Petri Dish After Being Exposed To Common Household Air. Includes Aspergillum, Penicillium, Green & Black

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What are Phytoplankton and Why Are They Important?

Breathe deep… and thank phytoplankton.

Why? Like plants on land, these microscopic creatures capture energy from the sun and carbon from the atmosphere to produce oxygen.

Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, both salty and fresh. Though tiny, these creatures are the foundation of the aquatic food chain. They not only sustain healthy aquatic ecosystems, they also provide important clues on climate change.

Let’s explore what these creatures are and why they are important for NASA research.

Phytoplankton are diverse

Phytoplankton are an extremely diversified group of organisms, varying from photosynthesizing bacteria, e.g. cyanobacteria, to diatoms, to chalk-coated coccolithophores. Studying this incredibly diverse group is key to understanding the health - and future - of our ocean and life on earth.

Their growth depends on the availability of carbon dioxide, sunlight and nutrients. Like land plants, these creatures require nutrients such as nitrate, phosphate, silicate, and calcium at various levels. When conditions are right, populations can grow explosively, a phenomenon known as a bloom.

Phytoplankton blooms in the South Pacific Ocean with sediment re-suspended from the ocean floor by waves and tides along much of the New Zealand coastline.

Phytoplankton are Foundational

Phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales. Certain species of phytoplankton produce powerful biotoxins that can kill marine life and people who eat contaminated seafood.

Phytoplankton are Part of the Carbon Cycle

Phytoplankton play an important part in the flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the ocean. Carbon dioxide is consumed during photosynthesis, with carbon being incorporated in the phytoplankton, and as phytoplankton sink a portion of that carbon makes its way into the deep ocean (far away from the atmosphere).

Changes in the growth of phytoplankton may affect atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, which impact climate and global surface temperatures. NASA field campaigns like EXPORTS are helping to understand the ocean's impact in terms of storing carbon dioxide.

Phytoplankton are Key to Understanding a Changing Ocean

NASA studies phytoplankton in different ways with satellites, instruments, and ships. Upcoming missions like Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) - set to launch Jan. 2024 - will reveal interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. This includes how they exchange carbon dioxide and how atmospheric aerosols might fuel phytoplankton growth in the ocean.

Information collected by PACE, especially about changes in plankton populations, will be available to researchers all over the world. See how this data will be used.

The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) is integrated onto the PACE spacecraft in the cleanroom at Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA

Hemitrichia serpula by rorymacro

this is the content i'm in the microscopy subreddit for

microscopy lab dump :]

FOTD #126 : entoloma haastii!

entoloma haastii (no common name) is a mushroom in the family entolomataceae :-) it is only known to grow in aotearoa, where it often sprouts in leaf litter from southern beech plants.

the big question : can i bite it?? the edibility is unknown, but it is said to be sharp-tasting & sour / bitter.

e. haastii description :

"the cap is initially conical later developing an umbo & becoming rounded or bell-shaped, reaching diameter of 1.5–5.5 cm (0.6–2.2 in) in diameter. older fruit bodies have margins that are turned upward. the cap colour is dark brown or soot-brown but always has a bluish tinge. the surface is dry, covered by radially arranged wrinkles or veins, neither striate nor hygrophanous. the gills are adnexed to almost free from attachment to the stem. they are somewhat distantly spaced, with between 16 & 22 gills extending fully from the stem to the edge of the cap, in addition to one to three tiers of interspersed lamelluae (short gills that do not extend fully from the stem to the cap edge). the gill colour is grey-bluish later becoming pink, & the gill edges are straight or somewhat saw-toothed, & the same colour as the gill face. the stem is 4–10 cm (1.6–3.9 in) by 0.3–1 cm (0.12–0.39 in), bulbous-rooting or club-shaped. the top portion of the stem is deep blue, the colour fading towards the whitish or ochraceous base, strongly fibrillose, dry, hollow, fragile, often twisted. the flesh is blue in the cap & the upper parts of the stem, but whitish or yellowish at the base."

[images : source & source] [fungus description : source]

close my eyes and make a wish i wanna live together in a petri dish!!!

Rosy bonnet mushroom, Mycena rosea Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Recent Research Unveils New Genomic Landscape of the Human Gut Microbiome

BGI-Research introduced CGR2, the expanded cultivated genome reference landscape for the human gut microbiome.

Scientists from BGI-Research developed a new version of the Cultivated Genome Reference (CGR), a repository of high-quality draft genomes of the human gut microbiome. The current version of CGR, which is CGR2, has been further expanded to incorporate numerous high-quality draft genomes generated from cultivated bacteria. CGR2 classifies previously unidentified species and uncovers the functional and genomic diversity of bacterial strains. An in-depth analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAzymes) reveals the phyla with the largest and most diverse repertoires of these enzymes. CGR2 also enabled the identification of genes involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites in the gut microbiome. The unraveling of the gut microbiome genomic landscape will enable the development of therapeutics and provide a deep insight into the evolution of the human gut microbiome.

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Lamproderma scintillans on the edge of a leaf via andysandsphotography