December 28th

Nice story the tale of the unexpected bloom but it was a joke. Sorry. December 28th is the day of "inocentes" and the tradition is to give some credible but false news. The icon of this day is the next one:

Happy new year for all of our followers.

At the edge of an ecological disaster

During the last days, our remote sensing devices detected the development of a bloom south of Gran Canaria Island. In the satellite images below, the reader can observe the generation of the bloom in the four typical oceanographic phases. Because this season is not characterized by the presence of any bloom around the islands, we investigated its generation through specific algorithms performed in our labs. Applying the one obtained by Ramos et al. (2005), we found the presence of the cyanobacteria Trichodesmium spp (red dots in the images). Because of the high confidence of this algorithm, we are now sure that the bloom was generated artificially, probably by dumping tons of iron to the ocean. Therefore, we investigated the presence of any research vessel in the economic zone of the Canary Islands. No results were obtained and we asked our colleagues at the University of Madeira. They reported the presence of the new research vessel of the new american company Plantox during November. This company is pursuing the drawdown of carbon dioxide using iron fertilization in order to earn carbon credits through the Kyoto protocol. However, this procedure is rather controversial because of the unknown toxic effects in the marine environment. In fact, the International Committee for the Law of the Sea based in London has dictated the prohibition of those procedures. The detection of cyanobacteria using remote sensing procedures alert us about one of these effects. As it is known, this bacteria can produce toxic substances affecting fishes and humans. The fact that fertilization took place quite near of Gran Canaria Island alert us about their effect of our coastal zone. This problem is even worst due to the important turistic area located south of this island.

Phase I of the bloom south of Gran Canaria Island. Observe the formation of the phytoplankton outburst (in green) and the formation of cyanobacteria (red dots). Areas in white are clouds formed during the last weeks due to an important low crossing the islands from southwest to northeast.

Phase II of the bloom. Observe the increase in phytoplankton (green) and the growth of cyanobacteria at the boundaries of the forming bloom (red). Areas in white are clouds.

Phase III of the bloom. The area of the phytoplankton bloom is approaching the size of Gran Canaria Island. The cyanobacteria remained at the edge of the bloom.

Phase IV. Observe the impressive size of the phytoplankton outburst and the generation of cyanobacteria at the boundaries of the bloom. Right now, our concern is the proximity of the bloom and cyanobacteria to the south of Gran Canaria during the last hours.

Gara and Inma at work in the Pacific Ocean

Below some more pictures of Gara Franchy and Inma Herrera at work during the Procomex cruise on board the RV "Puma".

Gara Franchy and Inma Herrera preparing the dilution experiments

Gara filtering seawater from the 30 L Niskin bottles for the dilution experiments

Inma Herrera working with the MOCNESS

Gara, Jaime and Inma

Procomex Cruise

Below are the members of the Procomex Cruise recently finished in Mazatlán (Sinaloa, México). Two members of the Biological Oceanography Group, Inma Herrera and Gara Franchy, participated in the cruise to study the response of micro- and mesozooplankton to the oxygen minimum zones. This area of the Pacific Ocean is characterized by the rather shallow oxygen minimum and an interesting place to study the response of zooplankton to this deficit in oxygen, especially those organisms performing vertical migrations.

The cruise leader Dr. Jaime Färber-Lorda (orange shirt) and the cruise members.

New paper by Quima in Science

Today, the abstract of a new paper by Watson et al. about the variability of carbon dioxide flux. Interesting paper giving the annual variability across latitudes in the North Atlantic assessed using continuous measurements on board commercial ships. As co-authors, the members of the Marine Chemistry Research Group (Quima), Melchor González-Dávila and Magdalena Santana-Casiano. Congratulations.

Antarctic Treaty

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty adopted the 1st December 1959. This document recognized that “it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord”. A recent publication in Nature (Berkman, 2009) introduces the idea to have a similar treaty for the Arctic where the global warming is promoting a new scenario of international discord. Science is not only a tool for the advance of ideas and technologies. It is also a tool for peace and concord. From here, we join the celebration of this 50th anniversary and his spirit for the advancement of science, political good sense and humankind progress.

Peaceful inhabitants of Antarctica

Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems

New number of Progress in Oceanography with the papers selected from the Symposium "Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems" held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in June 2008. This new book about upwelling systems will be another landmark to understand one of the most prominent oceanographic processes in the world. There are two reviews about the Canary Current which are quite interesting for researchers working in the Canary Islands. One about biogeochemistry and fisheries by Arístegui et al., and a second one about ichtyioplankton by Rodríguez et al.

New paper by Yebra et al.

New paper by Lidia Yebra and co-workers in Polar Research. These are the results of zooplankton biomass, vertical distribution and metabolism during the ICEPOS cruise in the Bransfield Strait. Interesting to see that about half of the biomass in Antarctic waters is below 200 m depth. During the last decade, we have been arguing that vertical distribution of mesozooplankton and krill is of paramount importance to understand the flux of carbon in the Antarctic waters. As usual, the paper is available on request.

Welcome to Alejandro

Alejandro Vicente Ariza is a new member of the biological oceanography group. He was born in Almería. He studied biology at Granada University and I arrived three years ago to the Canary Islands to specialize in marine biology at La Laguna University (ULL), Tenerife island. He collaborated during two years with BIOECOMAC, the marine sciences group at the Animal Biology Department of the ULL. He graduated in 2008 and started to work in deep sea research thanks to a join project developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the ULL. He enjoyed the study of an amazing marine community, the mesopelagic nekton. Now, he moved to Gran Canaria Island to work in the Biology Department of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University. He is going to work in the LUCIFER project to unveil the secrets of micronekton and the carbon flux due to diel vertical migrants. Good luck!!

Alejandro

Caibex III cruise

Shelf–ocean exchanges in the Canaries–Iberia Large Marine Ecosystem

Today, a short note about the Caibex III cruise performed last August in the upwelling zone of Cape Ghir on board the research vessel "Sarmiento de Gamboa" and leadership by Dr. Javier Arístegui. Caibex is a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Research and mainly conducted by the University of Las Palmas, the Institute of Marine Sciences of Galicia and the National Institute of Oceanic Research of Morocco. The goal of Caibex is to study at the mesoscale level the flux of energy and matter between the upwelled waters and the oceanic realm. They try to quantify those fluxes and their variability in relation to two upwelling filament systems off Galicia and Morocco. During Caibex III they sampled from bacteria to fish and octopus larvae in the filament off Cape Ghir (see the picture below). They also perform some experiments using drifting buoys equipped with sediment traps and incubation systems for primary production and respiration. Now, they are on the way to process thousands of samples. Good luck!

The sampled area. See the impressive filament off Cape Ghir, some of the oceanographic stations made and the trajectory of the drifting buoys.

The Seasoar used to obtain hydrological profiles underway.

All the orchestra.

New paper

Today, a new paper by Santiago Hernández-León about the functioning of the pelagic ecosystem. The author poses a hypothesis about the role of large predators on the structure of the pelagic food web. Diel vertical migrants promote a predatory pressure over zooplankton. This predation is driven by lunar illumination and therefore is cyclic. The presence or not of mesozooplankton also promotes a cascade effect down food web. Two different scenarios could be observed depending on the presence or not of mesozooplankton. What are the consequences of this top-down effect for the carbon flux? Do not miss this interesting paper. You can find it in your nearest library.

Some interesting papers

Today, some interesting papers recently published. The main author is our colleague Federico Baltar and the co-authors are the real bacterial mafia (Javier Arístegui, Pep Gasol, Gerhard Herndl, Eva Sintes). Compulsory for those working in oceanic microbiology. However, for the general readers inside the biological oceanography group, please look at the figure extracted from the paper published in Limnology and Oceanography. Observe the parallelism between the electron transfer system (ETS) activity and the particulate organic carbon (POC). For those recently joining the blog, read the abstract by double click on the image.

Welcome

After some weeks without news, mainly because of holidays and a long list of duties accumulated, we are here again to give you an account of what is happening with the oceanography mafia of the Marine Science Faculty in the Canary Islands.

Today we give the welcome to our laboratory of biological oceanography to Cynthia Voss and Sandra Wuttke. Cynthia works at the Max Delbrueck Centrum of Molecular Biology in the group of Dr. Ulrike Ziebold. She is here for an internship (14 weeks) in the group of Drs. May Gómez and Ted Packard. The internship is an European project called Leonardo da Vinci Mobilitaetsprojekt. Sandra Wuttke works at the Lise Meitner School in Berlin and she is here for another internship in the group of Dr. Javier Aristegui (14 weeks, same project as Cynthia).

Cynthia J. Voss

Sandra Wuttke

Microbial oceanography of the dark ocean’s pelagic realm

New review in Limnology and Oceanography by Javier Arístegui, Josep Gasol, Carlos Duarte and Gerhard Herndl about the mesopelagic and bathypelagic food webs. They give a nice account of the current status of knowledge on sources and fates of organic matter in the dark ocean, phylogenetic and functional diversity and metabolism of dark-ocean microbes, and the contribution of dark-ocean microbes to carbon flux in the meso- and bathypelagic ocean.

Schematic simplification of (A) organic matter fluxes and (B) food webs in the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones of the dark ocean (source: Limnology and Oceanography).

Abstract. The pelagic realm of the dark ocean represents a key site for remineralization of organic matter and long-term carbon storage and burial in the biosphere. It contains the largest pool of microbes in aquatic systems, harboring nearly 75% and 50% of the prokaryotic biomass and production, respectively, of the global ocean. Genomic approaches continue to uncover the enormous and dynamic genetic variability at phylogenetic and functional levels. Deep-sea prokaryotes have comparable or even higher cell-specific extracellular enzymatic activity than do microbes in surface waters, with a high fraction of freely released exoenzymes, probably indicative of a life mode reliant on surface attachment to particles or colloids. Additionally, evidence increases that chemoautotrophy might represent a significant CO2 sink and source of primary production in the dark ocean. Recent advances challenge the paradigm of stable microbial food web structure and function and slow organic-matter cycling. However, knowledge of deep-ocean food webs is still rudimentary. Dynamics of particle transformation and fate of the exported material in deep waters are still largely unknown. Discrepancies exist between estimates of carbon fluxes and remineralization rates. Recent assessments, however, suggest that integrated respiration in the dark ocean’s water column is comparable to that in the epipelagic zone, and that the dark ocean is a site of paramount importance for material cycling in the biosphere. The advent of new molecular tools and in situ sampling methodologies will improve knowledge of the dark ocean’s microbial ecosystem and resolve current discrepancies
between carbon sources and metabolic requirements of deep-sea microbes.

Marta Moyano

Congratulations to Dr. Marta Moyano! Last Thursday Marta Moyano defended her Ph.D. Thesis entitled "Temporal and spatial distribution of the ichthyoplankton in the Canary Islands". She obtained the European Ph.D. degree with the higher mark "Cum Laude". Marta has been working very hard during the last four years in the Biological Oceanography Group. She sampled ichtyoplankton every week during two and a half years, performed an impressive sampling during the ConAfrica 0603 cruise on board the RV "Hespérides" and visited Australia to work on the analysis of fish larvae otoliths. Thousands of ichtyoplankton samples were counted and analysed. This impressive work will be a reference for all those interested in the early stages of fish in the Canary Current. She was also a nice person and it was a pleasure to work with her and to have discussions about her work and in general about oceanography. Once more: Congratulations!

Dr. Marta Moyano

Cover of the Thesis manuscript by Marta Moyano

The main conclusions of her thesis were:

(1) The larval fish community off Gran Canaria Island is highly diverse. Neritic (Clupeidae, Sparidae & Gobidae) and oceanic (Myctophidae, Gonostomatidae & Photichthydae) larvae equally contribute to the larval assemblage.

(2) Two temperature-dependent seasonal LFAs off Gran Canaria:
•Winter-spring assemblage, which occurs during the mixing of the water column and the late winter bloom. Relatively high abundances of Sardinella aurita, Boops boops and Cyclothone braueri and presence of e.g. Pomacentridae sp1 and Lobianchia dofleini.
•Summer-autumn assemblage, which occurs during the stratification period of the water column. Relatively high abundances of larvae of Gobidae species and of Cyclothone braueri, Ceratoscopelus warmingii, Pomacentridae sp2, and Anthias anthias, and presence of Trachinus draco and Tetraodontidae sp1.

(3) Two stagnation regions up- and downstream of Gran Canaria are confirmed as accumulation areas of eggs and neritic fish larvae on a long-time scale. But the composition of the larval assemblage is not site-dependent.

(4) Strong relationship between mesoscale oceanographic processes and fish larvae, especially between upwelling filaments and sardine and anchovy.
•Filaments transport larvae of African neritic fish species into the oceanic region and towards the Canary Islands
•This larval transport is responsible for the high abundances of neritic larvae recorded in the oceanic realm during summer.
•Clupeoid larvae transported to Gran Canaria Island enhance local larval fish populations.
•Upwelling filaments may be trapped by the quasi-permanent cyclonic eddy, and this complex may act either as a retention or dispersal structure for the African neritic fish larvae.

(5) Metabolic activity of clupeoid larvae during an upwelling filament event revealed that grazing decreased offshore, while respiration increased, fish larvae might be affected by the transition of the planktonic community from the eutrophic to the oligotrophic regime.

The "Canary Eddy Corridor"

Today, the announcement of an accepted paper by Sangrà et al. in Deep Sea Research I. They report, from remote sensing and in situ observations, a new type of permanent structure in the eastern subtropical Atlantic Ocean, that they call the "Canary Eddy Corridor". The phenomenon is a zonal long-lived (> 3 months) mesoscale eddy corridor, whose source is the flow perturbation of the Canary Current and the Trade Winds at the Canary Islands. The latitudinal range of the corridor spans 22ºN-29ºN, and extends from the Canaries to at least 32ºW, near the mid-Atlantic Ridge. This is the main region of longlived westward propagating eddies in the subtropical northeast Atlantic. Below is the information appeared in the Aviso web page. The first figure was elected as the image of the month!

Eddies are seemingly sowed more or less haphazardly in the ocean. However, regular features exist, especially when there are dominant winds and/or currents, and islands or other topographic features. The "Canary Eddy Corridor" is a recurrent feature that can be detected in the more than 16 years of merged altimeter data. The phenomenon is an East-West corridor of eddies, born of the perturbation of the Canary Current flow and of the Trade Winds at Canary Islands. It extends from the Canaries to at least 32°W, close to the Mid Atlantic Central Ridge. Anticyclonic long-lived eddies (a few years life span) have been observed as far west as 50°W, well beyond this Ridge. Altimeter observations and drifter trajectories indicate that the eddies in this corridor first propagate South (following the Canary Current flow); then, at about (18°W, 25°N), they move westward (with a slight southward direction for anticyclonic eddies), on average at about one degree per month.

Paths of (at least) 6 month-old eddies in the North-East Atlantic. In red, anticyclonic eddies, in blue cyclonic ones, over the October 1992 - September 2006 period. A group of anticyclonic eddies can be seen moving from the South of the Canary islands westward to the mid-Atlantic. (Credits Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria/IMEDEA)



Geostrophic velocities computed from altimetry in September (left) and December 1998 (right), tracking the centre of an intense anticyclonic eddy South of Gran Canaria. The blue line corresponds to a drifter trajectory three days before and after the altimetry map. The buoy trajectory clearly matches the altimeter observations of this eddy. (Credits Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria/IMEDEA)

Left, depth-averaged (0 to 100 m) velocities as obtained from ADCP data (black arrows), superposed onto sea surface height as derived from merged altimeter data on September 2002. Both data sources show an intense anticyclonic eddy south of El Hierro island (South-Westernmost Canary island). Right, geostrophic velocities superposed onto a drifter trajectory (blue line). The trajectory corresponds to 15 days before and after the corresponding image, tracking the periphery of the same anticyclonic eddy observed left, one month later. The shape and eddy intensity from both data sources coincide well, with a size close to 100 km. (Credits Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria/IMEDEA)

Finally, a video of the relative vorticity from SSH. Observe the eddies (cyclonic and anticyclonic) shed by the Canary Islands and the drifting of those mesoscale structures (supplementary material of Deep Sea Research I).

Inma Herrera

Inma Herrera sent us some photographs from Hamburg. She is performing a stay with Dr. Myron Peck from the "Institut für Hydrobiologie und Fischereiwissenschaft". She is currently working on the relationship between growth and the activity of the enzyme AARS (amynoacil-tRNA sinthase) in copepods and fish larvae. During her stay in Hamburg she will compare growth in herring larvae with AARS and the RNA/DNA ratio. After Hamburg, a lot of work is waiting for her in the Canary Islands. In Autumn we will start the field sampling of the Lucifer project (see projects in this blog). Inma, thank you very much for the nice photographs and good luck with your experiments.

Inma in a nice office with the forest behind

The players (from left to right): Stephanie Borchardt, Myron Peck and Inma Herrera (nice photograph).

The victim: a herring larvae

The local fishermen providing the local herring for the local experiments (from left to right): Fritz, Jürgens, Ullrich and Eberhard.

Inma working very hard as observed from her tired face.

The feeding experiments running.

The copepod cultures made for the feeding of larvae.

The fathers of the victim.

Looking for sexual products to produce victims.

The killers (from left to right): Inma Herrera, Stephanie Borchardt and Lars Christiansen.

Alberto Zirino

Dr. Alberto Zirino spent some days in our Faculty in order to give some additional lectures about chemical oceanography in the Master of Oceanography. He coincided with Dr. del Giorgio and it was a pleasure to have them in our island. Dr. Zirino is Research Associate in the Marine Biological Research Division of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego (from 1996 to present). He is also Lecturer and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Marine and Environmental Science at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA. (2000-present), Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry, San Diego State University (1977 to present), and Oceanography Consultant to Consorzio Venezia Nuova (the quasi-governmental consortium of Venetian industries charged with safeguarding the Venice Lagoon and the city of Venice, Italy, from1998 to present).

Dr. Zirino

He is member of the Subcommittee on Environmental Analytical Chemistry, and he was member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) from October 1986 to 1994, and member of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (WG 90) of the International Council of Scientific Unions from October 1988-1991. He was the editor of “Mapping Strategies in Chemical Oceanography" (Advances in Chemistry Series) of the American Chemical Society.

From left to right: Magdalena Santana-Casiano, Paul del Giorgio, Javier Arístegui, Santiago Hernández-León, May Gómez, Ted Packard and Alberto Zirino.

Paul del Giorgio

Dr. Paul del Giorgio visited us for some days to give some lectures in the Master of Oceanography. He also delighted us with a very nice talk about the carbon fluxes in freshwater ecosystems. He is currently working on respiration, one of the largest gaps in our understanding of the global carbon cycling in both the aquatic and terrestrial environments. He was embarked on an international collaborative effort to synthesize and analyze the existing information and data on aquatic respiration, which resulted in a book published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. del Giorgio

This project allowed to estimate for the first time global aquatic respiration budget, and also helped to identify gaps in our current understanding of this key aspect of global metabolism. Among the most critical gaps they found were the lack of adequate quantification of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of aquatic respiration, in oceans, estuaries and lakes; the weak understanding of the links between aquatic respiration, carbon cycling and climate and landscape change; and the almost complete lack of insight into how microbial and planktonic diversity and composition influence aquatic ecosystem metabolism, and how diversity may modulate the response of aquatic systems to changes in organic loading, nutrient enrichment and climate.

Ted Packard, Paul del Giorgio and Javier Arístegui. If you add to this photograph Peter Williams and, perhaps, Tom Ikeda, you will need some oxygen to respire.

Global Sea Level: An enigma

Today an interesting talk by Walter Munk about Global Sea Level. This problem was an important issue in the last conference about climate change organized by the OCDE in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). Nobel price winner Jan Corfee advised about the problem of sea level increase for coastal cities. Because of this, we received some calls from local journalist requiring information about the problem. For those interested in this effect of global warming, we post an interesting talk by one of the most famous physical oceanographers of the world. Enjoy the lecture.

Rui Caldeira

A few weeks ago, coinciding with the visit of Drs. Cindy Lee and Albert Calbet, we also enjoyed the visit of Dr. Rui Caldeira. He was born in Funchal, Madeira Island and received his B.Sc. in Ocean Sciences in 1995 and a MSc. in Applied Marine Sciences in 1996 from the University of Plymouth and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. In 2002, he concluded his PhD. entitled “Multidisciplinary oceanographic studies of small islands in the Southern California Bight” from the University of California. He concluded two post-doctoral fellowships at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisboa. In both, he refined his knowledge of numerical models studies of geophysical fluid dynamics. Dr. Caldeira has several published papers, and teaching experience at the Universities of California, New South Wales, Madeira and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Dr. Rui Caldeira

...

In front of the dining room of the future Institute of Oceanography. From left to right: Ted Packard, Santiago Hernández-León, Cindy Lee, Iván Alonso, Albert Calbet, Rui Caldeira, Javier Arístegui and Pablo Sangrà (pirates of the biosphere).

The same team but including May Gómez. You can win a lecture next week by Paul del Giorgio if you guess who was the photographer.

The paper today is related to the feeding of dinoflagellates on diatoms in Antarctic waters. This is a key point to those studying the control of microzooplankton on primary production. It is also of interest for those who are going to visit Antarctica next year.

Albert Calbet

Coinciding with the visit by Dr. Cindy Lee, our master students had the pleasure to enjoy the lectures by Dr. Albert Calbet. His research is related to marine plankton ecology, with emphasis on zooplankton, the study of plankton food webs in marine systems and the role of zooplankton in the control of microbial and phytoplanktonic communities, as well as trophic dynamics of plankton, secondary production and zooplankton ecophysiology. His papers on the role of microzooplankton grazing in the pelagic realm are one of the most cited in the field of biological oceanography during the last years.

Dr. Albert Calbet

Albert Calbet and Javier Arístegui

From left to right: Iván Alonso, Cindy Lee, Albert Calbet, Ted Packard, Javier Arístegui and Verónica Benítez (hidden). All of them, waiting to start grazing.

Magdalena Santana-Casiano and Albert Calbet

The paper for today is an interesting work by Gutiérrez-Rodríguez et al. about dilution experiments and the suspicious coupling between phytoplankton growth and grazing rates. This method is promoting a continuous flow of papers testing its usefulness.