www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk Winter 2013

RRS Discovery The ship that never stops

Meteotsunami • Bat navigation • Copepod predation • Cleaning ecosystems About us

NERC – the Natural Environment Research Council – is NERC is a non-departmental public body. Much of our the UK’s leading funder of environmental science. We funding comes from the Department for Business, Innovation invest public money in cutting-edge research, science and Skills but we work independently of government. Our infrastructure, postgraduate training and innovation. projects range from curiosity-driven research to long-term, multi-million-pound strategic programmes, coordinated by Our scientists study the physical, chemical and biological universities and our own research centres: processes on which our planet and life itself depends – from pole to pole, from the deep Earth and oceans British Antarctic Survey to the atmosphere and space. We work in partnership British Geological Survey with other UK and international researchers, policy- Centre for Ecology & Hydrology makers and business to tackle the big environmental National Oceanography Centre challenges we face – how to use our limited resources National Centre for Atmospheric Science sustainably, how to build resilience to environmental National Centre for Earth Observation hazards and how to manage environmental change.

Contact us Planet Earth is NERC’s quarterly magazine, aimed at To give us your feedback or to subscribe anyone interested in environmental science. It covers all email: [email protected] or write to us at aspects of NERC-funded work and most of the features Planet Earth Editors, NERC, Polaris House, are written by the researchers themselves. North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1EU. NERC-funded researchers should contact: [email protected] For the latest environmental science news, features, blogs and the fortnightly Planet Earth Podcast, Editors visit our website Planet Earth Online at Adele Walker, 01793 411604 [email protected] www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk. Tom Marshall, 01793 442593 [email protected] Science writers Not all of the work described in Planet Earth has been Tamera Jones, Harriet Jarlett, Alex Peel peer-reviewed. The views expressed are those of individual Design and production authors and not necessarily shared by NERC. We welcome readers’ feedback on any aspect of the magazine or Candy Sorrell, 01793 411518 [email protected] website and are happy to hear from NERC-funded scientists who want to write for Planet Earth. Please bear in ISSN: 1479-2605 mind that we rarely accept unsolicited articles, so contact the editors first to discuss your ideas.

Front cover: RRS Discovery

2 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 In this issue Winter 2013

14 16

12 Blind as a bat On finding your way home in the 20 dark.

14 The 2011 UK meteotsunami A study in science.

16 Full steam ahead Building NERC’s new research ship.

20 Monitoring Earth’s canary How important is Arctic methane for global climate change?

22 Fixing broken ecosystems A microscopic solution to a big problem.

25 Climate research helps fight terror threat A new way to find explosives.

26 New for old Turning quarries into nature reserves.

28 Sex, plankton and predators The marine mystery of the missing males.

30 Sky high – what’s going on up there? Maths skills help interpret climate 28 change.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 3 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

New investments in ocean Editorial monitoring elcome to the winter edition of Planet Earth. Our stunning cover picture gives a clue to one W of our top stories – in fact a top story for NERC this year. It’s not a poster for a new Cunard liner but a pre- launch shot of our equally stunning research ship – the new RRS Discovery. Discovery has been years in the making and represents a significant capital investment in UK environmental science. She’s a fine example of cutting-edge engineering meeting cutting-edge research facilities and is robust enough to take marine scientists into some of the most hostile seas on the planet. The ship can accommodate researchers across a range of disciplines; together they will bring back new understanding of our enigmatic oceans – how they support marine ecosystems, regulate our climate and ultimately ERC has joined forces with the US’s National Science maintain life on Earth. Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic & Atmospheric One particularly unusual oceanic event featured N Administration (NOAA) to fund two projects worth around £44m to elsewhere in this edition is a tsunami that struck Britain’s monitor crucial ocean currents in the North Atlantic which shape south coast in 2011. Dave Tappin explains how marine Britain’s climate. geologists and meteorologists turned sleuth to solve the Science Minister David Willetts announced the projects when mystery of how it happened. he delivered the Mountbatten Memorial Lecture at the Royal Another researcher-turned-detective, Anna Senkevich, Institution in October. explains how she applied maths modelling skills to a climate The projects should ultimately improve long-term climate puzzle, while Damien Weidmann tells us how climate predictions and weather forecasts. During one of them, the five- research techniques are being adapted into technology that year £20m Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program could help fight terrorism. (OSNAP), scientists from seven countries will set up an array of Back in the water, we hear from Jags Pandhal about a moored instruments and use autonomous gliders across the new low-cost technique for dealing with algal blooms that North Atlantic, along a line running from Scotland to Canada via starve water of oxygen – an expensive and potentially toxic Greenland. These will measure ocean temperature, salinity and problem which is on current strength in an area called the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre. the rise worldwide. The currents here are part of the so-called ocean conveyor belt, Meanwhile Richard a system of currents moving heat around in the world’s oceans. Holland goes In the Atlantic, warm upper-ocean water travels north, to the high nocturnal to northern latitudes, where it loses heat to the atmosphere. This uncover the tools process keeps the UK relatively mild compared to other countries bats use to find at similar latitudes. This water cools then sinks and returns their way home – southwards at great depth. sometimes from The strength of currents in the global conveyor belt can vary hundreds of significantly. The OSNAP array aims to understand the connection miles away. between these variations and our weather. All that, and NERC, NSF and NOAA will also continue funding the RAPID the sex life of array of moored instruments between the Canary Islands and plankton too! Florida, providing around £24m. This collection of instruments has We hope you continuously monitored the strength of the North Atlantic portion enjoy it. of the global conveyor belt since 2004. RAPID will now run for six more years.

4 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Antarctica under ice wins mapping award

n innovative representation of the bedrock beneath the frozen continent might look if it were stripped of its ice cap. The A Antarctic ice has won the British Cartographic Society’s roundels at each corner of the map provide extra information on Bartholomew Award for best small-scale or thematic map. ice-sheet surface, ice thickness and on the many data sources it The colourful map is the result of an international effort led by incorporates. NERC’s British Antarctic Survey and assembled using data from Peter Fretwell of BAS received the award at the BCS 50th many sources by its MAGIC (Mapping and Geographic Information anniversary symposium awards dinner in September. Centre) team. It provides a fascinating glimpse into how the

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 5 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

3D fossils now online

esearchers at the British Geological Survey have been hard at R work on a collaborative project to scan many of the UK’s finest fossil specimens to produce the first ever 3d virtual fossil collection – an important step towards being able to put perfect replicas of even the most precious examples into classrooms all over the world. The fruits of their labours are now available at www.3d-fossils.ac.uk. There are thousands of high-resolution photos, 3d models and stereoscopic images of the fossils – the database isn’t fully populated yet and scanning work continues, but more information is being added all the time. Also included is comprehensive data about each one – where it was found, what species it comes from, its place in the tree of life, and even the paper in which it was first described. The 3d models are particularly innovative. The files can be downloaded and read using open-source modelling software, and they’ll work with 3d printers – the revolutionary technology that lets computers create real, physical objects by building up layer upon layer of plastic. Until recently these cost so much they were out of reach for almost everyone, but prices have plummeted in recent years. It may not be long before they are within the budget of the average school, and students will be able to handle exact replicas of some of the most important fossils ever discovered and find out about how they were found and what they tell us about the story of life. BGS is collaborating on the project with the Natural History Museum, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the National Museum Wales and the Geological Curators’ Group. Funding came from Jisc, the public body that supports the use of IT to improve education.

Lost home of last Neanderthals rediscovered in Britain

record of Neanderthal archaeology, archaeological evidence. helped lead the research. A thought to be long lost, has been The site, which has produced more The team dated sediments at the rediscovered by NERC-funded scientists Neanderthal stone tools than the rest of site using a technique called Optically working on the Channel island of Jersey. the British Isles put together, contains Stimulated Luminescence, which The study, published today in the the only known late Neanderthal remains measures the last time sand grains were Journal of Quaternary Science, reveals from north-west Europe. These offer exposed to sunlight. This was done at that a key archaeological site has archaeologists one of the most important the Luminescence Dating Research preserved geological deposits which records of Neanderthal behaviour Laboratory for Archaeology and the were thought to have been lost through available. History of Art at the University of Oxford. excavation 100 years ago. ‘In terms of the volume of sediment, The results showed that part of the The discovery was made when the archaeological richness and depth of sequence of sediments dates between team undertook fieldwork to stabilise time, there is nothing else like it known in 100,000 and 47,000 years old, implying and investigate a portion of the La the British Isles. Given that we thought that Neanderthal teeth discovered at Cotte de St Brelade cave, on Jersey’s these deposits had been removed the site in 1910 were younger than southeast coast. entirely by previous researchers, finding previously thought, and probably came Much of the site contains sediments that so much still remains is as exciting from one of the last of the group to live dating to the last Ice Age, preserving as discovering a new site,’ says Dr Matt in the region. 250,000 years of climate change and Pope of University College London, who

6 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Princess Royal Amazon names new research ship dominators identified he Amazon basin, home to the richest collection of plant T species on Earth, turns out to be dominated by just 227 tree species. A paper in Science says more than half of the forest’s 390 billion trees belong to just 1.4 per cent of its species. And of the 16,000 species that populate the forest, the rarest 11,000 account for just 0.12 per cent of tree cover. Accounting for more than half the world’s remaining rainforest, Amazonia is often called the lungs of the planet. But until now, its sheer size has restricted researchers to studying local or regional pockets of forest. ‘In essence, this means that the largest pool of tropical carbon on Earth has been a black box for ecologists,’ says Dr Nigel Pitman of The Field Museum in Chicago, one of the study’s authors. ‘Conservationists don’t know which Amazonian tree species face the most severe threats of extinction.’ er Royal Highness The Princess Royal has named the new The NERC-supported research involved more than 100 HRoyal Research Ship – RRS Discovery – at NERC’s National researchers from around the world working across all nine Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. countries of Amazonia. Around 200 guests including the Science Minister David Willetts, Led by Dr Hans ter Steege from the Naturalis Biodiversity local MPs, civic guests and senior figures from the UK marine Center in the Netherlands, they surveyed half a million trees science community were present to see a bottle of champagne across six million square kilometres, giving the first estimates for smashed in the traditional manner on the vessel’s bow. the whole Amazon basin. After the naming ceremony and a blessing from the Bishop ‘The most common species of trees in the Amazon now not of Southampton, Her Royal Highness toured the ship, meeting only have a number, they also have a name. This is very valuable officers and crew, representatives of Freire shipbuilders and information for further research and policy-making,’ says ter members of the Discovery replacement team, whom the Minister Steege. praised for completing the project on time and on budget. A thin palm tree called Euterpe precatoria is the commonest in The Office of Government and Commerce Gateway Review the forest, with an estimated five billion or more individuals across made a similar point, noting that ‘The project team has delivered the basin. a high quality ship on time for the key science programme to But there were some more worrying findings. Almost 6000 begin and under budget. This has been achieved in a challenging species seem to have fewer than 1000 individuals remaining. economic climate. This level of project management achievement Some of those species are unique to the region, and could be is not typical across government and should be recognised and classified as globally threatened. built upon.’ The researchers hope their work will help conservationists Discovery is the latest in an illustrious line of vessels bearing identify vulnerable tree species in unprotected areas. the name that date back to 1602, when the East India Company commissioned the first Discovery to explore the waters now known as the Hudson Strait in the long search for the Northwest Passage. In the 20th century, a new Discovery was specially commissioned for the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04, which included Antarctic heroes Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton. The new ship’s immediate predecessor ended a 50-year career in 2012, and was the platform for some of the most important marine science carried out during that period – truly a half-century of discovery. See pp16-19 for much more information about the new ship and its capabilities.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 7 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

New light on bee colony failure

ong-term exposure to pesticides can L destroy bee colonies even at levels too low to kill the bees immediately, according to new research published in Ecology Letters. Scientists from Royal Holloway University of London found that when bees are exposed to small amounts of neonicotinoid pesticides – too small to kill them instantly – their behaviour Robert Pitman (NOAA) changes and they stop working properly for their colonies. This shows that exposure to pesticides at levels bees encounter in the field has subtle impacts on individuals, and can eventually make colonies fail. It’s an important breakthrough in identifying the reasons for bees’ recent global decline, which has baffled Killer whales may have beekeepers and scientists. ‘One in three mouthfuls of our food depends on bee pollination,’ says lead menopause so grandma can author Dr John Bryden from Royal Holloway. ‘By understanding the look after the kids complex way in which colonies fail and die, we’ve made a crucial step in being iller whales are one of only two with group members, and theory predicts able to link bee declines to pesticides K species apart from humans that that older females can benefit more from and other factors, such as habitat loss continue to live long after they can no helping their offspring and grand-offspring and disease, which can all contribute to longer reproduce. But scientists still don’t than reproducing themselves.’ colony failure.’ know why these animals evolved this To discover why the menopause ‘Exposing bees to pesticides is a bit unusual menopausal trait. developed in the whales, the team will use like adding more and more weight on In a bid to find out, NERC has agreed to information collected over the last 30 years someone’s shoulders. A person can fund a project worth nearly £500,000 to about two populations of killer whales with keep walking normally under a bit of look at why killer whales stop reproducing more than 550 individuals between them. weight, but when it gets too much they a third of the way through their lives, The unique dataset includes birth and collapse. Similarly, bee colonies can dedicating the rest of their days to death dates as well as more complex data, keep growing when bees aren’t too protecting and caring for children and like the genetic and social relationships stressed, but if stress levels get too high grandchildren. between the different animals. the colony will eventually fail,’ he adds. The researchers suspect that the They will then look at how a female who The research is part of the £10m menopause, which the whales experience has undergone menopause helps offspring Insect Pollinators Initiative (IPI) set up in their 30s or 40s, is related to the survive. They suspect it is because older to understand the causes of pollinator animals’ social structure. females take a leadership role in the social declines and safeguard future pollination ‘Killer whales have a very unusual social group and know more about where and services. The IPI is funded by NERC, system whereby sons and daughters when food is available. After preliminary the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences don’t disperse from their social group but work they expect to find that having a Research Council, Defra, the Scottish instead live with their mother her entire female around who no longer reproduces Government and the Wellcome Trust, life,’ says Dr Darren Croft of the University greatly increases a calf’s chance of as part of the Living With Environmental of Exeter, a lead investigator on the study. survival. The research may even shed light Change programme. ‘As a female ages, she shares more genes on the menopause in humans.

8 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Frozen limit NERC scientists in brief . . . contribute to ➤ Reports of fish’s demise prove for life found greatly exaggerated Britain’s rarest freshwater fish, the vendace, cientists have pinpointed the lowest Fifth IPCC Report has made an unexpected reappearance Stemperature at which simple life can he Intergovernmental Panel on Climate in Bassenthwaite Lake in northwest live and grow. T Change (IPCC) has published its England, more than a decade after being The study reveals that below -20°C, fifth Assessment Report (AR5), providing declared locally extinct. A survey led by single-celled organisms dehydrate, the most up-to-date summary yet of the CEH researchers turned up a single young sending them into a vitrified – glass-like scientific evidence for climate change and specimen. The vendace is a relic of the last – state during which they can’t complete how our actions are contributing to these ice age, and only four native populations their life cycle. changes. have ever been recorded in Britain. Of The researchers propose that, since the ‘Climate Change 2013: the Physical these only one in Derwent Water was organisms cannot reproduce below this Science Basis’ projects that by the end of thought to remain, along with another that temperature, it’s the lower limit for life on the century global surface temperatures was introduced last decade using eggs Earth. will rise at least 1.5°C above those seen in from elsewhere. This means the news that They placed cells in a watery medium 1900 – perhaps by more than 2°C. there are still vendace in Bassenthwaite is and cooled it. As the temperature fell, the ‘Warming in the climate system is particularly welcome. medium started to turn into ice and as unequivocal,’ the IPCC said in a statement. the ice crystals grew, the water inside the AR5 firmly establishes human activity as a ➤ Gravity satellite mission comes organisms seeped out. This left them first major cause. to an end dehydrated and then vitrified. Once a cell’s ‘Continued emissions of greenhouse The European Space Agency’s Gravity field reached this state, scientists no longer gases will cause further warming and and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer consider it ‘living’ as it cannot reproduce, changes in all components of the (GOCE) satellite has come to the end of but it can be brought back to life when climate system. Limiting climate change its four-year life, running out of fuel and temperatures rise again. will require substantial and sustained breaking up in the atmosphere. During that ‘The interesting thing about vitrification reductions of greenhouse gas emissions,’ time it’s mapped variations in the Earth’s is that in general a cell will survive, where says Thomas Stocker, co-chair of the gravity in unprecedented detail. Although its it wouldn’t survive freezing – if you freeze IPCC Working Group l. ‘Heat waves are planned mission was finished by April 2011, internally you die. But if you can do a very likely to occur more frequently and fuel consumption had been so much lower controlled vitrification you can survive,’ last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect than expected that ESA could squeeze says Professor Andrew Clarke of NERC’s to see currently wet regions receiving more years more life out of it. British Antarctic Survey, lead author of rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, the study. ‘Once a cell is vitrified it can although there will be exceptions.’ ➤ Timelines highlight UK continue to survive right down to incredibly AR5 is the latest in a series of reports contributions to eight great low temperatures. It just can’t do much on climate change, synthesising peer- technologies until it warms up.’ reviewed studies from around the Research Councils UK has launched new More complex organisms can survive world. It is curated by leading experts in timelines to highlight UK contributions at lower temperatures because they can climate science, and plays a vital role in to the eight great technologies. Science control the medium their cells sit in to informing the climate policies adopted by Minister David Willetts identified these some extent. governments. as areas of great potential economic This goes some way towards explaining The UK provided 30 of the AR5’s importance, in which UK research is why preserving food by freezing it works. authors – around 11 per cent of the particularly strong. They are: big data and Most fridge freezers operate at nearly international panel. Many of these are energy-efficient computing; satellites and -20°C. This study shows this keeps food highly-regarded NERC-funded scientists. commercial applications of base space; fresh because moulds and bacteria can’t A significant portion of the science feeding robotics and autonomous systems; life multiply and spoil food when they’re this into the report is supported by NERC; sciences, genomics and synthetic biology; cold. for example the pan-European ice2sea regenerative medicine; agri-science; This study was supported by funding programme, coordinated by scientists advanced materials and nano-technology; from NERC, the European Research at the British Antarctic Survey, made and energy and its storage. The timelines Council, and the Institut National de la significant contributions to improving our chart UK contributions in each area up to Recherche Agronomique. It appears in understanding of how melting polar ice will the present day, including many that arose PLoS One. affect future sea-level rise. from NERC funding. They can be found at http://bit.ly/17qkHp1.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 9 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

NSP-RF / Alamy NSP-RF Mangrove carbon credits to help Kenyan communities

new initiative is raising money for community projects in also protect the coast from erosion and act as nurseries for fish A Kenya by protecting and restoring the country’s dwindling and shellfish on which local people depend; cutting them down mangrove forests. destroys these benefits. The plan is to sell carbon credits earned by preserving The project focuses on Gazi Bay, a mangrove-rich coastal area mangrove swamps to companies and individuals aiming to offset south of Mombasa that’s home to around 3000 people. Initially it’ll their emissions. cover 117 hectares of mangrove, but Huxham and his colleagues The Mikoko Pamoja (‘Mangroves Together’) project aims to hope this will expand over time, and that communities in Kenya bring in some $12,000 a year, around a third of which will fund and beyond will be inspired to set up similar initiatives. projects in areas like education and clean water, selected by a It’s the brainchild of Huxham and Dr James Kairo from the local council. The rest covers the cost of protecting the mangroves Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, with backing and planting new seedlings to replace lost trees. from international NGOs including the Earthwatch Institute and ‘Mangrove forests are one of the world’s most threatened the World Wildlife Fund, from UK insurer Aviva and from the natural ecosystems, with 20 per cent lost in Kenya over the last Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme, which is quarter-century,’ says Professor Mark Huxham of Edinburgh partly funded by NERC. Napier University, one of the project’s leaders. ‘When mangroves By working with local people and ensuring they see immediate are destroyed, the carbon that has been stored in the forest soil benefits, Huxham hopes the initiative will encourage them to take and in biomass, built up over thousands of years, is released to more care of their mangroves, and particularly to be more vigilant the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.’ Mangroves about reporting illegal logging.

10 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Algae forecasting Online tool boosts service wins award ash cloud forecasts new online tool for predicting the amount of ash pumped into A the atmosphere during a volcanic eruption has been made freely available to scientists around the world. PlumeRise, created by University of Bristol researchers, will help forecast the spread of ash clouds more accurately, paving the way for better management of airspace during volcanic crises. It has already revealed that the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which grounded planes across Europe, may have unleashed up to ten times more ash than originally thought. ‘Our research represents an important development in our modelling of volcanic plumes,’ says Dr Mark Woodhouse, one of the creators of PlumeRise and lead author on the study, published in Journal of Geophysical Research. Until now, estimates of the amount of ash an eruption releases have relied solely on measurements of the height of its volcanic plume. But that approach is only reliable in still air. To account for the wind, mathematicians and Earth scientists at the University of Bristol system to provide advance warning of harmful algal created a new mathematical model. blooms has won an award for the most beneficial Earth- A It shows that strong winds stop ash plumes reaching as high as monitoring service. they otherwise would. This means ash estimates relying on plume- The Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Forecast service is the first height measurements alone can be far too low. of its kind, and combines information from on-site monitoring, The team have now turned their model into an online tool that satellite data and both physical and biological ocean models scientists around the world can use to predict how much ash to provide weekly alerts for fish farmers and regulators along an eruption releases. That information enables better prediction Europe’s Atlantic coast. These provide early warning of the of how an ash cloud will spread, and how airspace must to be likelihood of toxic algal blooms over the following week. This managed accordingly. lets them take steps to minimise the damage. PlumeRise has been tested by several Volcanic Ash Advisory The system was developed by the European-funded Centres (VAACs) around the world including the Met Office Applied Simulations and Integrated Modelling for the London VAAC which covers the UK, Iceland and the north-eastern Understanding of Toxic and Harmful algal blooms part of the North Atlantic. It is also being used by institutions in (ASIMUTH) project, and includes scientists from 11 research Japan, Italy and Iceland. organisations and businesses from five European countries. Among them are researchers at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. Algal blooms cause enormous problems for fish farmers; each of the partner nations has experienced prolonged closures – up to ten months – of aquaculture areas, often with large losses of farmed fish. For example, in 2006 an exceptionally large bloom off Scotland’s west coast killed many bottom-dwelling animals. HAB Forecast won the award for Best Service Challenge from Copernicus Masters, a European Earth- monitoring competition that awards prizes for innovative Earth-observation-based solutions to problems faced by businesses and society as a whole. As winner, the service will receive €40,000 worth of satellite data, made available with financial support from the European Commission.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 11 Tracking bats’ movements after release.

Blind as a bat

How do bats navigate by lind as a bat,’ the saying goes. Bats Echolocation has its limits though. Sound night? Richard Holland have small eyes and are nocturnal, fades very quickly in air, and even though ‘B so the idea is that they have little bat echolocation calls are some of the has been doing ingenious need for vision at night. Like many popular loudest sounds produced by an animal (130 experiments to find out. sayings, this is a misconception; bats decibels), the maximum range for detecting actually see well in the dark compared to large landmarks is around 30m. However, other mammals of a similar size. Yet it does we know that bats travel over much greater highlight one question. How do bats find distances than this, finding their way home their way around at night when it is dark from as far away as 700km. Some bats even and visual cues are not available? migrate, making journeys of over 1000km Of course, bats use echolocation, between their summer and winter roosts. making sounds and then listening for the Echolocation can’t explain these feats of echoes. This system, essentially the same navigation. as the SONAR system used by ships, is So how do they do it? When I started to sophisticated enough for them to detect get interested in this question in 2006, the and hunt small insects at night, out in the only clues I had were from bird navigation, open air, and perhaps even navigate around my original area of research. Birds can a familiar place. navigate using a two-step process that is

12 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Finding your way home in the dark

effectively like our navigation with map Fitting a bat with a GPS tracker. and compass. They first work out where they are – the map step – and then they fly in the right direction to reach their destination – the compass. In an area they already know the ‘map’ is made up of familiar landmarks, but birds can return from unfamiliar places as well. Here it is less certain what provides the stimulus, but we think the birds may be able to sense changes in the Earth’s magnetic field strength, or subtle differences in smell. The compass cues birds rely on are much better known – we know they use the sun, the stars and the magnetic field’s direction Both images: Stefan Greif Stefan images: Both to take a bearing. Evidence suggests they use these different compasses to calibrate their direction-finding system. In particular it seems that birds calibrate the magnetic compass to the sunset. If the magnetic field shifts at sunset, they miscalibrate and fly off in the wrong direction. calibrate the Earth’s magnetic field for use routes. While GPS tracking is widely used as a compass. But the story may be still on birds, it is much rarer on bats, partly Bat nav more complicated. In birds, it’s not the sun because most bats are too small to carry In 2006 I did an experiment to test itself that is responsible for this calibration, even lightweight devices. However, Yossi whether big brown bats also use this but the polarised light it creates in the and Ivo have arrived with GPS trackers system, and found to our surprise that they atmosphere as it sets. Experiments on birds weighing just 3 grams – the lightest ever did. We placed bats in an altered magnetic show that if they view the sunset from built. field at sunset, using a device called a behind a polarising filter that rotated the The trouble with these devices is we Helmholz coil, which works by passing light by 90°, then they fly off at right angles need to recapture the same bat in order current through two parallel coils to to their normal direction. to recover the data, but we have already generate a magnetic field. When the bats With that in mind, I have returned recovered 19 of 24 of these devices so far. were released 20km north of their roost, with postdoctoral researcher Stefan Greif Although the data are preliminary, they they would fly off at 90° to their to the Tabatchka Bat Research Station are also exciting. Soon we may know as unmanipulated peers. This suggested that in Bulgaria, aiming to test whether bats much about bat navigation as we do about they were using the Earth’s magnetic field also set their compass with polarised light how birds find their way around. We’ll as a compass to take a bearing. cues. As I write this ‘live from Tabatchka’, no longer be in the dark about how these Experiments I later carried out in I am living a nocturnal lifestyle, having fascinating animals navigate. Bulgaria on greater mouse-eared bats got out of bed at 2pm. Last night we were confirmed this. By fitting bats with a releasing bats until 4.30am, having started small radio transmitter, we could follow the experiment at sunset, when we exposed their direction after release. Sure enough, some bats to an altered magnetic field and bats that observed sunset in an altered others to a shifted pattern of polarisation. magnetic field were shifted by around 90° I got to bed at around sunrise. Working on compared to a control group. But if they bats is a bit like being a student again. got the same treatment after sunset, there As well as our experiment on the i was no difference – both groups flew away polarisation, we are also collaborating with Dr Richard Holland is a lecturer in Animal from the release site in the same direction, Yossi Yovel and Ivo Borissov of Tel Aviv Cognition at Queen’s University Belfast. towards home. University. They have developed small Email: [email protected]. This tells us that bats use the sunset to GPS tracking devices to track bats’ homing

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 13 When reports started coming in that southern Britain had been hit by a tsunami, they were hard to believe. But it turns out there really had been one – just not the kind we usually hear about. Dave Tappin describes the scientific detective work that uncovered the truth.

The 2011 UK meteotsunami A study in science Simon Fitch hen you have eliminated the If the wave starts Video screenshot of the Yealm tsunami, 9.30GMT, 27 June 2011. impossible, whatever remains, off in deep water ‘W however improbable, must it is very small, be the truth,’ Sherlock Holmes said. This maybe just a few was always in my mind after a ‘tsunami’ centimetres high. struck south-west England. My work on But when it travels the subject is usually overseas, studying into shallow water, the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and it grows taller, Japan in 2011, but in June 2011 we got to especially when investigate an event much closer to home. the atmospheric Two years on, I still get a kick when I disturbance moves think of this event and how we worked it at the same speed out – elementary, my dear Watson. Our as the tsunami – we initial conclusions met with disbelief, but call this ‘resonance’. now after a really exciting journey we know But the wave may they were correct. It is the UK’s first proven still be only 20-30cm high. It’s in the final in Devon two days earlier; an amazing example of a meteorological tsunami. period of travel, when the wave approaches video showed a 40-50cm high wave What do I mean by that? Most tsunami the shore and enters a harbour or estuary, passing upstream. UK tide gauge data are geological, generated from the bottom that it becomes dangerous, because here from farther east in the English Channel up by earthquakes, submarine landslides further resonance or the ‘focusing’ effect confirmed the wave had affected a long or volcanic collapses that make the seabed of more and more water being forced into stretch of coastline. At St Michael’s Mount move vertically. This causes an ocean an ever-smaller channel can create a wave in Cornwall, the causeway was suddenly wave that travels outward from its source. several metres high. flooded and people reported their hair By contrast, a meteorological tsunami standing on end. Near Marazion, Simon wave is generated from the top down by a Spotting the tsunami Evans was digging for bait and compared change in air pressure, with the wave being We first learned about the tsunami from it to a horror movie; it was foggy, and pushed along ahead of the atmospheric newspaper articles on 29 June reporting suddenly the sea disappeared; he knew disturbance. a strange event in the Yealm Estuary what it meant and got out of there quickly.

14 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 HOW A METEOTSUNAMI FORMS Pulling it all together A 3 millibar pressure jump over the ocean causes a 3cm wave. As it travels, this increases in Although we’d already established the height due to resonance. By the time it reaches the head of an estuary it is nearly 5m high. overall picture of the relationships between the weather systems, the tide gauge data and the tsunami, once we had all the data 480cm we could see some very interesting details. The weather system that originated over 280cm 3 mbar Portugal/Spain created the tidal anomalies 130cm 3 mbar pressure jump there, and simple calculations of their speed 45cm 16cm 3cm wave matched the way we knew the wave had moved. Yet this weather system could not explain Estuary Continental Ocean shelf the tidal anomalies along the east coast of France or in the English Channel. For these the source had to be off Brittany, as recorded by the rapid atmospheric changes and seen in the satellite imagery and buoy data. But the timing of the tsunami in the Yealm ruled out a source off Brittany – there had to be a local source, and the At St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, radar imagery of the weather system over the western Channel showed there was one. the causeway was suddenly flooded So there were three weather systems, and three separate tsunamis. It was brilliant and and some people reported their hair unexpected how it all fitted together, and very exciting building the model as the data standing on end. came in. Thankfully the UK event wasn’t destructive, but we do know that in the The monitoring system of the British What about the weather? western Mediterranean meteotsunamis Geological Survey (BGS) hadn’t picked Met Office scientists had also been can cause serious damage. In the Great up an earthquake, so the first suggestion following the event, and Andrew Sibley Lakes region of North America, an event was that the wave came from an undersea in Exeter provided meteorological the previous year created a wave six metres landslide far to the west. Yet the wide data that quickly began to support the high. extent of the event and the sensation of hair oceanographic model we had produced. As the oceans warm with climate standing on end didn’t fit with a landslide. Satellite and radar imagery revealed that change, 2011’s meteostunami may After checking the weather conditions on on the 27th there was a major low-pressure be a taste of what’s to come. We now the 27th, my colleague Dave Long at BGS weather system west of the UK, and that need to consider how we might better in Edinburgh and I both independently storm cells to the south-west were tracking record, model and predict these events. suggested that a storm in the Channel was north-eastwards from Spain to England. It For example, UK tide gauges take to blame. turned out that they passed at exactly the measurements every 15 minutes, compared The initial results were posted on the same time as the unusual readings from to the continuous recording of our nearest BGS website, and we immediately received the tide gauge data. European neighbours. The UK also has an email from a French colleague at the Some simple calculations on the highly-developed models to forecast storm Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic tsunami’s expected speed supported these surges and tides, but we need to link Service (SHOM) in Brest. He agreed observations. But we still didn’t have the them to high-resolution weather forecast with our overall conclusions, but said the whole picture. One of the missing aspects models. All possible; it just costs money. If tsunami had been recorded on French tide was the rapid change in atmospheric meteotsunamis are going to become more gauges from the southern part of the Bay of pressure needed to generate the tsunami. common, and perhaps more damaging, this Biscay all the way to Calais in the eastern Andrew managed to get hold of data could be money well spent. English Channel – a distance of over from buoys off Brittany and south-west 1000km. It was staggering. England. These measurements showed More UK tide gauge data confirmed the rapid pressure changes as the storm tsunami extended from Wales to Dover. cells passed overhead. Measurements of I contacted some friendly meteorologists temperature, pressure and wind speed and about getting hold of satellite weather direction over Coruna, Spain, taken from data. Luckily, the son of a BGS colleague a weather balloon, revealed an unstable air i runs the surfers’ weather site www. mass that would produce downdraughts, Dave Tappin is a marine geologist at the magicseaweed.com. The meteorologist again supporting our idea about how the British Geological Survey, and Visiting Professor at University College London, there was intrigued and at first dismissive tsunami was generated. with a particular interest in tsunamis. of a tsunami, but after some research Email: [email protected]. agreed it was a possibility.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 15 In 2010 the UK government committed £75m to a new ship that would lead the world’s marine research capability. As the vessel neared completion, Adele Walker took a trip to Southampton to see how our money has been spent.

Full steam ahead

16 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 ’m sitting in an office in the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, Istaring at a plan of NERC’s new research ship, RRS Discovery. The plan reveals a marriage of cutting-edge marine engineering and research facilities, with home comforts to boot. Project Officer Edward Cooper has been involved from the outset of the six-year project which has brought Discovery from a twinkle in NERC’s eye to the dockside at Southampton, her home port. As we talk it’s clear that this £75m baby is more than just a day job. ‘I almost feel bereaved at the prospect of the project ending,’ he confides. And Princess Anne meeting the crew. the reality of this endeavour dawns on me; Below: Princess Anne being presented with a the vision, skill, tenacity, blood, sweat and memento by Ed Hill, Director of NOC. Bottom: The bottle smashing ceremony. quite possibly tears that are invested in her. If you’re not a ship buff you might not give Discovery a second look, but she’s worth it. Almost 100m long, Discovery is packed VITAL STATISTICS with state-of-the art scientific equipment, the infrastructure needed to deploy it, and Length: 99.7m facilities to keep 28 scientists and 24 crew Beam: 18m comfortable at sea for up to 50 days at a time – although the vessel may be away Max draught: 6.6m from the UK for six months or more. Gross tonnage: 5952 tonnes ‘The ship was designed from the outset to be world-class, world-reaching and flexible,’ Total installed power: says Professor George Wolff from Liverpool 57920kW University, senior scientist on the Discovery replacement project. Flexibility in this case Top speed: 15 knots means a master of all trades, able to work in the most testing conditions and cater for Stern/side lift limit: 20 tonnes the multidisciplinary marine science for Fuel capacity: 900,000 litres which the UK is renowned. Physical, biological and chemical Fresh water capacity: oceanography, marine geology and 210,000 litres geophysics, ocean engineering and atmospheric science research can all be Total accommodation: 52 carried out on board, in some of the planet’s most remote ocean areas. And in an age when no single discipline can fully an 8x8m echosounder array, fits in a novel And of course there’s all the data-logging address our big environmental challenges, blister on the bottom of the ship; others and computing equipment to analyse and the flexibility and breadth of Discovery’s are fitted on two drop keels which can be display the information captured by the facilities gives scientists from different lowered 2.5m below the hull, out of the way sensors. fields the chance to work alongside each of interference from bubbles drawn along Some of this capability can be extended other. Their work will help us address the hull by the ship’s motion. beyond the reach of the ship itself using those challenges – such as how we predict Also standard is a CTD – conductivity, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and and respond to natural hazards, how temperature, depth sensor – to study the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) we manage the effects of environmental physics of the water column. A second which can be programmed and set off on change, and how to manage our oceans containerised CTD with a Kevlar cable can their own independent mini-missions for sustainably so they can flourish and be used for sampling minute concentrations months on end. Autosub6000 – designed continue to provide us with the resources of trace metals in water without the risk and built by NOC – gives scientists and services we rely on. of contamination by a steel cable. Seismic eyes down to 6000m (nearly 4 miles) to All this is achieved through a suite of surveys, to investigate the structure explore and sample otherwise inaccessible built-in or ‘bolt-on’ equipment. Standard and movement of the ocean crust, use habitats and record the creatures living are the multi-beam echosounder and equipment towed behind the ship. Discovery there. Combined with Discovery’s ability to acoustic doppler current profilers which use also has deep-water, trawling, dredging venture into some of the most challenging sound to map the sea floor, marine habitats and coring capabilities, and can take seas on the planet, this technology will and ocean currents. The largest of these, sediment cores up to 20m into the seabed. literally take us into new territory.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 17 THE SCIENCE

The first research to take This technology will literally take advantage of the new ship us into new territory. will be NERC’s Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry programme, led by scientists at the universities of Wolff’s job was to make sure all the your caravan, there are ports for electricity researchers’ needs were built into the design and freshwater supply, drainage and waste Liverpool and Southampton, and and in particular to address some issues disposal, phone, internet and fire alarms. Plymouth Marine Laboratory. that have the potential to compromise the As well as adding flexibility, the containers quality of data collected. For example, ensure that highly sensitive work can be Our shelf seas are incredibly rich NERC’s other ship RRS James Cook has a conducted in very controlled conditions bulbous bow designed for fuel efficiency without risk of cross contamination and and important for global fisheries but which is susceptible to trapping air compromise of results. and biodiversity, as well as bubbles which then run under the hull The research equipment might take providing us with carbon cycling, and interfere with its acoustic sensors. the limelight but there’s a plethora of waste disposal, nutrient cycling, Discovery’s streamlined, deeper bow and equally marvellous behind-the-scenes stuff the blister are designed to overcome this. that’s critical for deploying it safely and renewable energy resources The ship’s dynamic positioning (DP) effectively. There’s a vast room on the main and recreation. They are under abilities are critical to the deployment of deck devoted to a complex suite of electric considerable stress from things scientific equipment. DP keeps the ship in winches, for lowering or towing different like pollution, overfishing, habitat one place using a combination of thrusters equipment along the seabed or through controlled by a computer. Discovery can the water. These handle five cables ranging disturbance and climate change, hold her position in sea state 6-7 (waves up from 8000m of synthetic rope to 15,000m but we still don’t understand to 9m high) and winds gusting to 40 knots of steel wire (yes that’s 15km – a three-hour these areas as well as we need which is around 46mph – enough to break walk), as well as a 10,000m fibre-optic tow to. This programme will address twigs off trees and make it tricky to walk. cable. Heave compensation on some of 2 that gap, and provide evidence Discovery has nearly 400m of permanent the winches protects ROVs from damage lab space and more exacting research should the ship move suddenly and allows to support marine policy such as environments can be created in one of the the delicate instruments to be held steady the Marine Strategy Framework specially designed 20-foot container-labs. A in the water column. Directive and Marine and Climate matrix of sockets on deck means that up to The ship’s cranes and gantries have to Acts. 18 of these can be carried, though generally take the weight of the equipment and only three will be plugged in and working also of the cables, which can experience at any one time. A bit like hooking up quite violent forces as the ship moves with

18 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 wave and swell action. A double gantry control room – some 90 tonnes of (getting on for half a million pounds-worth) on the starboard deck makes it possible equipment. of fuel; then there’s around 35,000 litres of for one piece of equipment to be ready to NERC accepts applications for research lubricating oil and all the spare parts that be lowered almost as soon as another is cruises based on scientific excellence, are needed to keep the ship running. landed. Everything has its own specific and researchers then book facilities and As for the scientists and crew, they’re storage, deployment and recovery needs, equipment. It can take up to three years maintained with regular meals prepared and Discovery can cater for them all. The from first applying for a grant to the cruise in the substantial galley, and have a mess, ROV Isis comes with its own gantry, six setting sail. The programme is full for the bar/lounge, video room and fitness suite. containers of kit and a two-container foreseeable future. There’s an internet café, a conference room Geraint West is Director of National and library, and everyone has their own Marine Facilities, which as well as the cabin to escape to when it’s time to get some GOODBYE TO THE ships, includes the National Marine shut-eye. Spending upwards of 40 days Equipment Pool – £20m-worth of out of sight of land can be pretty stressful, OLD DISCOVERY equipment that NOC looks after on and relaxation, exercise and creature behalf of the UK science community. He comforts are essential to make sure everyone When the previous Discovery was explains how costs are reduced through an ‘decompresses’. built she was expected to last international barter system, in which each There’s also a well-equipped hospital – for 25 years. A 1992 refit gave nation’s research facilities and equipment Discovery doesn’t normally carry a doctor are worth a number of points per day. but there are officers with medical training her another 15; when she came Over recent years it has saved millions on board, and 24/7 access to expert medical home to Southampton after her in reduced fuel costs, with the added advice from shore. last voyage in December 2012 benefit of enabling science and technology The hospital, we hope, won’t see she had surpassed this by an interactions between countries. much use. But Discovery herself operates West and his team are also responsible 24/7, with the continuous demands on additional five years and overall for the ship’s material state, as well as infrastructure and home comforts of a had been plying the seas for half liaising with bodies such as Lloyds and floating village. a century. the Maritime and Coastguard Agency ‘The ship never stops,’ says West. ‘Even in to ensure that she is properly certified to harbour there’s always something going on’. The UK’s oldest research vessel operate worldwide. They are also on stand- by whenever Discovery is at sea; if there’s an had carried out 382 missions. incident they’ll take control and provide Her final voyage was to Ghent support to the ship. in Belgium to be recycled. Discovery is self-sufficient at sea for Many researchers, officers and 50 days, carrying around 210,000 i litres of fresh water which is topped up Discovery was funded by NERC and crew associated with the ship with desalination in the ship’s vacuum the Large Facilities Capital Fund which have shared their memories of evaporators after around three weeks. For a is administered by NERC’s parent department, the Department for expeditions and life on board this six-month cruise she carries as many non- Business, Innovation & Skills. perishable goods as possible and the purser venerable vessel on a blog Contact Project Officer Edward Cooper organises resupply with local agents. This http://memoriesofdiscovery. [email protected] means setting off with around 50 tonnes Web address: blogspot.co.uk/ of food on board; it sounds a lot, but it’s http://noc.ac.uk/research-at-sea/ships not much on top of the hundreds of tonnes

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 19 There has been a lot of noise n days gone by, miners would take large Arctic reservoirs and their subsequent lately about the role of Arctic canaries down into the mineshafts release into the atmosphere could therefore Iwith them, not as pets but as biological have potentially catastrophic implications methane emissions in global detectors of harmful gases that may be for Earth’s climate. This means it is crucial climate change. But we need present underground. Signs of distress that we to try to understand the relative repeated measurements and from the bird indicated that concentrations strengths of these potential sources of of these gases were too high, and that methane. careful analysis of the results conditions had become unsafe. As well as possible large-scale emissions before we’ll know for sure how Because of a series of positive feedbacks of methane from these permafrost soils important these emissions are. – for example, a loss of sea ice makes the and hydrates, the Arctic wetlands – land sea darker and less reflective, so it absorbs consisting of marshes and swamps – are Sam Illingworth describes a more sunlight, melting still more ice – the also thought to be significant sources of current project that’s trying to Arctic feels the effects of global warming methane, thanks to a species of micro- do just that. more strongly than anywhere else. So it can organisms known as methanogens. be thought of as the Earth’s canary: signs Methanogens produce methane as a of distress indicate that we are approaching byproduct of respiration, and need low- unsafe conditions. oxygen conditions to thrive. Wetlands are The Arctic is also home to large an ideal breeding ground for such bacteria; reservoirs of methane, in the form of another is the digestive tract of humans, permafrost soils on the land and methane where they are somewhat delightfully hydrates beneath the seabed – a hydrate is a responsible for flatulence. substance that contains water. A warming Further complicating matters is the climate may destabilise both. Methane in issue of transport, in which methane from the Earth’s atmosphere is an important sources as far away as Canadian wild greenhouse gas; over 100 years, its impact fires can be transported high into the on climate change is over 20 times greater atmosphere and across to the Arctic. So than that of carbon dioxide, on a molecule- even if we know there are high levels of for-molecule basis. The melting of these methane over the Arctic, we can’t be sure if Monitoring Earth’s canary

Rugged Arctic landscape of Svalbard, seen from

the FAAM atmospheric research aircraft. Jennifer Müller

20 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Wetlands of Sodankyla in northern Finland, showing the walkways where the team make ground-based measurements.

Dave Lowry

it comes from wetlands, melting permafrost MAMM included three separate flight instead we are looking at a parcel of air that and hydrates, or from another part of the campaigns, one in July 2012 and two more contains methane originating from a North world entirely. All this means we urgently in August and September the next year. In American fire (‘isotopically heavy’). need consistent and precise measurements each case, measurements were made over By comparing these fingerprints to of Arctic methane, coupled with a detailed similar locations, with the idea being that other measurements that are made on and thorough analysis of the results. This repeated measurements at different times the aircraft and on the ground, we can will let us say not only how much methane of the year would give us a better idea of better understand both the concentrations is being emitted, but also exactly where it the effect of seasonally differing variables and sources of methane emissions in the has come from. such as temperature, as well as increasing Arctic. In turn this will provide insight into The Methane and other greenhouse confidence in our findings. the present and future effects on Earth’s gases in the Arctic – Measurements, One of the key tools in analysing the climate as a result of global warming – process studies and Modelling (MAMM) data is to perform isotopic analysis on bags hopefully before Earth’s canary stops campaign, part of the NERC Arctic of air that have been sampled in mid-flight. singing for ever. Research Programme, aims to address Isotopes are simply variant forms of the these issues. As well as ground-level same element. They have equal numbers of measurements of how much methane is protons but different numbers of neutrons emitted and absorbed over both the land in their nuclei. For example in the case of and sea, part of the campaign has involved MAMM we are primarily interested in i measuring atmospheric composition using the ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-13; the Dr Sam Illingworth is a post-doctoral the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Carbon-12 isotope contains six protons research assistant in the Centre for Measurement (FAAM) BAe-146 and six neutrons, whilst the slightly heavier Atmospheric Science at the University of Manchester. Email: samuel.illingworth@ atmospheric research aircraft. Carbon-13 isotope has six protons and manchester.ac.uk. The MAMM project is This is a commercial jet that has been seven neutrons. led by Professor John Pyle of the University modified to carry a large suite of scientific The ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-13 of Cambridge. instruments, enabling it to make precise in a sample of air varies depending on Further details of the MAMM project can measurements of greenhouse gases where it originally came from. This be found on the blog: http://arcticmethane. wordpress.com. including methane, carbon dioxide, water method effectively lets us ‘fingerprint’ the vapour, carbon monoxide and nitrous atmosphere; by analysing the sampled A series of audio field diaries and interviews hosted by the Barometer oxide. It has a range of over 3000km, can bags we can then say whether the air in podcast (http://thebarometer.podbean. reach heights of about 10km, and can fly them has come directly from the wetlands com/) give further insight into the project for more than five hours carrying 21 crew that were below the aircraft at the time and the people behind it. and scientists. of sampling (‘isotopically light’), or if Jennifer Müller

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 21 Fixing broken ecosystems

22 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 The world’s growing population is increasing demand for resources like food and clean water – but more people means more waste, and that’s having a direct impact on those resources. But all is not lost: Jags Pandhal and colleagues describe a new technique for cleaning up ecosystems that has knock-on economic benefits too.

ith Earth’s population predicted to exceed nine billion by the middle of this century, providing enough food, W water, medicines and renewable energy is becoming a major challenge. At the same time, global economic growth means more waste from industry and agriculture is making its way into the environment, and this pollution damages the ecosystems that we rely on for so many of our resources. One very visible example is eutrophication. This happens when too many nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen reach our water systems, causing a bloom of overfed algae. Algal blooms make water undrinkable and starve it of oxygen. This damages wildlife and biodiversity and in turn affects fisheries and tourism, and the toxins released can be a severe health hazard. 2013 saw China’s largest algal bloom on record and the Chinese government has pledged £400 billion over the next decade to meet increasing drinking-water demand. But blooms are on the increase everywhere; more than three-quarters of England’s freshwater systems are classified as eutrophic, with estimated clean-up costs of up to £114 million a year. Climate change could add to the problem, as warmer temperatures and changing rainfall patterns can encourage algal growth.

No silver bullets There are several ways to prevent or treat eutrophication, though each has limitations. Legislation to control the nutrients coming from industry, sewage or agriculture has made the future look brighter, but because stored phosphorus continues to be released it can take decades before we see any improvement. There’s ecological engineering, for example chemically fixing nutrients to the sediment to stop them causing damage, or protecting our natural wetlands so the plants can soak up excess nutrients before they can cause a bloom. Or there’s bio- manipulation, for example encouraging the growth of algae’s natural predators. Alternative methods include barley straw and ultrasound (see Planet Earth Summer 2013, pp30-1). An attractive option is to remove the algae, but doing this efficiently is a challenge. The good news is there are economic as well as conservation reasons to get better at it; but despite the algal biofuel industry’s efforts over the last decade, harvesting still accounts for as much as 30 per cent of industry costs. One of the most popular harvesting methods, dissolved air flotation (DAF), widely used by the water treatment industry, is considered too A fisherman wades in Chaohu Lake, covered in blue-green expensive to use on a large scale. But all that could be about to algae, in Chaohu city, Anhui province. REUTERS/China Daily change.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 23 Eco-technology: types of algae being removed. Once these Microflotation with bubbles questions are resolved, microflotation could DAF clarifies wastewater by removing be a crucial tool for both conservation and solids suspended in it. It works by the biofuel industry. saturating water with air under pressure, then releasing it through a diffuser which Good for the environment … causes bubbles to form. A chemical Many environmental problems we face flocculent is added to make suspended today are an indirect result of mankind’s particles in the water clump together, and engineering progress, so it’s fitting that our the bubbles float the solids to the surface engineering proficiency should help solve where they can be more them. But before we use microflotation in easily removed. It works, the environment, we need to use all our but it uses a lot of energy. scientific expertise to assess the possible Microflotation can Now our team at effects on biodiversity and ecosystems, Sheffield, led by Professor and make sure the technology does good produce the same effect Will Zimmerman, has and not more harm. As an important developed a cheaper first step, we are developing techniques at just 5–10 per cent alternative. The using proteins to give us a snapshot of breakthrough has been what is happening to the water biology of the cost. in how the bubbles are in lab experiments. We’re combining made. Conventional DAF this data with more traditional ecology mechanisms depend on their diffuser to approaches that will help us predict and generate microbubbles, which break off control the effects of microflotation in the when they are big and buoyant enough. environment. Laboratory experiments must Our system, microflotation (MF), has no be moved into the field as natural ecology moving parts but instead uses the dynamic is a much more complex system. properties of the water itself. As air enters the system the water flows from side to side … Good for the economy due to the so-called Coanda effect, which The secret to making biomass removal even dictates the direction of fluidic flow. This more cost effective is to find other ways of fluidic oscillation releases bubbles at the making money out of the process – and infant stage, much sooner than if they had there are many. Microalgae grow very fast to break free by themselves. and are very efficient at converting the With just a small amount of flocculent, sun’s energy into forms we can readily use. these tiny bubbles can float microscopic They store energy as lipids or fats (some particles like algae cells to the surface of species are up to 76 per cent lipids), which the water. can be converted to bio-diesel and jet fuel, Traditional bubble-based separation or used in cosmetics and drugs. Algal systems are expensive because they have to protein can be turned into animal feed or pump both gas and liquid to make their food supplements, and the carbohydrates bubbles, and pumping liquid takes a lot can be converted to ethanol and methanol. of energy. MF only pumps gas so it uses a The algae themselves can be directly fraction of the energy. It doesn’t use large fed into anaerobic digesters to produce saturation tanks and needs none of the methane, or used as a fertiliser which helps expensive safety certification required for restore the structure of eroded soils. operating in high-pressure conditions; in In an age when we have to balance fact it has no moving parts. Essentially, MF protecting the environment with the can produce the same effect as a standard challenge of sustaining a growing human DAF system but at just 5–10 per cent of population, we need innovative technology i the capital and operating costs. more than ever. Algal blooms are becoming Jagroop Pandhal is the NERC/TSB So far so good: MF works well in the more prevalent around the world as a direct Research Fellow for the Algal Bioenergy Special Interest Group (AB-SIG) and lab but how do we scale up the process to result of human waste and carelessness. based in the Department of Chemical and make it commercially viable? MF bubbles Stopping them happening is paramount, Biological Engineering at the University of last for a long time and can efficiently but with smarter technology and the right Sheffield. Email: [email protected] process around 200l of water. Where a financial drivers we can start to fix these Professor Will Zimmerman is an expert large body of water needs treating one broken ecosystems and benefit both the in microfluidics and inventor of the option would be to have MF operating environment and the economy. technology, in the same department. in a lagoon from which treated water is James Hanotu is a Consulting Project Engineer for Perlemax Ltd, working on released. We’re also looking at the use microflotation trials and the application of of organic flocculants and how these microbubbles in bioreactors. can be chosen to complement water characteristics, for example pH, and the

24 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Climate research helps fight terror threat

The fatal incidents at the Boston marathon earlier this year highlighted yet again the threat of terrorist bombs and chemical attacks. Security forces will be on high alert at such events but how can they be sure someone is carrying explosives until the damage is done? Damien Weidmann explains how climate change research could give them the upper hand.

ecades of research into climate change have led scientists metres, so it can be used with no risk to the operator. The laser to develop a range of techniques for measuring the levels is harmless to eyes and the trolley-mounted kit is compact (with D of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These include plans to produce a tripod-mounted version), robust and cost remote sensing, using instruments flown on satellites which can effective. It’s also quick, giving results in seconds to a minute accurately measure even very low concentrations of gases across depending on the accuracy needed. ACLS has wider applications large distances, using radar or lasers. too. It can be used by fire services to check for hazardous chemicals Because explosives emit tiny amounts of gaseous chemicals, at accidents and fires, and by the military to monitor for chemical they have potential to be detected in the same way as greenhouse warfare agents. Environment agencies can use ACLS to remotely gases but until recently there were no equivalent instruments for monitor pollution from factories and local councils will be able to detecting these chemical traces at ground level. use it to check air quality. Funded by the Centre for Earth Observation Instrumentation CEOI is behind a wide range of innovative new instruments that (CEOI), a collaboration of academic and industry researchers, measure our weather, our atmosphere, the ice caps and many other scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories have now aspects of the natural environment. The Active Coherent Laser adapted a remote-sensing instrument called an Active Coherent Spectrometer is just one example which is finding fascinating and Laser Spectrometer (ACLS) to do just that. potentially life-saving applications in everyday life. ACLS works on the principle that different chemicals have a unique effect on the wavelength of light that passes through them. It directs a beam of laser light towards the area of interest, which is reflected off buildings and other surfaces back to the spectrometer. i Any chemicals present in the laser’s path will change the properties ACLS project lead is Dr Damien Weidmann, STFC Rutherford of the returning light so the spectrometer can detect exactly which Appleton Laboratory. Email: [email protected]. chemicals are present and their concentration. For more on this technology and others funded by the CEOI visit The technology is already effective at a distance of 50 metres www.ceoi.ac.uk from its target and it will be able to operate up to several hundred

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 25 The noise and wasteland of a gravel quarry and the serenity of a nature reserve – all in one place. Sue Nelson meets a group of people with a shared interest in Cambridgeshire’s Paxton Pits Quarry. New for old

Sue Nelson: I’m with David Payne from a grass snake today or a kingfisher flying Helen King: In several ways. You can the Mineral Products Association, at past. And the meadows past the briars and use it when planning how you’re going Paxton Pits, an old sand and gravel quarry. wild rosebushes there, were also quarry to restore the land, then in how you David, what normally happens at the end land that was first backfilled to restore it manage that restored land to encourage of a quarry’s life? to agriculture, and now it’s the heart of the the generation of different ecosystem nature reserve. services. Then to actually put a value on the David Payne: These days, there are usually ecosystem services that land is providing. legal agreements that require the quarry Sue Nelson: Helen King from Cranfield Then you can see whether those services are company to restore the land to fit in with University, you’ve been working on a report increasing, and communicate to others the the landscape. That can be agriculture but on ecosystem services and part of it relates services a piece of land is providing. more often than not these days it means to quarries. Ecosystem services sounds very creating habitats for wildlife. Most of this corporate and jargony – what does it mean? Sue Nelson: Cas Jewell, you work for site is now a nature reserve. Nature After Minerals, a partnership Helen King: In the past we only between Natural England and the RSPB. Sue Nelson: Let’s head over to the nature considered the value of land in terms of What do you think when you see an area reserve now… what a difference between static resources, like minerals, timber or like this? the masses of gravel and noisy diggers food. The ecosystem services approach where we were to what is now a very serene also considers the natural processes that Cas Jewell: It’s a fantastic example of lake with water lilies, bulrushes, birds we benefit from effectively for free, such what restoration can provide for wildlife. flying overhead. It’s absolutely beautiful. as water cycling or carbon storage. If we We’ve got reedbeds, wet grass and lowland Jim Stevenson, you’re a senior warden here. can formally assess the value of these we meadows – all are important habitats for It’s hard to believe that this waterside was can make better decisions relating to the biodiversity. And today we’ve seen families once a quarry. environment. looking at wildlife, school groups doing pond dipping, people birdwatching. This Jim Stevenson: Yes it is. This is the Star Sue Nelson: OK, so how do you apply the shows just some of the ecosystem services Lake – we’ve had bitterns in here, we’ve got ecosystem approach to a quarry? that quarry restoration can give – not otters and there’s a good chance of seeing only nature conservation but health and

26 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Images Boffin Media Boffin Images

In some ways our image of i This Q&A is adapted from the Planet Earth quarrying is stuck in the Dark Ages. Podcast, 6 August 2013. The full podcast and transcript are on Planet Earth Online http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/multimedia/ story.aspx?id=1297

Paxton Pits Nature Reserve www.paxton-pits.org.uk/ wellbeing for local communities too. own – or use the nurseries to repopulate Mineral Products Association the land. www.mineralproducts.org/ Helen King: We call these cultural services, things like relaxation and Sue Nelson: David, the Mineral Products Nature After Minerals www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/planning/ education. There are three other ecosystem Association is a key partner on this report. mineralsplanning.aspx services in the approach: things like food, What are you going to do with Helen’s The Ecosystem Services Approach materials, timber and minerals we call findings? to Quarry Restoration report can be provisioning services; then you’ve got downloaded from http://dspace.lib. regulating services such as cycling of water David Payne: We’re going to use them cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/8024 and air, pollination and carbon storage. to educate our members and translate And then you’ve got supporting services ecosystem services into simple language for that underpin all the others; these are companies to use, for example, applying for biophysical processes, like soil regeneration. planning permission for a new site and they need to think about the wider potential Helen King: The ecosystem services Sue Nelson: Cas, how easy is it to benefits right from the beginning. It will approach has massive potential for quarry transform a completely bare quarry, with also be important for demonstrating to restoration. Restoration work has been no green in sight, into something like this? various communities the benefits that can going on for a long time and the companies be delivered through a working quarry and are already familiar with things like the Cas Jewell: One thing we’re keen to its restoration. Nature After Minerals project. What will promote is that you can actually support be new is giving them the opportunity wildlife before, during and after extraction. Cas Jewell: And we’ll use it in some EU- to record, assess and communicate It’s possible to create nursery beds for plants funded work the RBSB is doing, as part these benefits to the wider public and to while extraction is still going on. Then at of a toolkit to measure ecosystem services policymakers. In some ways our image of the end of the quarry’s working life you in quarries and try to put some relative quarrying is stuck in the Dark Ages – we can reshape the hole and either wait for economic value on different restorations, think of noise and the dust but there’s a natural regeneration – because habitats which we hope will help operators in their huge amount of good stuff coming out at like heathland regenerate very well on their planning. the end.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 27 Moon jellyfish. Sex, plankton and predators

Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour has opepods are small (1-4mm) but while their growth, reproduction and been looking into why females crustaceans with elongated feeding habits have been well studied, C bodies and large antennae. They there is still a lot we don’t know. rule the marine lonely-hearts dominate the plankton in the marine A curious phenomenon – occasionally column. environment, which is why they are often reported, but not well studied – is that called the insects of the sea. Like other adult female copepods often outnumber crustaceans, they have an armoured the males, sometimes by more than exoskeleton – a hard outer casing that 10 to 1. It is important to understand protects their soft bodies. They moult as what causes this, because at times there they grow, leaving their old exoskeleton are not enough males to fertilise all the behind. Like many other animal plankton, females. This restricts population growth, copepods are often near-transparent. We even when all other factors, such as the think this helps them avoid predators in abundance of food, favour a population an environment where there is nowhere to boom. In turn, this limits the copepods hide. available as food to fish and other Don’t be fooled by copepods’ tiny size predators. – they are a vital part of the marine food Why are there so many more females? web. Copepods are usually the dominant First, we need to be certain that equal animal in the plankton – in fact, they are numbers of females and males are the most abundant animal on the planet born. This is true for most species, for – and are the main prey of many larger reasons explained by the evolutionary marine animals such as fish, jellyfish and scientist Ronald Fisher in The Genetical whales. Scientists have long recognised Theory of Natural Selection, published their significance in the marine ecosystem, in the 1930s. He starts from a scenario

28 PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 Close up of a moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita.

where male births are less common than female. A newborn male then has better mating prospects than a newborn female, because he has more females to choose from. Males with genes that cause them to have more male offspring are at an even bigger advantage. This means the genes for male-producing tendencies spread, and male births become more common. The advantage associated with producing males then dies away as the sex ratio reaches equilibrium. A recent study examining sex ratios in juvenile and adult copepods has shown this is as true for copepods as for other animals – female dominance only Both images: Alexander Semenov/Science Photo Library appears in adulthood, after the last moult of the exoskeleton; the younger developmental – some studies suggest their numbers are copepod) and faster swimming overrides stages have equal sex ratios. increasing. We know they are voracious the comparatively smaller differences in In the mid-2000s, scientists spotted predators, often outcompeting others, such swimming speed between the males and a pattern in the species of copepods as fish, for food. However, we do not know females. Essentially, what seems like a exhibiting adult female dominance. if some prey are more likely to be caught large difference in swimming speed in the The females of these particular species than others – for example, does the size and copepod world is nothing compared to the can store sperm. This may have evolved speed of prey increase or decrease their risk large jellyfish, cruising rapidly through the because of the difficulty of finding a mate of being eaten? water column. in the vast three-dimensional ocean. The We used Aurelia provided by the Jellyfish are just one type of copepod ability to store sperm changes the dating aquarium at the Horniman Museum and predator. Other predators use different game – mating with such a female is very Gardens in London, which enabled us to methods to detect their prey. For example, advantageous to a male. One successful perform many single experiments using many fish are visual predators and may reproductive encounter could lead to many similar-sized jellyfish. This would have been spot a faster-moving male copepod; offspring, all with his genes. challenging if we had relied upon natural however, females are often larger and more Observations of how these copepod Aurelia populations. It is hard to collect pigmented, which may also increase their species behave have shown males and them from the wild, as jellyfish blooms can risk of being eaten. females exhibit different swimming be difficult to predict and do not last long. Chaetognaths, commonly known as patterns. The females swim slowly, only Our experiments examined how quickly arrow worms, are voracious predators of moving rapidly to feed, while the males the moon jellyfish fed on the males and copepods and detect their prey by sensing seem to search constantly for a mate. In females of two different species of copepod. their movements in the water. This might fact, a 16-fold difference in swimming The first, Acartia tonsa, has as many males mean that faster-moving prey, such as some speed between males and females has been as females in the marine environment, male copepods, are more vulnerable. There reported in some species. However, while and the two sexes swim in a similar way. is some anecdotal evidence to back this swimming faster may increase the chance In contrast, the males and females of the up – analysis of chaetognaths’ stomach of finding a female, it will also increase the second copepod, Oithona similis, have contents suggests they eat male copepods risk of an encounter with a predator. very different swimming speeds, and the more often than females. So have the missing males died through population is often female-dominated. What we need now is more research on predation, on the quest for a mate? We found that predation rates on the other predators and their relationship with Unfortunately, it is more complicated males and females of both copepods were different kinds of copepod prey. In the than this, as male copepods develop faster similar. This suggests the large difference in meantime, our study takes us a step closer and naturally die sooner. However, after the number of males and females observed to solving the mystery of the missing males. we accounted for differences in lifespan in natural populations of Oithona cannot and development rates, the evidence still be caused by predation by jellyfish like suggested that males suffer from much Aurelia. higher predation. This left us asking which To try to understand why faster- marine predators are responsible for eating swimming male Oithona similis were eaten all the male copepods? The next step was in the same numbers as the females, we to examine feeding rates on male copepods estimated how often males and females i directly. encounter the jellyfish, taking into account This work was completed while Dr Tania the size and swimming speed of both FitzGeorge-Balfour was a postdoctoral Jellyfish gender control predator and prey. We found encounter researcher at the Queen Mary University We focused on the moon jellyfish of London (QMUL), supervised by rates differed only by 9 per cent, despite Dr. Andrew Hirst of QMUL and Dr Cathy Aurelia aurita, common in coastal waters the 16-fold difference in swimming speed Lucas of the National Oceanography worldwide. Jellyfish are good predators between the male and female Oithona Centre in Southampton. to study because we need to understand similis. The jellyfish’s much larger size Email: [email protected] their impact on the wider ocean ecosystem (45mm compared to less than 1mm for the

PLANET EARTH Winter 2013 29 Winter 2013 30 PLANET EARTH Winter

what’s going on u th e?erp E Antarctic Surveyand set out to investigate. Maths student Senkevich Anna took aplacement at the British increasingly high-tech lives, but what factors influence its state? atmosphere upper The have can amajor impact on our susceptible to changes there. Satellites are are Satellites there. tochanges susceptible particularly are systems communication radio high-frequency and GPS like systems navigation global so waves, of radio the movement on influence astrong have activity. solar and of day time season, location, withcharacteristics geographical vary these so radiation, of solar amount on the depend ionosphere the of density electron and The height plasma. as known ions and of electrons amixture creates and layer this in molecules atmospheric off electrons strips up. Sun’s The radiation 85-600km about ionosphere, the is communications one for modern acritical atmosphere, depend. we increasingly which on technologies thespace-based affect can up there happens but what business, our about go we as surface) the above 50–800km (roughly atmosphere upper important. so it why is and about was research this what exactly it, Iknew Irealised before And old friend. an meeting like became term afamiliar –seeing acronyms and words more more and torecognise began soon butI first, at hard was terminology alien the through Wading physics. atmospheric climate change. new: tosomething skills analysis and programming toapply my maths chance the and experience me research give would which (BAS), Survey Antarctic British the at placement of asummer opportunity The characteristics of the ionosphere ionosphere the of characteristics The the in layers many the Among tothe thought much We not give might up basic my to brush was task My first terrifying. I had taken up the up the taken Ihad terrifying. and exciting both was project research on my first mbarking was wrong, but it did mean that cooling cooling that but mean it did wrong, was the model mean didn’t necessarily This density. electron its in changes unexpected found We also change. of the direction and size the in both tostation, station from varied layer F2 of the height the that clear it was analysed, were globe the model. the with toagree seemed –all layer F2 of the height the in decrease of the and orbits satellite in changes height, afixed at temperature atmospheric ionosphere. of the layer dense most the layer, F2 of the density and height the in trends on identifying skills my maths focus would I particular In atmosphere. upper the in changes explain can alone cooling whether world –tosee the around stations data from observations out by actual borne are change of atmospheric models much. affected not be should density electron the and everywhere, ionosphere the of the height on effect same the have it to expect would we atmosphere on the influence only the is cooling If downwards. move layers the and it contracts cools atmosphere the As space. into radiation infrared by emitting atmosphere upper but the it remove from lower atmosphere the in heat trap these gases; greenhouse of concentration the in increase due toan mainly be to thought is This cooled. has atmosphere upper the decades, three last over the increased has surface Earth’s at temperature global average the While change. climate is atmosphere upper the course. off them send can and drag affects which atmosphere, the of density the in changes from risk at also When data from more stations around around more stations from data When in –of changes observations Previous these whether tosee was My jobBAS at affecting tobe know we One thing 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 50

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