jede Menge Schlagzeilen und Fernsehauftritte. Genau so war es auch gedacht, bekennt León: „Ein PR-Gag, um auf unser Restaurant hier unten in der kulinarischen Diaspora aufmerksam zu machen.“
Ernsthafter ist seine Auseinandersetzung mit natürlichen Ressourcen. „Auf eine Tonne Qualitätsfisch kommen fünf Tonnen Beifang, der oft vernichtet oder allenfalls als Tierfutter verwendet wird“, erklärt León. Um dieser Verschwendung entgegenzutreten, nahm er sich mit universitärer Hilfe praktisch jede Fischart, jeden Muscheltyp und sämtliche in der Bahía wachsenden Algen vor und untersuchte sie auf ihren Ernährungsgehalt, um optimale Zubereitungs- und Verwertungsarten herauszufinden: „Wir stellen zum Beispiel Würste aus diesen scheinbar minderwertigen Fischen her. Chorizo, Botifarra, Botillo, Würste, die jeder Spanier kennt. Wir erhalten deren Charakteristika und ‚veredeln‘ sie mit dem Aroma des Meeres.“ Als frische Amuse Gueule gibt es diese Würste im Restaurant, in einer Fischfabrik lässt León sie zudem konservieren und über ein Netz von Feinschmeckerläden vertreiben.
Das Einzige, was ich wollte, war, meine Vision zu verwirklichen und meine Leute bezahlen zu können
Den größten Coup aber landete er mit seiner Entdeckung der „Essenz des Meeres“, wie er sie nennt. Ein Mix aus Zufall, Neugier und Einbildungskraft führte ihn vor knapp zehn Jahren in die kleine, nur wenige Hundert Meter von seinem Restaurant gelegene Planktonmanufaktur von Carlos Unamunzaga und Lalia Mantecon. Die Meeresbiologen hatten an der Universität Cádiz einen Weg gefunden, pflanzliches Plankton anzubauen und zu einem Pulver zu verarbeiten, das sie als Fischfutter an die damals überall entstehenden Aquakulturen verkauften. Ob er mal probieren dürfe, fragte León die Wissenschaftler. Entgeistert sahen die beiden zu, wie er die Hand in den Container steckte und das Fischfutter von den Fingern schleckte. León war begeistert und überzeugte das Paar, das sattgrüne Pulver als Lebensmittel zu vermarkten.
Sieben Jahre dauerte das EU-Genehmigungsverfahren, aber seit 2015 produzieren die auf der Fläche von zwei Fußballfeldern verlaufenden transparenten Kunststoffröhren mit nichts als Meerwasser und Sonne etwa drei Tonnen Plancton-Marino-Pulver pro Jahr. Zwar geht der Großteil nach wie vor in die Fischzucht, aber dank des werbewirksamen Gütesiegels von Ángel León ist es als natürlicher Geschmacksverstärker aus spanischen Küchen nicht mehr wegzudenken. León selbst bereitet daraus ein intensiv duftendes Meeresfrüchte-Risotto zu oder injiziert die Essenz Krusten- und Schalentieren.
Ernähren sich auch von Plankton
Aus dem Wattenmeer
Für das Trio ist das aber nur der Anfang. León ist überzeugt, mit Plancton Marino, das extrem viele Mineralien und Vitamine enthält, einen Beitrag zur Bekämpfung des Welthungers und der damit einhergehenden Mangelerscheinungen leisten zu können. Schließlich ist Plankton quasi der Ursprung des Lebens schlechthin und der Einzeller Nummer eins, dessen Fotosynthese wir 50 Prozent unseres Sauerstoffs verdanken. Analysen zeigen, dass bereits ein Viertelgramm täglich den menschlichen Bedarf an Mineralien und Vitaminen deckt, zu denen große Teile der Weltbevölkerung keinen Zugang haben.
Sollte es irgendwann gelingen, nicht nur Spanien, sondern die ganze Welt von diesem Powerfood zu überzeugen, sieht León sich der Verwirklichung seiner Vision vom sanft, aber effizient genutzten Meer einen Schritt näher: „Ich werde nie verstehen, weshalb der Mensch Raubbau an der Festlandnatur betreibt, den Welthunger trotzdem nicht in den Griff bekommt, aber die Ressourcen des Meeres noch nicht einmal ansatzweise nutzt. Alles was wir tun, ist, seine Lebewesen auszurotten. Dabei könnte das Meer, intelligent genutzt, alle Ernährungsprobleme der Menschheit lösen.“
In der 1815 erbauten, weitläufigen Mühle, die das „Aponiente“ beherbergt, tischt Sternekoch Ángel León seinen Gästen neben dem „Mar de Fondo“-Menü auch das „Menú Mar en Calma“ mit Austern, Leber vom Fisch und natürlich einer seiner berühmten Plankton-Kreationen auf. 50 Gäste finden hier Platz; für den passenden Wein sorgt der mehrfach ausgezeichnete Sommelier Juan Ruiz-Henestrosa.
Zu finden: Aponiente, C/Francisco Cossi Ochoa, 11500 El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, aponiente.com.
Quelle: Matthaes
Ein Buch über die Vielfalt der Küstengewässer und ihr kulinarisches Potenzial hat der ehemalige Sternekoch Otto Koch geschrieben. In „Algen und Küstengemüse“ (Matthaes, 74,90 Euro) klärt Koch gemeinsam mit seinem Co-Autor Michael Schubaur über viel zu oft übersehene Unterwasser-Schätze auf.
Koch und Schubaur präsentieren Algenarten von der in China beliebten Kombu über die herbe, von den Koreanern bevorzugte Wakame bis hin zur Nori, mit der die Japaner ihr Sushi einwickeln. Aus diesen Zutaten entwickeln Koch und Schubaur 80 überraschende Rezepte für Profis und Hobbyköche.
Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
Out at sea, a scientist holds a plankton sample up to the light and observes the shimmering contents. This sparkling spectacle is caused by thousands of microscopic organisms living at the sea surface, their intricate, crystalline skeletons refracting and reflecting the sunlight.
These organisms, a type of plankton called acantharians, are highly abundant in all the world's oceans and are key recyclers of carbon and other nutrients within the marine ecosystem.
Acantharians are difficult to study. They do not grow in the laboratory and are so delicate and fragile that they are often destroyed during sampling. And since they are too small to be seen with the naked eye, they garner less interest from researchers than as other marine organisms, such as reef-building corals. But Margaret Brisbin, a Ph.D. student in the Marine Biophysics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), thinks these organisms are worth a closer look.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about acantharians is their symbiotic relationship with the photosynthetic algae that live inside them. The algae help the plankton by providing them with organic carbon, allowing them to live in low-nutrient environments where many other organisms cannot survive.
These tiny planktonic hosts and their algal partners could have a big role to play in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Symbiotic algae fix carbon dioxide at a high rate during photosynthesis, but when their hosts die their heavy strontium skeletons carry them to the bottom of the ocean, locking carbon away deep beneath the surface and keeping it out of the atmosphere. "In our present, carbon-enriched atmosphere, it is preferable, in a way, to have fast-sinking photosynthesizers," explains Brisbin.
Acantharians and their symbiotic algae are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but under the microscope their beautiful shapes and structures are revealed. In the top two photos, the red fluorescence is the symbiont algae. In the top right, the green is the host lysosomes. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
But what, if anything, the algae gain from this symbiosis is not clear. Some biologists think that the relationship between the planktonic hosts and symbiotic algae is reverse parasitism – a kind of enslavement, where the hosts exploit the algae. However, Brisbin thinks there may be more to the story.
"I'm interested in finding out whether the algae are getting anything out of the relationship, or if they're just being farmed by the plankton and digested later," she says.
Brisbin and colleagues collected samples of seawater brimming with the tiny plankton during a month-long research trip in the East China Sea. They filtered seawater through a plankton net to collect acantharians, then transferred each single host cell into a separate dish, one by one, using a glass micropipette. They also kept some seawater samples from each site so that they could compare the free-living algae in the water with the algae found inside the planktonic hosts.
Margaret Brisbin, a PhD student in the Marine Biophysics Unit at OIST, holds a conical flask containing plankton. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
Next, they did a genetic analysis of the organisms, extracting RNA from individual host cells and sequencing a marker gene with the support from OIST's Sequencing Section to determine the number of different types of algae within each individual acantharian host. They found that each host contains a diverse community of symbiotic algae, suggesting that the plankton hosts collect algae multiple times during their lifetime. Their findings are available as a preprint on bioRxiv.
The researchers also discovered that the genetic sequences of algae inside the plankton hosts differed significantly from those of algae in the seawater taken from where the plankton were found, meaning that the two populations contain different types of algae. This implies that the plankton are either choosing which specific algae to take up, or that the symbiotic algae remain inside them for extended periods of time.
Zoological drawing showing the diversity of Acantharian planktonic hosts. Credit: Ernst Haeckel. 1862. “Die Radiolarien (Rhizopoda radiaria)”
Confocal fluorescence microscopy on the acantharians' digestive organelles revealed that the organisms were not digesting the algae. This is consistent with the idea that the algae are being maintained by their hosts over time.
An extended stay within the plankton hosts may protect algae from being eaten by other organisms or shield them against viral infection. Further studies will need to explore whether the algae are truly reaping any benefits from the symbiosis, but the researchers concluded that it is at least possible that this relationship is mutualistic, rather than exploitative, as previously proposed.
An acantharian host and its symbiotic algae, shown in red, as seen under the fluorescent confocal microscope. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
More information:
Margaret Mars Brisbin et al. Intra-host symbiont diversity and extended symbiont maintenance in photosymbiotic Acantharea (clade F), (2018). DOI: 10.1101/299495
Dahinter versteckt sich eine kleine Videokamera, die eine bis zu 300-fache Vergrößerung bietet. Alles was auf den Labortischchen darunter gelegt wird, erscheint auf dem Bildschirm riesengroß. So lässt sich das Leben in einem Wassertropfen wie unter einem Mikroskop entspannt betrachten.
Mit steigender Sonne entwickelt sich tierisches Plankton
„Pflanzliches Plankton ist das erste, das zur Blüte kommt“, erläutert Ulla Grebe-Schmitz, Umweltpädagogin im Ostsee-Info-Center (OIC). Kieselalgen beispielsweise gibt es in großer Formenvielfalt. Mit steigender Sonne entwickelt sich das tierische Zooplankton, das sich wiederum teils von dem pflanzlichen Phytoplankton ernährt.
Naturfotos von Richard Kirby zeigen Mini-Lebewesen in Groß
Den faszinierenden Mikrokosmos im Meer zeigt auch die Fototapete hinter der Plankton-Kamera. Zusammengesetzt aus eindrucksvollen Motiven des englischen Naturfotografen Richard Kirby, sind hier unter anderem Krebslarven, Seestachelbeeren, Ringelwurmlarven und die Vorstadien des Seesterns zu sehen.
Plankton schwimmt nicht gegen die Strömung
„Plankton eint eine besondere Eigenart“, sagt Grebe-Schmitz. „Es schwimmt nicht aktiv gegen die Strömung.“ Unter dieser Prämisse zählen nicht nur die für das bloße Auge kaum sichtbaren Mini-Organismen zum Plankton, sondern auch die größeren Quallen. Die Plankton-Kamera darf jeder OIC-Besucher selbst bedienen. Auch Fundstücke vom Strand lassen sich darunter betrachten.
Even a hundred yards out from the stern of the old steel sloop, the fish at the end of the line looked enormous. And it was strong: As it leapt up out of the water in an attempt to free the hook from its mouth, its long body—green and yellow and speckled with fluorescent blue—slashed violently, unspooling more and more line. The sailor at the end of the reel had to put up a significant fight to avoid losing his rod in the vast blue Pacific.
"That is a mahi-mahi, the most beautiful fish in the world!" called out the ship's captain. At the beginning of the third week of what would turn out to be a 23-day scientific expedition across the Eastern North Pacific Gyre—a highly polluted ocean vortex that swirls clockwise from the California coast to the Hawaiian Islands and back again—a fresh fish was a welcome source of food for his crew of eight.
Erica Cirino
After several minutes of an intense duel, the sailor reeled in the fish, smiling.
That smile soon faded a bit. After the sailor was done separating the fish's thick flesh from skin and bone, he cut open its stomach as requested by the ship's lead scientist. Inside was a small flying fish. The scientist directed the sailor cut open that second fish's stomach.
These plastic bits were what's classified as "microplastic" due to their small size—less than .04 inches in diameter.
"That's not too appetizing," said the scientist, Kristian Syberg, a professor of environmental risk at Roskilde University in Denmark who was aboard the ship to sample the seawater for plastic.
Scientists who study plastic, like Syberg, are just beginning to understand the implications of microplastic and even smaller pieces of plastic called nanoplastic on the marine food web. Fishers, beachgoers and scientists are finding a growing number of marine animals—from live-caught fish to deceased seabirds and whales—with microplastic in their bodies. While the issue has only been studied in-depth for a handful of years, the latest research suggests these tiny pieces of plastic are capable of being transferred from organism to organism, wreaking havoc all the way up the marine food web—possibly all the way to humans.
At the Cornish Sea Sanctuary in the UK, Plymouth Marine Laboratory Ph.D. student Sarah Nelms compared the levels of microplastic found in the bodies of wild-caught Atlantic mackerel and the scat of the captive gray seals to which they were fed over the course of 16 weeks in 2016. She found microplastic in half the seal scat she studied, and in one-third of the mackerel fed to the seals. She posited that the mackerel—considered secondary consumers because they are one step above the bottom of the marine food web—ate microplastic particles along with their normal diets of zooplankton and this plastic was passed on to the seals.
"The seals are not exposed to any other sources of plastic," Nelms told me recently.
Yet the plastic still ended up in their systems. In a paper published this February in the journal Environmental Pollution, Nelms and her coauthors noted that her team took "extensive contamination control measures" to prevent the seals from being exposed to other sources of plastic during the study. "We were therefore able to conclude that the microplastics we found in the seal scats came via the fish."
The fishes' bodies contained a higher number of plastic particles than the seal scat did, particularly microfibers, which crumble off fishing rope or are shed from clothing when washed. Nelms said this could mean the unaccounted-for plastic particles might be getting caught inside the seals' bodies, causing unknown harm.
Microplastic is known to absorb chemicals from ocean water. When marine creatures consume microplastic, they're also getting a dose of toxins. Syberg has studied this so-called "vector" effect where microplastic acts as a transporter of toxic chemicals. He said persistent organic pollutants, called "POPs" for short, are most worrisome because, once consumed, they tend to adhere to organisms' fat cells where they are metabolized by the body and cause health problems.
Throughout history humans have released huge amounts of POPs into nature, where they persist and spread for decades without degrading. These chemicals, which include pesticides, industrial chemicals and unintentional pollutants such as DDT, PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, are considered highly toxic to humans and wildlife. They are proven to cause health problems such as allergies, reproductive and hormone problems, immune system disorders and cancer.
For this reason, and because there's still so much scientists don't known about how plastic acts inside the bodies of living things, Nelms said, "I would consider any amount of plastic inside an animal to be too much."
Plastic's movement up the marine food web appears to start with the ocean's smallest animals, and even in these creatures can cause severe harm. Independent plankton scientist Richard Kirby recently filmed a common plankton species called an arrow worm found off Plymouth, in the UK, eating a tiny plastic microfiber. The fiber blocked the worm's gut, stopping the movement of copepods—its food source—through its body. Eventually this would kill the worm—though Kirby pointed out that doesn't always happen with microplastic.
"In some cases the microplastics will pass through the animal or can be retained and eaten by another animal when the plankton itself is eaten," said Kirby.
Widespread deaths of plankton caused by microplastic would certainly disrupt the marine food web. But their consumption is already changing the health of the oceans: Microplastic has been found in middle-ocean and deep-sea fish, which, like mackerel, are prey to ocean top predators, like seals or mahi-mahi. With each bite, plastic is moving up the food web, all the way to fish sold for human consumption in markets across the world. Kirby said scientists must urgently perform more research to gain a better understanding of the quantity and geographical distribution of microplastics in order to get a clearer picture of its effects on the oceans.
After my expedition across the North Pacific, Syberg took the plastic pieces and a chunk of the mahi-mahi's flesh back to his lab in Denmark. He hopes to compare the chemicals found in the plastic with the chemicals found in the fish flesh to see if the vector effect had begun to act on the fish. While results of his chemical analyses are pending, he told me when I visited him in his lab a few months after our sailing trip that "I don't even have to test the mahi-mahi and plastic to tell you that both of these things contain toxic chemicals."
At sea, yes, we ate that fish. Just one more link in the chain.
Reposted with permission from our media associate The Revelator.
Music blared as 21 Mexican women methodically cracked open steamed crabs piled high inside a cool, bright room. They picked out the meat and packed it into 1-pound containers that their employer, G.W. Hall & Sons, ships to wholesalers in the mid-Atlantic and as far away as Canada.
A half-mile down Old House Point Road, the picking room at a competing company, Russell Hall Seafood, was silent, no workers to be seen ...
Erica Cirino
Music blared as 21 Mexican women methodically cracked open steamed crabs piled high inside a cool, bright room. They picked out the meat and packed it into 1-pound containers that their employer, G.W. Hall & Sons, ships to wholesalers in the mid-Atlantic and as far away as Canada.