Podcasts about foraminifera

An international research team led by the University of Galway has discovered a new method to accurately measure past polar sea surface temperature changes and climate change. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Dr. Audrey Morley, lecturer in Geography and Ryan Institute and iCRAG scientist at the University of Galway reveal how polar climate history can be detected by analysing the shells of foraminifera - microorganisms no bigger than a grain of sand. The scientists involved in the project describe the research method as invaluable, as it can be applied to new and previously published datasets worldwide to re-evaluate the magnitude and geographical extent of marine polar climate change. Dr. Morley, lead author of the research paper, said, "In the future, our new method will allow us to evaluate the ability of climate models to simulate polar amplified warming and cooling, which is especially important as climate model simulations targeting warmer than present climates have historically not captured the full extent of polar amplified warming." "This information will enable a major leap forward in our ability to assess the sensitivity of Arctic climate and its role and variability within the global climate system. This will lay the foundation for an improved understanding of climate change." Foraminifera are small unicellular organisms that build a miniscule shell out of calcium carbonate and other elements available in seawater. In doing so, they record the chemistry and climate of seawater in their shell. At the end of their life, the empty shells sink to the seafloor and are deposited in sediment, like a marine archive year after year, millennia after millennia. Through analysis of the magnesium and calcium (Mg/Ca) preserved in the shells, scientists can get an indirect measure or 'proxy' of sea surface temperatures. These climate proxies allow scientists to reveal the earth's climate history from a few hundred years to billions of years ago and thereby improve an understanding of future climate change. However, in cold polar waters, this method doesn't work because it is compromised by the carbonate chemistry of seawater, leaving us without a tool to measure past marine polar climates. The new research method solves a long-standing problem in Arctic Climate Science. The team set out on several oceanographic cruises, including the Marine Institute's RV Celtic Explorer in 2020, to collect living polar foraminifera together with the seawater that they lived in. This allowed the researchers to identify exactly how the carbonate chemistry of seawater impacts the temperature signal recorded in the magnesium and calcium Mg/Ca values of the tiny organism. The research showed that for polar foraminifera, the oxygen isotopes preserved in the shells can be used as a proxy for the carbonate chemistry of seawater and when measured together on fossil foraminifera, Mg/Ca and oxygen isotopes can be used to reveal past polar sea surface temperatures globally. Dr Morley said, "For example, when applied to the last ice age, this method shows that current estimates of cooling over North Atlantic mid-latitudes have been underestimated by up to 3?C." "Direct observations of sea surface temperatures in the Arctic are short and at best 150 years long. These short records leave us with a gap in our understanding and large uncertainties when predicting how future climate change will respond to rising greenhouse gas emissions." "To improve our understanding and reduce uncertainties we look to the past using climate proxies - such as the foraminifera. Yet, most proxies of essential climate variables, such as sea surface temperatures, suffer from limitations when applied to cold temperatures that characterise Arctic environments." "These limitations prevent us from constraining uncertainties for some of the most sensitive climate tipping points that can trigger rapid and dramatic global climate change. For example, the enhanced warmi...

When neighborhoods start to go downhill, people move away. And today, that's happening in marine neighborhoods. As the oceans get warmer—a result of our changing climate—fish and other critters are moving out of their neighborhoods and into cooler waters. That includes the tiniest organisms, known as plankton. And a recent study says the trend could accelerate in the decades ahead.Researchers at the University of Texas and elsewhere pored through a database of half a million microscopic plankton fossils—in particular, a group known as Foraminifera. Many of the fossils are millions of years old. And they reveal how the Foraminifera have moved around in response to climate changes.Eight million years ago, global temperatures were about the same as they are now. But our planet cooled off after that. As it did, the plankton moved toward the equator, and set up in tropical neighborhoods. As temperatures have climbed in recent decades, though, they've reversed course—they're moving away from the equator and toward the poles.That could have a big impact on the entire tropical ecosystem. The plankton form the base of the marine food chain, so as they move to cooler waters, larger organisms will have to follow or die off. That means tuna, marlin, squid, and other species will become less common in their current tropical homes. And that could decimate commercial fishing operations, ecotourism, and other businesses—hurting tropical neighborhoods around the world.

This is bonus content from our Live Twitter Show!Fransika Tell wowed us for a whole hour speaking about these tiny organisms in the ocean called Foraminifera.  They are tiny shell producing organisms with an absolutely banana life cycle.Fransika on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/GruenEisBaerBunsen and Beaker Links:The Bunsen Website has adorable merch with hundreds of different combinations of designs and apparel- all with Printful- one of the highest quality companies we could find!www.bunsenbernerbmd.comOur Spaces Sponsor: Bark and Beyond Supplyhttps://barkandbeyondsupply.com/Bunsen and Beaker on Twitter:https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmdBunsen and Beaker on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/bunsenberner.bmd/InstaBunsandBeakshttps://www.instagram.com/bunsenberner.bmd/?hl=enSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/bunsenberner)

How do we know what the climate was like thousands or even millions of years ago? We would need some kind of record of what the planet was like in the past. Ideally, we'd want a record with not only high temporal resolution - showing the changes year by year - but also with wide geographical scope, showing changes not only in one place, but globally. It turns out that an obscure microscopic sea organism can provide just that for us - foraminiferans. In this episode, I talk to Marina Rillo, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. Marina use modern and historical collections of foraminifera to study how ecosystems in the oceans have changed through time, and what we can learn from this in predicting future changes. If you want to learn more about forams, head over to the show website at klaranorden.com/specimenstories.

This week on the pawdcast we take a look back at climate data from 2020.  How did 2020 stack up against other years?  In Pet Science we have a hilarious section where we debate how cats are superior to dogs (at some things!)  Our guest this week is Franziska Tell , a PhD student who astounds us with tales of the Arctic and life millions of years old.   Another fun Woo or Wow with a patron and some fun questions answered in the mailbag!For Science, Empathy and Cuteness!Franziska Tell on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GruenEisBaerScientific Fairy Tales!Neogloboquadrina pachyderma - the Foraminifera species I couldn't sayFranziska's guinea pigs The Bunsen Website  www.bunsenbernerbmd.comThe Bunsen Website has adorable merch with hundreds of different combinations of designs and apparel- all with Printful- one of the highest quality companies we could find!Genius Lab Gear for 10% link!-10% off science dog bandanas, science stickers and science Pocket toolshttps://t.co/UIxKJ1uX8J?amp=1Bunsen and Beaker on Twitter:https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmdBunsen and Beaker on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/bunsenberner.bmd/InstaBunsandBeakshttps://www.instagram.com/bunsenberner.bmd/?hl=en  Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bunsenberner)

What if I told you that there exists a world beyond ordinary sight? Surely... you must already have felt it.-----Episode 1 – Ancient Worlds, Just Beyond Sight-----Supplementary Visual MaterialPicture 1 – Images of Select Foraminifera Species (1) - https://bit.ly/2HPoLz6Picture 2 – Images of Select Foraminifera Species (2) - https://bit.ly/34RdruLPicture 3 – Photomicrographs of Foraminifera species - https://bit.ly/34Srtw4Picture 4 -  Pink Sands Beach, Bahamas - https://bit.ly/3mEgE78 Pictures 1 and 2 are directly from:El Kateb A, Beccari V, Stainbank S, Spezzaferri S, Coletti G. 2020. Living (stained) foraminifera in the Lesser Syrtis (Tunisia): influence of pollution and substratum. PeerJ 8:e8839 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8839And is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Picture 3 is directly from:Takagi, H., Kimoto, K., Fujiki, T., Saito, H., Schmidt, C., Kucera, M., and Moriya, K.: Characterizing photosymbiosis in modern planktonic foraminifera, Biogeosciences, 16, 3377–3396, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3377-2019, 2019.And is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Picture 4 was retrieved from https://bit.ly/2I1Zl0W and was taken by Mike's Birds. It is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.  -----Full Show Notes, Including all Video, Picture, Music,  and Sound Attributions, as well as all informational citations: https://1drv.ms/w/s!Amk89GkQH8YSgoYXmMviyLtK-qLt2g?e=MQ708N----This episode of the Bio-DIVE-rsity podcast was written and performed by Dane Whicker.The Bio-DIVE-rsity Logo was created by Dane Whicker, using art by Ernst Haeckel. The art utilized is public domain.Official Bio-Dive-rsity Website: https://flippinfunfishfacts.buzzsprout.comQuestions, Comments, or Feedback? I'd love to hear from you! Email me at: biodiversitypodcast@gmail.com

Travel back in time to the Ediacaran Period to learn about life when SA was covered by ocean. Honorary researcher Dr Jim Gehling tells us about his palaeontology career here at the SA Museum, and what it’s like to uncover life from over 500 million years ago. And do you know what Foraminifera are? Dr Mary-Anne Binnie, Collection Manager of Palaeontology will tell us all about them. We also check-in with our Front of House supervisor, Brett Sande, who reveals what his favourite dinosaur was as a kid…and the strange coincidence that has to his current workplace!

Laura Grace Simpkins explores the miniature world of foraminifera - tiny marine creatures which feature in the fossil record as early as 50 million years ago - inspired by Charles Elcock's microscope slide kit in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. As a professional "microscopist", Charles Elcock built his career on his ability to produce microscope slides. His microscopy kit and slides reveal his incredible skill. But Elcock and craftspeople like him don't often feature in the stories we tell about scientific discoveries. Laura writes, "Why does my deep dive from Elcock’s slides to pink beaches make me so excited? Why is pink sand just cool? To me, it’s proof that nature is bright and fun. That nature is colourful, diverse, queer. That there isn’t a distinction between "art" and "science" in nature. That "nature" itself is a construct. Those are all human-centric ideas, borne out of the European Enlightenment. There is little to be gained from continuing those distinctions. Elcock’s scientifically-useful and aesthetically- pleasing slides invite me into imagining new ways of performing science. I’d like to see a pink-sandy kind of science, one that is creative and queered. A science that has to respond to nature expressively, that has a dialogue with it, that works on a give-and-take relationship. A science that moves beyond mere order, control, and labelling, towards appreciation, connection, and imagination."

Adam Rutherford is joined by Professor of Virology at Nottingham University, Jonathan Ball, to help answer some of your questions on the latest coronavirus outbreak. Will it become endemic, and once infected and recovered how long are we resistant to the virus? And can face masks and alcohol hand gels help prevent infection? In the 1870's the scientific research ship, HMS Challenger, sailed all the world's oceans measuring sea temperatures, ocean depths and sampling the geology of the seabed. But it's the seawater samples, containing microscopic zooplankton, preserved for 130 years which intrigued climate scientist Dr. Lyndsey Fox. She has been measuring the thickness of the shells of Foraminifera - tiny single-celled organisms - as a way of measuring how much the ocean has acidified over time. The shells are made of calcium carbonate, that is much harder to accrete when the pH drops. Theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll is very good at explaining the unexplainable. He chats to Adam about his latest book - Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime. Producer: Fiona Roberts

STEMxm Episode 26 -  Paleo-Oceanography with Jennifer Walker This is the 4th episode in a series touching on climate change careers and research. Check out the others here: Episode 23 - Atmospheric Physics with Dr. Joanna Haigh Episode 24 - Theoretical Ecology with Dr. Emily Moberg Episode 25 - Ocean Corals and Climate Change with Dr. Jessica Carilli Envirothon - Environmental resources research competition for highschoolers Related Headline: Sea level rise in 20th century was fastest in 3,000 years, Rutgers-led study finds Rutgers Department website where Jennifer is completing a PhD   Research concepts discussed with Jennifer on episode 26 Proxy - "In paleoclimatology, or the study of past climates, scientists use what is known as proxy data to reconstruct past climate conditions. These proxy data are preserved physical characteristics of the environment that can stand in for direct measurements. Paleoclimatologists gather proxy data from natural recorders of climate variability such as tree rings, ice cores, fossil pollen, ocean sediments, corals and historical data. By analyzing records taken from these and other proxy sources, scientists can extend our understanding of climate far beyond the instrumental record." Foraminifera are a species that are used as proxy indicators for scientists like Jennifer to study historic sea level changes. "Foraminifera (forams for short) are single-celled protists with shells. Their shells are also referred to as tests because in some forms the protoplasm covers the exterior of the shell. The shells are commonly divided into chambers which are added during growth, though the simplest forms are open tubes or hollow spheres. Depending on the species, the shell may be made of organic compounds, sand grains and other particles cemented together, or crystalline calcite." You can read a peer-reviewed article about that here. Sediment Stratigraphy - "The branch of geology that seeks to understand the geometric relationships between different rock layers (called strata), and to interpret the history represented by these rock layers." Marsh - "A marsh is a type of wetland, an area of land where water covers ground for long periods of time. Unlike swamps, which are dominated by trees, marshes are usually treeless and dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants. Herbaceous plants have no woody stem above ground, and they grow and die back on a regular cycle. Herbaceous plants can be annuals (which grow anew every year), biennials (which take two years to complete their life cycle), or perennials (which take more than two years to complete their life cycle.) Marsh grasses and other herbaceous plants grow in the waterlogged but rich soil deposited by rivers. The plants roots bind to the muddy soil and slow the water flow, encouraging the spread of the marsh. These watery pastures are rich in biodiversity. There are three types of marshes: tidal salt marshes, tidal freshwater marshes, and inland freshwater marshes. Marshes are also common in deltas, where rivers empty into a larger body of water. Although all are waterlogged and dominated by herbaceous plants, they each have unique ecosystems." Glacial isostatic adjustment - the ongoing movement of land once burdened by ice-age glaciers.

Foraminifera – tiny, single-celled marine life forms – build gorgeous houses that record how much ice there is on the planet. This video was supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation. To learn more, visit https://www.heisingsimons.org/ Special thanks to Professor Lee Kump of Penn State University and Professor Howie Spero of UC-Davis for lending their advice, expertise, and patience to the making of this video! Thanks also to our supporters on https://www.patreon.com/MinuteEarth Help translate this video: http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_video?ref=share&v=oaOfeSJZ3lY ___________________________________________ FYI: We try to leave jargon out of our videos, but if you want to learn more about this topic, here are some keywords to get your googling started: foraminifera: a class of single-celled marine organisms – protists, not animals – that live either near the surface ("planktonic foraminifera") or on the seafloor ("benthic foraminifera"). Called forams for short. climate proxy: something that tells us what the climate was like in the past, such as data from the thickness of tree rings, the composition of gases trapped in ancient ice, historical human records of annual bloom times (eg the long-recorded bloom dates of cherry trees in Kyoto, Japan), or the ratios of certain stable isotopes found in shells, corals, or other biogenic substances oxygen-18: a stable isotope of oxygen that contains 8 protons and 10 neutrons, rather than the 8 protons and 8 neutrons of "regular" oxygen (oxygen-16). The ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 in seawater (and sea shells) can be used as a proxy for the global average temperature ice sheet: a permanent layer of ice covering land, as found in polar regions (and as distinguished from sea ice, like the stuff that floats at the north pole in the Arctic ocean). Combined, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contain more than 99% of the total freshwater ice on Earth. ___________________________________________ If you liked this week’s video, we think you might also like: The Tiniest Fossils by the AMNH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLSa8cGJixQ Orbulina feeding on Artemia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYQNt52tiVU Mysterious Web Masters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WbN34Mh7k ___________________________________________ Credits (and Twitter handles): Script Writer: Emily Elert (@eelert) Script Editor: Kate Yoshida (@KateYoshida) Video Illustrator: Ever Salazar (@eversalazar) Video Director: Emily Elert (@eelert) Video Narrator: Emily Elert (@eelert) With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Alex Reich, Peter Reich, David Goldenberg Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: http://www.soundcloud.com/drschroeder Image credits: Cribrohantkenina inflata - Paul Pearson https://museum.wales/articles/2007-08-03/Up-close-with-nature/ Elphidium macellum, Bulimina and Calcarina hispida by foraminifera.eu http://www.foraminifera.eu/ Globigerina - Hannes Grobe http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/biodiversity/planktonic-forminera.html _________________________________________ Like our videos? Subscribe to MinuteEarth on YouTube: http://goo.gl/EpIDGd Support us on Patreon: https://goo.gl/ZVgLQZ Also, say hello on: Facebook: http://goo.gl/FpAvo6 Twitter: http://goo.gl/Y1aWVC And find us on itunes: https://goo.gl/sfwS6n ___________________________________________ REFERENCES Hays, J. D., Imbrie, J., & Shackleton, N. J. (1976). Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages. Science, 194(4270), 1121-1132. Abstract: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4270/1121 Kendall, C., & McDonnell, J.J. (1998). Fundamentals of Isotope Geochemistry. In Isotope Tracers in Catchment Hydrology (pp. 51-86). Eds: Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. Link: http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/isopubs/itchch2.html#2.3 Kucera, M. (2007). Planktonic Foraminifera as Tracers of Past Oceanic Environments. In Developments in Marine Geology, Volume 1, (pp. 213-262). Link: http://pmc.ucsc.edu/~apaytan/290A_Winter2014/pdfs/2007%20Proxies%20Chapter%20six.pdf NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for Annual 2015, published online January 2016, retrieved on November 28, 2016 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513. Sachs, J., & Steig, E. (2010) Lecture on Isotopes and Air Temperature. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Link: http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/AirTemperatureLecture2_2010.pdf Shanahan, T. (2010). Lecture on Oxygen Isotopes. University of Texas, Austin, Texas. Link: http://www.geo.utexas.edu/courses/302c/L16-N.pdf

The cytoskeleton in most eukaryotes consists of actin filaments, intermediate filaments, microtubules and specific associated proteins. It determines the shape and the polarity of a cell and is inevitable for the coordination of cell movement. The regulation of this complex structure requires a highly organised and specialised signalling network. Ste20-like kinases and the regulator protein Mo25 (Morula protein 25) are part of this signalling network. The main objective of this work was the functional characterisation of the regulator protein Mo25 and the Ste20-like kinases Fray1, Fray2 (Frayed kinase 1/2) and DstC (Dictyostelium serine threonine kinase C) in the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum (D. discoideum). An additional project was to map and characterise the actin and actin related genes in the genome of the fresh water foraminifer Reticulomyxa filosa (R. filosa). Mo25 is a highly conserved 40 kDa scaffolding protein with a 60% identity from amoeba to man. The disruption of the mo25 gene in D. discoideum results in very large, multinucleated cells which are unable to complete cytokinesis. Growth as well as development is severely delayed in the Mo25-minus strain. Furthermore, in phototaxis assays performed with multicellular aggregates (slugs), the Mo25-minus slugs were unable to migrate towards the light source. These findings imply that Mo25 plays an important role in cytokinesis, growth and cell polarity. We could link the Ste 20-like kinase SvkA (severin kinase), a homolog of the human Mst3, Mst4 (Mammalian Ste20-like kinase 3/4) and Ysk1/Sok1 (Yeast Sps1/Ste20-related kinase 1, Suppressor of Kinase 1) kinases to Mo25 as a binding partner. To further elucidate the interaction of Mo25 with SvkA as well as their role in cytokinesis or polarity signalling, we generated a series of GFP–Mo25 rescue constructs with distinct point mutations in protein-protein interaction surfaces and transformed these into the Mo25-minus background. The kinase domains of the Ste20-like kinases, Fray1 and Fray2 in D. discoideum are highly homologous to the catalytic domains of OSR1 (Oxidative stress response kinase 1) and SPAK (Ste20/SPS1-related proline-alanine-rich protein kinase) in humans and Frayed in fruit fly. Here, we generated the knockout clones Fray1-minus, Fray2-minus, and the double knockout Fray2Fray1-minus in D. discoideum. In developmental studies, Fray2-minus did not show an altered phenotype, whereas Fray1-minus and Fray2Fray1-minus developed slightly slower into fruiting bodies. When grown in shaking culture, Fray1-minus and Fray2Fray1-minus showed a reduced growth rate compared to Fray2-minus and the wild type. In addition, by using a GFP-Trap resin we identified a binding partner of Fray1, a yet unknown protein that we named FRIP (Fray Interacting Protein). FRIP mainly consists of a CBS (Cystathionine beta synthase) domain pair and is 30% identical to the gamma subunit of the AMPK (5‘ adenosine mono phosphate-activated protein kinase) complex in D. discoideum. The Ste20-like kinase DstC has been described to be a regulator of the actin driven process of phagocytosis. The catalytic domain of DstC is most similar to the mammalian kinase Mst2 (Mammalian Ste20-like kinase 2) and Hippo (“Hippopotamus”-like phenotype) of D. melanogaster. We could map the sorting signal that localises DstC to phagocytic cups and acidic vesicles to about 90 amino acids. Here we present an array of distinct point mutations for the identification of the exact localisation signal. R. filosa is a fresh water protist which belongs to the the group of Foraminifera within the Rhizaria. The R. filosa genome is the first foraminiferal and only the second rhizarian genome to be deciphered. In this bioinformatics project, we could identify, map and characterise four new actin genes in addition to the already known actin and about 40 genes that code for potential actin related proteins of seven different protein classes.

Planktonic foraminifera are single celled organisms that are highly abundant in modern oceans and a hugely important part of the Earth’s carbon cycle. Each cell builds a hard calcite ‘test’ around itself in a huge variety of shapes. These tests continuously rain down on to the ocean floor leaving continuous records of how these organisms have changed over millions of years. They form the most complete fossil record we have, and are a very useful tool in everything from the oil industry to understanding how evolution works.

Planktonic foraminifera are single celled organisms that are highly abundant in modern oceans and a hugely important part of the Earth's carbon cycle. Each cell builds a hard calcite 'test' around itself in a huge variety of shapes. These tests continuously rain down on to the ocean floor leaving continuous records of how these organisms have changed over millions of years. They form the most complete fossil record we have, and are a very useful tool in everything from the oil industry to understanding how evolution works. In this episode we talk to Dr Tracy Aze from the University of Leeds about her research using planktonic forams to understand macroevolutionary change, as well as decoding their record to map major climate events and temperatures throughout geological history.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked areas of palaeontology, within the public eye, is micropalaeontology. Micropalaeontology is an umbrella discipline, covering a diverse range of organisms, with representatives from many of the highest level biological groupings. Although small in size, microfossils prove invaluable for research into palaeoclimatology and are also one of the most commercially applicable groups of fossils. In this interview we speak to Dr. Giles Miller, Senior Curator of Micropalaeontology at the Natural History Museum (NHM). As each individual group of microfossils could warrant an entire series, this episode serves as an introduction to micropalaeontology. We discuss what it is and some of its applications, all within the context of how the micropalaeontology collection at the NHM is used.

Brian Huber, Curator of Foraminifera, takes us from Antarctica to Tanzania to seafloor drilling to show how tiny microorganisms, foraminifera, have recorded ocean temperatures over millions of years. This talk makes a strong case for an ice-free Earth, a “supergreenhouse,” in the Late Cretaceous.

Philippe WEBER, Institut de géologie et paléontologie

Philippe WEBER, Institut de géologie et paléontologie