E.O. Wilson once described insects as "the little creatures that run the world". Wilson was presumably referring to the huge amounts of energy and mass that pass through insect bodies in terrestial ecosystems. There are, slightly puzzlingly, almost no insects in the sea but invertebrates still run marine ecosystems. In fact, invertebrates even create habitats in what would otherwise be unproductive waters.

We tend to think of the tropics as areas of great biological diversity - that's true for the land but less so in the ocean. The beautiful clear waters you see in tropical seas indicate a lack of nutrients and a corresponding lack of plankton. Without plankton, the normal marine food webs don't develop and, as a result, tropical seas are generally not very productive. But if you've been snorkling around a tropical island you'll know coral reefs are explosions of biolgical diversity. That's all because some coral animals can take advantage of the marginal conditions in tropical waters. These corals supplement the meager pickings that can filter from the water with energy trapped by a type of photosynthetic protozoa called zooxanthellae. In time these corals, with their protozoan helpers, can put down acres of calcium carbonate and create food and habitat for more and more animals. When those animals are anenomes, they can themselves form habitat for another animal. Like this anemone fish (or, as most people call them, NEMOS!!!) filmed earleir this year at Hideaway Island in Efate, Vanuatu:

Labels: anemone, coral, environment and ecology, sci-blogs, sunday spinelessness, vanuatu, video

The Symphony of Science series of videos is probably the best justification for the continued existence of auto-tune. The latest of these videos, which put various scientists and science communicator's words to music, deals with the history of our species - the fact we all descend from African ancestors and that all populations outside Africa are the result of migrations that started around 150 000 ago:

It's a matter of continual disappointment and annoyance to me that most New Zealanders don't know that the person most responsible for finding our place in the biological world and locating the base of our family tree in Africa was a kiwi. Allan Wilson was a graduate of Otago University who went to Berkeley to use the new technologies that were developed for medical genetics to answer some of the oldest questions in biology. By sequencing DNA and looking at the cross-reactivity of immune system proteins, Wilson and his students established that humans only separated from other apes about 6 million years ago (as opposed to conformable distance of 25 million years paleontologists had favoured) and coined the term "Mitochondrial Eve" for one of the ancestors all modern humans can trace their origin to. This 'Eve' lived 150 000 years ago in Africa, so, just as Alice Roberts says in the video, we are all children of Africa.

These findings absolutely changed the way we think of ourselves as a species, and New Zealanders should know a kiwi was behind them! Thankfully the Royal Society has just announced one of Wilson's students, and a co-author on the most important papers, Rebbecca Cann is coming to New Zealand to talk about Wilson and his legacy. If you get a chance, I really encourage you to get along and hear her talk.

Labels: allan wilson, sci-blogs, science, science and society, science communication, video