E tu, compreendes
a importância da ciência que se faz na Antártida? Nós sabemos que a Antártida e
o Oceano Antártico tem um papel importante no nosso planeta. Seja, por exemplo,
na contribuição para o aumento do nível do mar, no armazenamento de carbono no
Oceano, nas correntes oceânicas, no clima e na questão das alterações
climáticas...num contexto em que sabemos que no futuro esta região vai ter um
papel preponderante em muitas destas questões, temos um grupo que equipas que
aborda questões importantes sobre o Oceano Antártico. Aqui estão alguns
cientistas de algumas equipas:
Julie Meilland
Julie é uma
investigadora pós-doutoral do MARUM, um instituto cientifico em Bremen, na
Alemanha. Ela colabora com Clara Manno no estudo do potencial de algumas
espécies de organismos marinhos (chamados foraminíferos) possuem para se
adaptarem às alterações climáticas e à acidificação dos oceanos.
Estes
organismos estão presentes em todo o lado dos oceanos e são do tamanho de um
grão de areia. A bordo, estará a estudar como o seu metabolismo consegue lidar
com o aumento da temperatura. Usando redes BONGO (que possuem uma malhagem
muito pequena (100 µm), apanhamos estes organismos e os colocamos em 2 temperaturas
diferentes. Os resultados preliminares sugerem que poderão adaptar-se bem. No regresso à Alemanha, irá analisar em detalhe
os organismos recolhidos para compreender melhor os processos associados aos
resultados obtidos. E tive uma surpresa: estes organismos tiveram filhotes a
bordo, um evento raro!!!!
Emily Rowlands e Clara Manno
Emily investiga o
impato de nanoplásticos em águas do Oceano Antártico. Nanoplásticos são do tamanho mais pequeno de
plástico, que não é visível ao olho humano com < 0.001 mm. Isto é 2000 mais
pequeno que um grão de areia!!!! Por eles serem tão pequenos, os nanoplásticos
podem interagir diferentemente com as partículas da água e dentro do corpo dos
animais que os consome, comparativamente com os plásticos maiores. A primeira
coisa a fazer é estudar os nanoplásticos de diferentes profundidades, com um
aparelho chamado armadilha de sedimentos flutuante (floating sediment trap).
Também
estuda como os nanoplásticos pode afetar o desenvolvimento do camarão da
Antártida Euphausia superba. Sendo um
dos organismos mais importantes na cadeia alimentar Antártica marinha, será importante
perceber em detalhe se, por exemplo, fêmeas do camarão conseguem produzir ovos
e como os camarões bébés lidam com nanoplásticos. Muitas amostras foram recolhidas
para estudar mais em detalhe as experiências realizadas a bordo.
Anna Belcher
Anna é uma bióloga
marinha que estuda o camarão da Antártida Euphausia
superba. Ela conta-nos uma história para explicar o seu trabalho: “Um dia
na vida do Larry o camarão da Antártida – a bordo do navio RRS James Clark Ross”.
Larry começou os seus dias a viver no Oceano Antártico, a comer plantas feliz
da vida e evitando ser comido por baleias. Mas o Larry era um camarão curioso e
notou um navio nas suas proximidades. Não tinha a certeza do que estava a fazer ali mas ficou curioso e
foi ver...com sorte o Larry conseguiu entrar no navio por uma rede cientifica.
Já a bordo, encontrou-se com outros amigos camarões num balde como estivesse
numa festa. Excitado pela próxima aventura, Larry foi posto noutro balde onde
as luzes foram cobertas e onde havia um sensor. Larry ficou todo contente a
dançar de um lado para o outro
enquanto o cientista o observava atentamente
com o sensor. Larry pensou o que viria a seguir...e nessa altura, vários outros
colegas camarões foram colocados com Larry. Ele não saiba exatamente o que
estava a passar…mas ouviu o cientista dizer que a cientista estava a tentar
medir camarões a partir do espaço. A partir do espaço!? Isto seria muito
fixe, pensou Larry.
Assim ficaria a saber
quantos amigos teria no Oceano Antártico. A cientista estava a medir a luz reflectida de
Larry e dos seus amigos de modo a que possa usar imagens de satélite que possam
dar a mesma informação da quantidade de camarão da Antártida. Larry dançou o
que conseguiu para ajudar a cientista na sua tarefa! Ele estava a contribuir
para a ciência J Depois de
meia hora, Larry foi posto com os seus amigos novamente num novo balde, tendo a
sensação que a sua contribuição estava feita...e assim foi. De repente, splosh,
Larry estava novamente no Oceano, com uma história para contar. E que grande
aventura!!!!
Natalie Ensor
Natalie é uma das gestoras dos
laboratórios que trabalha para a British Antarctic Survey. A sua função consiste em coordenar o uso dos
laboratórios nos navios, assegurar que todo o equipamento está a funcionar corretamente
e ajudar os cientistas se necessário, a bordo do navio RRS James Clark
Ross.
Outro aspeto deste trabalho é
saúde e segurança no trabalho. Para isso, Natalie precisa de compreender quais
os organismos que vão ser estudados, que experiências vão ser realizadas, e que
riscos existem associados a eles. Tudo isto para assegurar que todos trabalham
de um modo seguro e evitar acidentes. Por exemplo, haver regras do uso de batas
no laboratório, usar proteção se lidar com materiais nocivos à saúde. Exemplo
prático: Preservar amostras de
organismos podem ser em álcool 70%, por exemplo...e como alcool é
inflamável, é preciso usar bata. É uma profissão muito interessante, pois a Natalie
com muitos cientistas de diferentes áreas de investigação, tudo a bordo do
navio RRS James Clark Ross.
Petra ten Hoopen
Petra é a gestora de dados cientificos da UK Polar Data Centre para
expedições cientificas marinhas. “O que aconteçe aos dados recolhidos numa
expedição como esta?” Hoje em dia as expedições cientificas recolhem muitos
dados dos numerosos aparelhos usados no navio RRS James Clark Ross. Os dados
podem ser da temperatura do ar e da água, das amostras recolhidas, ao longo da
expedição. Todos os dados desta expedição serão transferidos em segurança para
a British Antarctic Survey em Cambridge, Reino Unido. Cientistas que recolher
amostras e dados terão o acesso exclusivo à base de dado num periodo mínimo de
2 anos para a sua investigação. Depois, há medida que os dados serão publicados
em revistas cientificas, eles também estarão
disponíveis na UK Polar Data Centre (https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/). Este catalogo também coneta para portais de
dados onde eles estarão disponíveis. O objetivo final é certificar que os dados
da expedição fiquem disponíveis a todos!
Iliana Bista
Iliana Bista é
uma ecologista molecular no Sanger Institute, Cambridge. Ela trabalha com a
genómica de peixes, em particular de um grupo abundante na Antartida, os Notothenioids.
A bordo do RRS James Clark Ross, ela tem recolhido amostras de água para a análise
de DNA ambiental.
DNA Ambiental (Environmental DNA (eDNA)) é DNA livre que é
deixado na água pelos animais que vivem lá, como as células da pele, urina,
entre outros. Ao filtrar a água nós podemos recolher e analisar o DNA destes
animais e detetar a sua presença e a estrutura da sua população. Ela também
trabalha na sequenciação de genomas completos destes e de outros tipos de
peixes. Para isso, Iliana tem recolhido amostras de uma variedade de peixes.
Usando tecnologia de sequenciação recentes nós poderemos lead to o genoma dos
organismos a uma elevada precisão, além da sua ecologia e evolução.
José Xavier e
Ricardo Matias (com Gabriele Stowasser, Martin Collins, Ryan Saunders e Clara
Manno)
Como investigadores
associados ao ECOTOP – MARE da Universidade de Coimbra, o nosso trabalho nesta
expedição foca em estudar as diferentes pressões que os animais marinhos na
Antártida estão a sofrer atualmente e que mudanças poderão a vir a ocorrer
nesta região, seguindo algumas das nossas recentes publicações (Rintoul et al.
Nature 2018, Seco et al. Envirn. Poll. 2019, Bessa et al. Sci. Rep. 2019).
Estamos a falar das alterações climáticas e da poluição, em particular. Assim
recolhemos amostras para 3 projetos: 1-
se os animais têm a capacidade para se adaptar à medida que o planeta aquece
(estamos a recolher lulas para estudar a sua genética, para saber que genes
possuem que possam lidar com mudanças do oceano, como o aumento da temperatura)
(com Cecília Roque, Margarida Dias), 2- se microplásticos estão presentes em
peixes na Antártida (estamos interessados em peixes lanterna) (com Clara Manno,
Ryan Saunders, Martin Collins, Gabi Stowasser, Claire Waluda) e 3 – se o camarão
da Antártida possui meios de se libertar de mercúrio (com José Seco). Já
possuímos 95% das amostras eu precisamos...estamos a quase!!!
Alguns destes
trabalhos terão certamente implicações na gestão desta região do planeta. A
Antártida é gerida pelo Tratado da Antártida, que se foca em 3 pilares
principais: na ciência, cooperação internacional e proteção do ambiente. Tudo o
que possa informar decisores políticos para como melhorar o conhecimento, a
cooperação entre países e a proteção da Antártida, melhor...esta informação poderá
ser valiosa!!!
Why is relevant the science that is being conducted in the
Antarctic? We do know that the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean have an important
in our plane, with issues such as climate change, sea level rise, Southern Ocean
carbon sink, Ocean acidification, Thermohaline world currents, animal
adaptation…in a context that it is known that this region will have an
increasing important role in these big issues, we have a group of teams that
are addressing important questions about the Southern Ocean. Here´s some of the
scientists:
Julie Meilland
Julie is a postdoctoral
researcher from MARUM, a research institute located in Bremen, Germany. Julie
have been invited to join this cruise by Clara Manno with whom she collaborates.
“I aim here is to study the potential of a group of zooplankton to adapt to
climate change and ocean acidification. The name of these “climate fighters”?
Planktonic foraminifera! Foraminifera are present everywhere in the ocean and
each one of them is about the size of a grain of sand. They are made of a
single cell, able to build a shell and once they die, they sink to the ocean
floor where they fossilise. Through this process of sedimentation and
fossilisation, planktonic foraminifera stock Carbon (indirectly captured from
the atmosphere) on long time scales and are therefore crucial components to our
Earth system. Understanding how their metabolism can cope with a rise in
temperature is a major question! Onboard the JCR we had and still have the
chance to collect them using a bongo net. The bongo net is a plankton net with
a very small mesh size (100 µm) that allows the collection of small marine
organisms and their good preservation. We sampled the plankton from 100 m depth
to the surface and immediately after collection I selected living specimens of
planktonic foraminifera and placed them in culture under 2 different
temperatures, mimicking a potential temperature increase of the ocean. I fed
the individuals daily and kept them under their temperature treatment for 11
days. Most of them survived, suggesting a good adaptation to the temperature
rise they faced. Back to my laboratory in Bremen I will study the collected
specimens a bit more in detail to understand how their metabolism did adapt.
This cruise is full of surprises and to my greatest pleasure, we obtained
planktonic foraminifera offspring – an extremely rare event that makes the
whole experience even more special! I couldn’t be more thankful for this
amazing opportunity!”
Emily Rowlands and
Clara Manno
Plastic science aboard JCR
Emily´s research
aboard of the RRS James Clark Ross focuses on determining the impact of nanoplastic in Antarctic
waters. “So what is ‘nanoplastic’? It’s the smallest size of plastic, unseen by
the human eye and less than 0.001 mm in size. That’s at least 2000 times
smaller than a grain of sand! Because of their extremely small size,
nanoplastics interact differently with the water particles in the sea and
within the bodies of animals that eat them, compared to how bigger plastics
behave. We don’t yet know how much
nanoplastic there is in Antarctic waters and we know little of how they impact
important zooplankton such as Krill which are hugely important for the
Antarctic marine food web. To address these
questions there are many hurdles to overcome. To look at plastic in the water
column we use a floating sediment trap. The trap gets left at sea for 24 hours
capturing particles in the water column at different depths before we go back
and collect it. There are many factors to consider at we have to plan carefully
to ensure a successful deployment including looking at the currents, predicted
travel paths and water depths. This makes recovering the sediment trap a
nervous but exciting operation which starts with first locating the flashing
beacon amongst the Southern Ocean waves and icebergs. Here’s a picture of the first recovery
aboard.
The next hurdle was
catching krill, and not just any krill but gravid females that will produce
eggs, so that I can look at how nanoplastics impact their development. After
catching krill and setting up the treatments, working on the krill maternity
ward is no easy job and I check every four hours to see if they have released
eggs. After the eggs are released we do further experiments to see how plastic
impacts the development from the embryonic stages through to the krill eggs
hatching. Here’s a picture of how a newly hatched krill looks! Because the plastic is
soo incredibly small, there’s only a certain amount of analysis we can do
on-board. All of the samples will be taken back to the UK for further analysis
to help us understand the effects of nanoplastic.”
Anna Belcher
Anna is a marine
biologist studying Antarctic krill Euphausia superba. She tell us a story, to
explain what she studies: “A day in the life of Larry the krill – aboard the
RRS James Clark Ros.” Larry, the krill, began his days living in the Southern
Ocean, happily munching on marine plants and trying to avoid being eaten by
whales. But Larry was a curious krill and had noticed a large red ship called
the RRS James Clark Ross hanging around. He wasn’t sure what they were up to,
but was keen to get a closer look. As luck would have it, Larry the krill
managed to hitch a ride onto the ship in a big net that was being towed through
the water. Once aboard, Larry found himself in a big white bucket with some
other krill friends. He could see lots of faces above looking into the bucket
looking amazed and excited. Larry swam to the surface of the bucket to get a
closer look, and was scooped out by what appeared to be a large ladle with
holes in it. Unsure where he was going, but excited for the next adventure
Larry found himself in a new bucket, with a few other friends and was taken
away to a new room. This one was interesting, as all the lights had been
covered up with black cloth, and there was some kind of sensor pointing into
yet another bucket. Larry sat happily in his nice bucket of cold water,
watching a scientist dash around adjusting this sensor. Larry wondered what
might be in this new bucket, and before long he was able to find out, as he got
once again scooped with the ladle, and carefully plopped in. As he swam around
checking out his new bucket, the scientist lowered the sensor down into the
bucket, and began adding more krill. Larry wasn’t sure exactly what was going
on, but he heard the scientist chatting about trying to measure krill from
space! From space! That would be cool, thought Larry, then he might find out
just how many krill friends there might be in the Southern Ocean. The scientist
was trying to measure how Larry and his new krill friends reflected light in
the hope to be able to use this information to help decipher the images that
the satellites are recording. Larry swam around as nicely as he could to help
the scientists.
After about half an
hour, Larry had met a lot more krill friends in his bucket and thought that he
had done a good job at reflecting his red/pinkish colour. It seemed like it was
time to return to his original bucket as the ladle came in once more and Larry
and his pals were scooped up. Larry wasn’t sure where the scientist was taking
him, but soon found out, as splosh…Larry was back in the ocean, and what a
story to tell!! A great adventure!!”
Natalie Ensor
Natalie is one of the ships
laboratory managers that works for the British Antarctic Survey: “the role of
the lab manager is to run the laboratories on the ships, ensure all lab
equipment is working properly and to generally help the scientists when needed;
whilst they work aboard the RRS James Clark Ross.
Another role of the lab
manager is health and safety. In order
to fulfil this role, we require knowledge and understanding of each experiment
that is being carried out and the hazards that are associated with it. Once we know this, we can ensure that everyone
is carrying out their science safely to prevent any accidents from happening,
this is important as they can effect both people and experiments. This often involves ensuring PPE (Personal Protective
Equipment) is worn, ensuring lab rules are followed and that protective
equipment is both running and used properly e.g. fume hoods. Whilst working on
the ship, many scientists required hazardous chemicals to complete their
work. The lab manager is in charge of
making sure these chemicals are stored and used safely as well as ensuring that
everyone, both scientists and crew, are aware of the dangers they pose. Some of the chemicals used most often are
Ethanol, Formaldehyde and Hydrochloric Acid. It is a very interesting and
varied job. Working with numerous
scientists, all with different specialities from atmospherics to
oceanographers; lots of different work is carried out aboard the research
vessel. In order to complete this
important science, the RRS James Clarke Ross has visited some fantastic and
beautiful places. I have been very
fortunate to visit the Antarctic as well as the Arctic, seeing the wonder and
wildlife that they have to offer.”
Petra ten Hoopen
Petra ten Hoopen is a scientific data manager at the UK Polar Data
Centre publishing data from marine science expeditions. She wondered: “Do you wonder what happens to data
collected in a marine science expedition? Marine scientific expeditions
collect a lot! of data from ship-mounted instruments and from instruments
deployed with help of ship cranes and winches and with assistance of the ship
crew. All data from our expedition will be transferred to and safely archived
at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. Scientists who collected the
data will have exclusive access to the data for the period of minimum two years
and will use the data for their research. The data will then be gradually
published, either as part of scientific publications or made available via a
data catalogues of the UK Polar Data Centre (https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/). This catalogue also links to data portals
that allow you to browse and download information you are interested in. The
good news is that, ultimately, data collected by our expedition can be explored
by anyone!”
Iliana Bista
Iliana Bista is a
molecular ecologist based at Sanger Institute, Cambridge: “I work on genomic
analysis of fish species and I am particularly interested in Antarctic
Notothenioids, the dominant group of Antarctic fish. On the RRS James Clark
Ross I worked on collection of water samples for environmental DNA analysis.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is free DNA that is left behind in the water by the
organisms living there, through their skin cells, urine etc. By filtering water
we can collect and analyse the DNA of these organisms and detect their presence
and population structure. I also work on sequencing the complete genomes of
these and other fish species. For this, I collected tissue samples from a
variety of fish species. Using new sequencing technologies we can read the
entire genomes of organisms to high accuracy, and study their ecology and
evolution.
José Xavier and Ricardo
Matias (with Gabriele Stowasser, Martin Collins, Ryan Saunders and Clara Manno)
As scientists of ECOTOP
– MARE of the University of Coimbra (Portugal, our work in this expedition
focus in studying the different environmental pressures that Antarctic are
facing today in this region of the Antarctic, following our recent work (Rintoul
et al. Nature 2018, Seco et al. Envirn. Poll. 2019, Bessa et al. Sci. Rep. 2019).
We are specifically talking about
climate change and pollution. We have collected samples for 3 research
projects: 1- Assessing if marine animals have the capacity to adapt to warming (we
are collecting pelagic squid, as biological samplers of the pelagic areas, to study
their genomics and transcriptomics, in order to know which genes they possess
to cope with environmental change (work with Cecília Roque, Margarida Dias and
colleagues), 2- If microplastics are present in Antarctic fish, with the plastic origin and (work with Clara Manno,
Ryan Saunders, Martin Collins, Gabi Stowasser, Claire Waluda and colleagues)
and 3 – Processes of removal of mercury in Antarctic krill (work lead by José
Seco and colleagues). We already have 95% of the samples…nearly there!!!
Some of these research groups will lead to implications in
policies to be implemented in the Antarctic. Antarctica is a continent under
the Antarctic Treaty, that focuses on three pilars: science, international
cooperation and environmental protection. All the information relevant to
policy and decision makers will be surely very welcomed...that surely will
improve knowledge of the region and promote cooperation between countries…good,
altruistic values for one of the nicest times of the year!!!
Merry Christmas!!!!
Jose Xavier (with Ricardo Matias)
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