www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk Winter 2012

Slime powerExplaining climate Bioenergy from theextremes sea

ColdAlso: corals Lake Baikal, • Local Pearl geology mussels, survey Valuing • nature Antarctic recollections • Copaíba oil About us

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is NERC is a non-departmental public body. Much of the UK’s main agency for funding research, training and our funding comes from the Department for Business, knowledge exchange in environmental science. Our Innovation and Skills but we work independently of work tackles some of the most urgent and fascinating government. Our projects range from ‘blue-skies’ research environmental issues we face, including climate change, to long-term, multi-million-pound strategic programmes, natural hazards and sustainability. coordinated by universities and our own research centres:

NERC research covers the globe, from the deepest British Antarctic Survey ocean trenches to the outer atmosphere, and our British Geological Survey scientists work on everything from plankton to glaciers, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology volcanoes and air pollution – often alongside other National Oceanography Centre UK and international researchers, policy-makers and National Centre for Atmospheric Science businesses. National Centre for Earth Observation

Contact us Planet Earth is NERC’s quarterly magazine, aimed at To give us your feedback or to subscribe email: anyone interested in environmental science. It covers all [email protected] or write to us at Planet Earth aspects of NERC-funded work and most of the features Editors, NERC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, are written by the researchers themselves. Swindon SN2 1EU. NERC-funded researchers should contact: For the latest environmental science news, features, [email protected] blogs and the fortnightly Planet Earth Podcast, visit our website Planet Earth Online at Editors www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk. Adele Rackley, 01793 411604 [email protected] Tom Marshall, 01793 442593 [email protected] Not all of the work described in Planet Earth has been Science writer peer-reviewed. The views expressed are those of individual Tamera Jones, 01793 411561 [email protected] authors and not necessarily shared by NERC. We welcome readers’ feedback on any aspect of the magazine or Design and production website and are happy to hear from NERC-funded Candy Sorrell, 01793 411518 [email protected] scientists who want to write for Planet Earth. Please bear in mind that we rarely accept unsolicited articles, so contact ISSN: 1479-2605 the editors first to discuss your ideas.

Front cover: Courtesy The Scottish Association for Marine Science

2 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 In this issue Winter 2012

12 18 20 30

10 A GLIMPSE of 20 You heard it here first 26 Can money grow on trees? Greenland’s future An unofficial history of Britain in Medicinal oil – a new livelihood Predicting the fate of Arctic ice Antarctica. for people in the Amazon? sheets. 24 Can butterflies keep cool in 28 Whales, worms and the 12 No stone unturned a warming world? story of life Finding the right rocks to keep Moving to cooler areas may not On the benefits of recondite historic buildings in good nick. be enough. research.

16 Blinded by the light 25 Ocean acidification – no 30 Slime power – bioenergy How do street lights affect enemy to anemones from the sea bats? Research shows some marine How marine algae could help life could thrive in a high-CO2 solve our energy problems. 18 Cold corals in hot water world. How will cold-water reefs cope with environmental change?

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 3 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

Insight into venom Editorial evolution could aid

y the time this issue of Planet Earth is with you, drug discovery B autumn will be over and summer a distant memory. But we’ve rustled up a selection of stories we hope will help fill the long winter evenings. Laurence Dyke describes his group’s understanding of how the Arctic ice cap will respond to climate change. And Laura Wicks, on the one hand, and Dave Suggett and Jason Hall-Spencer on the other, tell you about the different approaches they’re taking to finding out how ocean acidification will affect coral reefs, some of the most diverse habitats on Earth. Elsewhere, we learn how seaweed could help solve our energy problems and how butterflies might fare in a warmer world. Climate change, energy security, maintaining biodiversity – these are major challenges and addressing them is essential to our long-term wellbeing. recent discovery about snake venom could lead to new But environmental science isn’t just about drugs for life-threatening conditions like cancer, diabetes and understanding and tackling the great environmental A high blood pressure. problems of the day; it can make people’s lives better in Most venom contains a huge variety of deadly toxin molecules, a multitude of different ways, many far from obvious. evolved from harmless compounds that once did other jobs Peter Newton tells us how drilling trees for medicinal elsewhere in the body. These disrupt normal processes in snakes’ oil could let people in the Amazon earn extra income prey, such as blood clotting or nerve-cell signalling. that could transform their families’ prospects. We find Now researchers have discovered that deadly toxins can evolve out how English Heritage is working with the British back into harmless molecules, raising the possibility that they Geological Survey to keep the nation’s historic buildings could be developed into drugs. in good condition. ‘Our results demonstrate that the evolution of venoms is a really And Nick Higgs tells us about the important benefits complex process. The venom gland of snakes appears to be a that spring from his study of the worms feeding on dead melting pot for evolving new functions for molecules, some of whales – from filling the gaps in our understanding of which are retained in venom for killing prey, while others go on to evolution to helping forensic investigators work out how serve new functions in other tissues in the body,’ says Dr Nicholas long human bodies have been in the water, or even just Casewell, who did the research at Liverpool School of Tropical filling us with wonder at the miracles of nature. Medicine and is now at Bangor University. Finally, have you ever wondered how to go about Scientists have long seen toxins as useful targets for drug transporting a husky team in a light aircraft or finding development, because they target metabolic processes. But drug your way back to the tent in a polar blizzard? Learn developers have had to modify them to make them safe for human all this and much more in our selection from the oral use while retaining their potency. The breakthrough, published archive of the British Antarctic Survey. in Nature Communications, suggests there could be harmless The Editors versions of toxins throughout snakes’ bodies. A whole new era of drug discovery may be dawning.

4 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Warmer Atlantic blamed for gloomy UK summers

he UK’s recent run of dismal summers was strongly influenced T by a major warming of water in the North Atlantic Ocean which started back in the 1990s and continues today, scientists say. And while it stays warm, the situation is unlikely to improve. ‘You’re not always going to get one, but as long as the Atlantic is warm, the chances of a wet summer are increased,’ says Professor Rowan Sutton, director of Climate Research in NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), who led the study. Last time the Atlantic was this warm, it stayed that way from 1931 until 1960. This led to a run of wet summers over the UK. Lynmouth in Devon experienced disastrous flooding in August 1952, and severe floods in 1948 closed the east coast mainline for three months. The present warm phase only started around 1996, so it might be some time before the ocean cools down again and we see a return to more agreeable summers. But like all things weather- related, its duration isn’t easy to predict. ‘We can’t assume the current warming will be as long as the previous one. We just don’t know how long it’ll go on for,’ says Sutton. The results appear in Nature Geoscience. The researchers analysed long-term records of air temperature, rainfall and pressure at sea level for the two warm periods. They compared these records with those from a cool period in between. By comparing the observed changes with computer simulations of the climate system, they found compelling evidence that the Atlantic’s temperature influences all of Europe’s climate. ‘The state of the oceans tells you about weather patterns that are likely to evolve several years ahead,’ says Sutton.

Ocean sediment gives ancient temperature record cientists have created a more accurate on an important turning-point in climate climate record in which ice volume S history of how Earth’s climate has history, known as the Mid-Pleistocene changed dramatically, the oceans warmed varied over the last 1.5 million years, after Transition (MPT) – a major shift that took or cooled substantially, or both.’ developing a new method that lets them place between 1.25 million and 600,000 The new method works by analysing draw on natural temperature records that years ago, when the planet’s ice ages variations in the ratio of magnesium to have never before been analysed. moved from a 40,000-year cycle to a calcium in the fossilised shells of micro- The new technique improves on earlier 100,000-year one due to small, recurrent organisms called foraminifera trapped in ways of reconstructing the ancient climate. changes in its orbit around the Sun. successive layers of sediment. As these These are distorted by measuring both the ‘Previously we didn’t really know what grew, they absorbed calcium and Earth’s temperature and the amount of its happened during this transition, or on magnesium in proportions dependent on water locked up in glaciers and ice caps. either side of it,’ explains Professor Harry the water temperature around them. The new method disentangles the two, Elderfield of the University of Cambridge, Understanding past changes in the giving a better view of fluctuations between who led the study. ‘Before you separate climate should help predict future ones warm and cold periods. the ice volume and temperature signals, more effectively, including the contribution The Science study also sheds new light you don’t know whether you’re seeing a of human carbon dioxide emissions.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 5 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

Massive methane stores could sit beneath Antarctica

here could be as much methane before the ice sheet grew, 30 million years T beneath Antarctica’s vast ice sheets as ago. And low-oxygen conditions beneath there is trapped in the Arctic permafrost, the ice mean it could well host micro- researchers have discovered. People didn’t think organisms that generate methane. If the sheets keep thinning as the climate there was life beneath The research shows these environments warms, the Nature study suggests stores Antarctica until around the 1990s. are almost certainly biologically active. of the powerful greenhouse gas could But over the last ten years, So organic carbon may have been escape to the atmosphere. This would researchers have discovered that metabolised by oxygen-deprived speed up rises in temperature, causing microbes, turning it to carbon dioxide and there are microbes and organic even more methane to be released. methane over millions of years. The fact that the poles are the fastest- carbon. And it’s remote from The team calculates that half the West warming regions of the planet could make the atmosphere, so it’s a perfect Antarctic Ice Sheet and a quarter of the the problem even worse. place for methane-generating East Antarctic Ice Sheet sit atop ancient So far, researchers have focused on the microbes to live. sedimentary basins, containing around fate of methane reserves in the northern 21,000 billion tonnes of carbon. ‘This is an hemisphere, in places like the Arctic immense amount of organic carbon, more permafrost. But recent research has Professor Jemma Wadham, than ten times the size of carbon stocks revealed that the Antarctic ice harbours University of Bristol in northern permafrost regions,’ says lead microbes and carbon left over from ancient author Professor Jemma Wadham. marine sediments and other habitats from

Amazonian tree rings reveal past rainfall

cientists have used rings from just eight trees in Bolivia S to get a detailed picture of rainfall patterns across the Amazon basin over the last century. The rings in the lowland tropical cedar trees form a natural archive of data, closely related to historic rainfall. ‘Climate models vary widely in their predictions for the Amazon, and we still do not know whether the Amazon will become wetter or drier in a warmer world,’ says Professor Manuel Gloor from the University of Leeds, co-author of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report. ‘But we’ve discovered a very powerful tool to look back into the past, which allows us to better understand the magnitude of natural variability of the system.’ Gloor and colleagues measured the ratios of two different forms of oxygen, known as isotopes, trapped in the tree’s annual rings. This told them how much rain fell in the Amazon basin over the last century; rain contains more of the heavier isotope than the lighter. They found that variations in the ratios of the two types of oxygen accurately reflect changes in rainfall, and that the results from just eight trees represent the overall Amazon

climate well, agreeing with other records. Lead author Dr Roel Brienen taking a core sample from a Bolivian cedar tree.

6 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk David C J White David in brief . . .

Zooming through the tree of life A ground-breaking new website called OneZoom provides a new way to visualise the mammalian family tree. It represents evolutionary relationships using fractals; from a distance you see only the main groups, but zooming in reveals ever-greater levels of detail until you reach the level of individual species, with conservation information and IUCN red list status. OneZoom was created by Dr James Rosindell from Imperial College London, who hopes that showing both the big picture of life’s family tree and its intricate detail will let people visualise its subject matter more easily and intuitively than ever before. www.onezoom.org

New funding for water innovation The Technology Strategy Board, Defra, NERC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have awarded £2.5 million of funding to seven major Man-made marshes poorer projects intended to spur new thinking to safeguard our future water supplies. Taking private-sector funding into account, they in plant-life than natural ones will cost a projected £5.6 million. Each participating company has been challenged rtificial salt marshes are no substitute for natural ones, hosting fewer kinds of to create a new technology or process that plant and often ending up overrun by just a few species, scientists have shown. A saves or recycles a billion litres of water a That’s a problem, because the EU Habitats Directive obliges the UK to replace day. The projects’ goals include developing salt marsh lost to coastal development or erosion with new, ‘biologically equivalent’ unmanned aerial vehicles that can use habitat elsewhere. Until now we’ve thought we were complying, but the new study sophisticated imaging sensors to find hidden shows that creating artificial salt marsh that’s an effective substitute for the real thing water supplies, and treating wastewater with is a lot harder than we thought. microwaves. Researchers examined natural and man-made salt marshes, comparing the range and abundance of plants growing there. What they found was discouraging. Many of the plants common in natural salt marshes were rare or non-existent in artificial Watson joins UKERC ones. These include species like sea lavender, thrift, sea arrowgrass and sea plantain. Professor Jim Watson has been appointed Instead, man-made marshes – even ones created accidentally in the 19th century – research director of the UK Energy Research were often dominated by shrubs like sea purslane. Centre. Currently director of the Sussex ‘Salt marsh formed naturally, so people have assumed that it would be Energy Group at the University of Sussex, straightforward to create it again – just let the sea back in,’ explains Professor Watson has a long record of research Alastair Grant of the University of East Anglia, co-author of the study, which appears and policy advice in energy systems. in the Journal of Applied Ecology. ‘We show this isn’t the case; we’re arguably not He’ll now take responsibility for leading complying with the Habitats Directive.’ UKERC’s research programme, working The picture isn’t hopeless, though. Relatively simple measures can help bring with scientists, users of research and other new wetlands much closer to natural ones. These include raising valuable plants in stakeholders, as well as playing an important nurseries before planting out, and taking care to vary new wetlands’ topography by role in defining its mission after its current making gullies, mounds and creeks that create conditions favourable for a variety of funding period ends in 2014. plants and prevent the dominance of any one species.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 7 www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk News

Antarctic Peninsula primed for melt after centuries

of warming Jack Triest Cutting an ice core.

emperatures around the tip of the since the 1990s. The Wilkins and Larsen A Researchers from Britain, Australia and TAntarctic Peninsula started rising and B ice shelves are notable examples. France collected a 364-metre-long ice some 600 years ago, long before humans The region is now warming faster than core from the peninsula’s north-eastern could have begun to influence the region, almost anywhere else in the world. Average tip. They wanted to find out how much of scientists have discovered. temperatures in James Ross Island have the recently observed warming around the But they say the rate at which it’s risen by nearly 2°C in the past 50 years. Earth is down to natural variations in the warmed over the last century is unusual ‘Continued warming to temperatures climate, and how much can be blamed and out of line with natural variation, that now exceed the stable conditions of on human activity since the Industrial though not necessarily unprecedented. most of the Holocene is likely to cause Revolution. Their findings suggest the Centuries of warming meant that, by ice-shelf instability to encroach farther human influence is layered on top of the the time the trend started accelerating, southward along the Antarctic Peninsula,’ natural trend. the peninsula’s ice shelves were already write the authors in their report, published poised for the dramatic break-ups seen in Nature.

8 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Daily updated news @ www.planetearth.nerc.ac.uk

Nutrient pollution Sticklebacks show Pesticide cocktails linked to coral initiative and harm bumblebees bleaching leadership

tickleback fish turn out to have more S complex individual personalities than you might think, showing qualities like leadership, initiative and the tendency to follow others. Fish group together to cut the risk of predation, but forming a cohesive group is hard, as individuals often want different things. The emergence of leaders and followers settles these conflicts. ‘It is a puzzling process as it means oo many nutrients put corals at risk, a that some individuals win, while others xposure to combinations of common T new study shows. Excessive nitrogen lose out,’ says Dr Shin Nakayama of the E pesticides can severely affect in the water affects their ability to cope University of Cambridge, first author of the individual bees and whole nests, say with rising water temperatures and other research in PLoS ONE. researchers. environmental pressures, making them Earlier research showed clear Scientists already knew pesticides can vulnerable to bleaching. differences in appetite for risk of different kill bees, affecting their ability to find their That is, excessive nutrients can fish; some are ‘shy’ and some are ‘bold’. way home and reducing the number of paradoxically cause starvation, by over- These differences influence an individual’s queens produced by colonies. fertilizing the cooperative algae on which desire to take the lead in a group. But bees are typically exposed to many corals depend, making them grow more The new study looked at how the desire different pesticides when collecting nectar quickly than the supply of phosphorus can to lead depended on the results of earlier and pollen from crops, not just one. support. This unbalanced growth makes actions. If a fish tried to initiate a foraging Scientists from Royal Holloway, the coral more susceptible to stress. trip but its partner didn’t follow, did it try University of London investigated the Bleaching is when corals lose their again or give up? If it was followed, did it specific and combined effects of two populations of algae and fade to white. become more likely to try to lead in future? pesticides on individual bumblebees’ One of the greatest threats to reefs The researchers found that fish often foraging and on overall colony growth. worldwide, it’s caused primarily by higher switched between leading and following, Published in Nature, this is the first seawater temperatures. In mild cases the and that their preference for leading study of the effects of a combination of corals can recover; in severe ones, whole depended on how successfully they’d pesticides in realistic conditions. reefs can bleach and die. recruited followers. Yet personality did The researchers built an experimental Scientists already knew that nutrient play a part; shy individuals, less prone to set-up which exposed bumblebees from pollution could make the situation worse. lead, became discouraged if they were not 40 colonies to either a neonicotinoid or a Some of the worst bleaching around followed, whereas bold ones kept trying. pyrethroid, or both, or neither – the bees Australia’s Great Barrier Reef happens could bypass the chemicals if they chose. in nitrogen-rich areas, often caused It turned out that nests exposed to by fertilizers running off farmland. But the neonicotinoid produced fewer adult this is the first time anyone’s identified workers. The chemical also damaged the a mechanism by which the nutrients foraging ability of worker bees, and killed contribute to bleaching. many before they made it back to the hive. ‘More nitrogen in the water can lead to The pyrethroid also killed workers. a lower thermal threshold for bleaching – it But contact with both pesticides had the means the corals can bleach at a lower severest effect, increasing the risk of whole temperature,’ says Dr Jörg Wiedenmann, a colonies perishing. senior lecturer in biological oceanography Worryingly, the findings suggest the at the University of Southampton and bees either don’t detect the pesticides or lead author of the Nature Climate Change choose not to avoid them. paper.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 9 LAKE BAIKAL

A GLIMPSE of Greenland’s future

Greenland is a savagely am – the alarm goes ice sheet and the surrounding oceans using beautiful place – a land of off, followed by the information from satellites, aircraft and unforgettable sound field measurements. Back in Swansea, snow and mountains, home 4:30of the marine diesel engine coughing our colleagues combine all our results in to the largest body of ice in into life; sleeping bags rustle as the first computer models which will help predict the northern hemisphere. This heads poke out. Soon everyone is on deck, the ice sheet’s future. steaming coffees in hand, watching the sun Fieldwork is integral to GLIMPSE, and wild and remote island is going rise through the coastal mountains as our over the last few years we have focused on through rapid changes that little boat navigates through the shifting south-east Greenland, a spectacular region could affect millions of people maze of ice. Lifting clouds reveal an that has lost significant amounts of ice over overnight dusting of snow on the highest the last decade. across the world. Laurence peaks and large plates of fresh ice yield We spend most of our time working Dyke explains how he and with a crunch under the steel bow. Another from a small (45-foot) fishing boat his colleagues are busy trying busy day of fieldwork is underway. skippered by Siggi Petturson, an Icelander The GLIMPSE project (Greenland with a lifetime’s experience sailing these to predict the future of the Ice Margin Prediction, Stability and icy waters. Siggi is something of a legend Greenland Ice Sheet. Evolution), led by Professor Tavi Murray, in the local community; he is said to have looks at changes in the ice sheet over once killed a large Greenland shark that different timescales to help us understand threatened his crew by jumping in the how it might change in the future. My own frigid waters armed only with a knife. work examines how the ice has behaved Siggi is also the perfect captain and guide, over thousands of years in response to navigating his tough little boat through changes in the climate. Other members mazes of ever-changing ice. of the group are interested in what is From the boat we take detailed currently happening – they monitor the oceanographic measurements within the

10 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Far left: Sidegletscher, south-east Greenland. Icebergs are born at the large ice cliff where the glacier meets the sea. Left: Filming above the evocatively-named Vikingevig (Viking Cove), south-east Greenland.

THERE ARE FEW FEELINGS BETTER THAN KNOWING YOU ARE CAPTURING SOMETHING TRULY BEAUTIFUL.

rocks on the Earth’s surface to form ‘exotic’ documentaries. We want to document our isotopes such as Beryllium-10 (10Be). An research, but also to show what it’s like isotope is an atom with an irregular number to work in this magnificent landscape. of neutrons; 10Be has one more neutron It took a lot of time behind the camera than the more common Beryllium-9. before I shot anything good, but I was Over time, these rare isotopes build up lucky enough to go back to Greenland in exposed rocks, and by measuring their several times, with continual critique and concentration we can work out how long encouragement from 196 Productions. the landscape has been exposed to the Filming can be exasperating and time- atmosphere since the ice sheet retreated. consuming, but also extremely rewarding We took the samples from Greenland to – there are few feelings better than the NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis knowing you are capturing something truly Facility in Scotland, where they were beautiful. analysed in a highly sensitive accelerator In Greenland I was privileged to witness mass spectrometer which counts individual some wonderful moments; in retrospect Laurence Dyke Tavi Murray atoms of cosmogenic isotopes to give an we were incredibly lucky. As a result exposure age. By looking at the exposure our film includes spectacular sunrises, history of a large area we can find out, not a storm amongst the icebergs, a close huge iceberg-filled fjords, as well as further just when the region was last covered by ice, encounter with a polar bear and, courtesy out at sea. Southe-ast Greenland is affected but also how quickly the ice retreated. This of GLIMPSE postdoctoral fellow Dr Tim by several different ocean currents. At is vital information to understand how ice James, time-lapse footage of a huge mass of the surface the very cold and fresh East sheets respond to climate changes. ice calving off the Helheim Glacier. Greenland Current and East Greenland Earlier results from south-east On returning to the UK, we worked Coastal Current flow southwards, sourced Greenland, published by Durham through nearly 24 hours of video, logging from melting Arctic pack ice and glacier University researchers, showed that the land it all and developing rough script ideas. We runoff. Below is the much warmer, saltier started to become ice-free around 11,000 interviewed members of the Glaciology water of the Irminger Current, an offshoot years ago. Recent work from GLIMPSE Group and finished the script before of the Gulf Stream that comes from the shows these changes were dramatic and editing the film, fitting the footage to the subtropics. rapid, with glaciers retreating from the script. We were also awarded some funding Irminger water snakes its way deep 80km-long Sermilik Fjord in as little as a from the Engineering and Physical Sciences along the edge of the continental shelf far few hundred years. This fast retreat suggests Research Council to produce animations offshore. In places it finds its way across strong sensitivity to climate warming at to explain some of the more complex the shelf through deep glacial troughs. the end of the last Ice Age. Results from scientific concepts. The editing process was The warm, salty water flows into the many my samples will build on this work, tough but really interesting and I learnt a fjords where it meets with enormous showing whether glaciers across the region lot more about the shots needed to create glaciers, melting and undercutting the ice behaved in a similar way; I will also try to a successful film, mostly from my own and making the glaciers flow faster. We are identify the different factors that caused frustrations at missed opportunities. really interested in how changes in these deglaciation. The filmA GLIMPSE of Greenland: The ocean currents can affect the glaciers. disappearing ice is now complete and a ten- During our field campaigns we travelled Sharing science with the world minute trailer is available at the Swansea along 750km of Greenland’s coast, through The scientific part of my project takes Glaciology YouTube channel. Over the narrow fjords and between small islands. I priority in the field, but I am also involved next few months we hope to find a sponsor was effectively ‘piggybacking’ on the boat, with communicating our findings more to produce DVDs and accompanying getting dropped ashore for a day or two at widely. As a NERC CASE student I work educational materials and, if possible, get a time to collect rock samples and make with an industrial sponsor, in my case a the documentary aired on television. land-based observations. TV production company: 196 Productions, based in Cardiff. Together, we have I am trying to reconstruct how the MORE INFORMATION ice sheet has changed over thousands of produced a 50-minute documentary to tell Laurence Dyke is a doctoral student in years using clues from the landscape and people about the project and the Glaciology Swansea University’s Glaciology Group. a technique called cosmogenic isotope Group’s wider work. Email: [email protected] exposure dating. The Earth is constantly Before travelling to Greenland I learned GLIMPSE film trailer: bombarded by high-energy ‘cosmogenic’ how to use a professional video camera, www.youtu.be/opid81mxkkI particles from deep space; these collide with how to interview and how to film for

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 11 No stone unturned Local geology gives historic lison Henry is an architectural ‘The sources of many of our common towns and buildings their conservator for English Heritage building stones are well known,’ explains A (EH). Her job is to make sure Henry. ‘But no one had systematically unique character, but just as our historic buildings, grand and humble, identified local building stones, so buildings fall into disrepair survive the test of time. But finding the sometimes there was no way of knowing if many local quarries have been right stone to patch them up can be a a local source was still available.’ challenge. ‘Some of the information we had to work lost too. English Heritage and It’s not just about matching the colour with was even misleading; the early listed the British Geological Survey and texture. Stone ages and weathers building descriptions for south Somerset teamed up to help protect this depending on its mineral make-up and record almost all orangey-brown-coloured porosity; repair a building with something buildings as being made of Ham Hill overlooked resource. that’s too hard and you’ll hasten the decay stone, but many of them were built of less of the surrounding structure. well-known stones that were only used in a But even when you can identify limited area.’ the original building stone, there’s no And while a historic building is hard to guarantee the quarry it came from hasn’t miss, many small quarries have simply been been filled in or built over. lost in the mists of time. Local authorities

12 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 are charged with protecting mineral active mines and quarries plus an archive county, used in everything from cathedrals resources, including building stones, of building stones and their sources going to cottages, industrial buildings and even and have to flag potentially important back to 1835. kerbs and paving. sites when considering development It turns out that Henry De la Beche, Local geologists and building historians applications, but they can’t protect the first director of what was then the then set to work to identify a range of resources they don’t know about. Ordnance Geological Survey, had a villages and structures that represented So EH commissioned the British particular interest in building stones and standing examples of all the stones used. Geological Survey (BGS) to help identify always included them in his observations – BGS then mapped and recorded the sources and record, county by county, the sources laying the foundations for future recording of every stone, using historic Ordnance of all the building stones used in England. practice as well as the 3500-sample Survey maps and other archives. The Strategic Stone Survey (SSS) would collection of stones that BGS now looks The information is all available on BGS’s provide planning authorities with the after. English Building Stone Pits (EBSPits) information they need to find and protect It was a huge task which demanded a website, together with details of the scarcity important quarries – thereby ensuring thorough and systematic approach and of each stone, the extent of unworked historic buildings could be looked after too. the help of many local experts. BGS first sources and information about potential BGS was the obvious partner. The trawled its own records and maps to substitutes. organisation already had a database of produce a list of building stones for each Graham Lott is the latest in a long line

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 13 MORE INFORMATION Atlases describing the building stones of the counties covered are available as PDF downloads from www.bgs.ac.uk/ mineralsuk/mines/stones/EH_atlases.html www.english-heritage.org.uk Strategic Stone Study: www.bgs.ac.uk/ mineralsuk/mines/stones/EH_project.html

requests for help identifying stones for historic building repair, on every scale from the redevelopment of St Pancras to renovating local churches. Local authorities have the evidence they need to protect historic quarry sites, and architects and conservators can identify likely sources of the stone they need – and not just for repairs. of BGS building-stone enthusiasts. He opener; the project turned up loads of small ‘This work is really important for new welcomed the project as an opportunity quarries that had served really small areas build too,’ explains Henry. ‘Finding the for BGS to make the most of its existing – some were used for just one or two farms. right match is crucial for the extension of records and knew that the final product The geology there is very complicated and historic buildings and for new buildings in would be crucial for meeting the growing lots of stone types outcrop at or near the architecturally sensitive areas.’ demand for help with historic building surface.’ So far the survey won’t tell home-owners repairs. In fact it turned out to be an even There is still work to do, but for the 34 what their house is made of, but the richer resource than he had expected. counties covered so far Lott and Henry are painstaking work means England’s historic ‘So many more stone types had been confident they have identified most sites towns and landscapes have a much better used than people realised,’ says Lott. that operated as a building-stone quarry. chance of being sensitively developed and ‘Shropshire in particular was a real eye- Hits on EBSPits are increasing, as are enjoyed without losing their local colour.

14 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 he long polar T winters can pass slowly on an isolated research outpost. Dr Cas Findlater of the British Antarctic Survey decided a photo competition for the intrepid staff wintering at the Halley research base would help pass the time. Word soon spread, and staff at the other BAS research stations proved keen to get involved too. The images were recently judged, with winners chosen from each station in both ‘light’ and ‘dark’ categories, as well as an overall winner. As you can see, some of the entries Pictures from were truly spectacular. The top image is the overall winner, taken by Alistair Wilson at the King Edward Point base on South Georgia. the polar winter Middle is the winner of the dark category for the Rothera base, taken by Tim Jackson, and the bottom image, from Cas Findlater, is the ‘dark’ winner for the Halley base.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 15 With the long, dark nights of winter well upon us, it’s hard to imagine how we’d get around easily without street lights. But how do these bright lights affect nocturnal creatures, like bats, that are comfortable in the dark?

Richard Hollingham and bat ecologist Emma Stone from the University of Bristol met up in the city centre at dusk, in the hope of finding out. But the evening didn’t quite go as planned.

Blinded by the light Kim Taylor/Nature Picture Library

16 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Emma: Richard: We’re stood on the Feeder Road behind Bristol Temple Meads Well, it’s been getting darker and darker. I see you’ve got a bat railway station, beside one of the main rivers that runs through detector. the centre of the city – it’s used for fishing and boating. And there are lots of pipistrelle and Daubenton’s bats here in the Emma: summer; they roost in the old warehouses along the river. Each bat species echolocates at a different frequency. So if you tune the detector to the right frequency, you can tell what bat Richard: you’re listening to. We’ll see if we can pick up any pipistrelles, It’s a fairly grim location: we’re stood underneath a willow because they’re the most common species around here. tree in the pouring rain, the river is a murky brown, the road’s They echolocate at 45 kilohertz, whereas soprano pipistrelles behind us and we’re both shivering. And you say there are bats echolocate at 55 kilohertz, hence their name. in the warehouses on either side of the river? Richard: Emma: We’ve been here for about half an hour now and so far we’ve Yes. The species that roost in the city centre always pick out seen several seagulls, a boat and many cars behind us, but still the greenest areas to roost in, because these nice overhanging no bats. willow trees provide shelter for insects, which the bats feed on. Pipistrelles roost in pretty much anything, so they’re quite Emma: happy in a building, or a crack or crevice the size of your thumb. I think in the next 20 minutes or so you’ll start to get a few bats coming out. The bats have been doing strange things this season. Richard: They’ve delayed giving birth, basically because we had such bad So what’s the fascination with bats? weather in April, which meant they couldn’t go out and forage.

Emma: Richard: They’re very interesting animals. They use echolocation – which It’s like a grim episode of Springwatch isn’t it? is fascinating – and they also use vision. They’re much more efficient at flying than birds are: they’re highly manoeuvrable. Emma: There are so many things to like about bats. There aren’t any bats, but I think if I was a bat, I would be staying in bed too. It’s a bit chilly. Richard: And you’re interested in how street lights affect them? Richard: Well at least this is realistic. This is what wildlife watching, Emma: wildlife listening, is all about. You actually spend a lot of time Yes, we’re trying to find out how having more street lights, and standing around with nothing happening. different types of street lights, affect bats. All UK bats are protected, so we need to Emma: know how best to mitigate any negative Yes, you spend a lot of time not seeing much, and then you get effects of these lights. those lovely genius moments and those little glimpses – that is what you wait for, but you can’t guarantee them. Animals don’t Richard: read the textbooks, they do what they want and you can never What have you found so far? predict it. But that’s the beauty of it, because you never know what you’re going to get from one day to the next. We’ve just Emma: been unlucky tonight. Well, we took standard sodium street lights out into the field, and put them along lesser horseshoe bat and pipistrelle flight routes, to see how the bats responded. We found that they actively avoided the lights – they didn’t fly along their normal routes.

Richard: As well as these sodium lamps, you also looked at LED lights MORE INFORMATION didn’t you? They’re promoted as environmentally friendly, This Q&A is adapted from the Planet because they use less energy. Earth Podcast, 17 July 2012. The full podcast and transcript are on Emma: Planet Earth Online We wanted to look at lights that are being promoted as green http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/ multimedia/story.aspx?id=1256 technology and find out if they really are green for biodiversity. For more information about the bats So we did the same experiment: we took the LED lights out into and lighting research project visit the environment to see if they affect the bats’ commuting routes. www.batsandlighting.co.uk/ And unfortunately we found that they had the same effect as the sodium lights. So these bats don’t like LED lights either.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 17 Squat lobsters exploring a black coral on the Logachev Mounds.

Cold corals in hot water?

Cold-water corals face an uncertain future as increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the chemistry of our oceans. Laura Wicks set sail on the Changing Oceans Expedition to find out how these amazing animals are likely to fare.

idden deep in all the world’s oceans are the vast mounds sites, from the ‘shallow’ reefs of Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides and reefs of cold-water corals. They grow much more (around 130m deep), dominated by Lophelia pertusa, to the H slowly than their tropical counterparts but can still Logachev Mounds, west of Ireland; nearly 1000m deep and extend over huge areas: reefs of Lophelia pertusa off Norway cover spectacular with both Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata. around 2000km2 – more than tropical reefs in the Seychelles, We don’t know a great deal about either species of coral, or the Belize or Mozambique. The corals build their skeletons from ecosystems they form, because they are so inaccessible – you can’t calcium carbonate dissolved in the seawater, creating complex just dive in and explore them like you can in the tropics. 3D structures that persist even after the animal itself has died. Before we could even think about collecting samples we had to These skeletons support thousands of species, including many find the reefs. To do this we used advanced acoustic techniques, that we eat. such as multibeam and sidescan sonar, that use sound waves But the life of these hidden corals is under threat. to create an image of the seabed from which we could pick out The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased possible mounds of coral. The next step was to send down our exponentially since the Industrial Revolution and much of it robot, the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Holland I, to take a is dissolving into the oceans, slowly increasing the acidity of closer look. seawater. The pH of the sea is currently about 8.1, but this is During each ROV dive the excitement in the lab was palpable. predicted to drop by about 0.3 pH units by 2100. It doesn’t sound The ROV’s high-definition cameras beamed up spectacular images like much, but this small change can have huge implications for of the reefs beneath us. Fish darted across the screen and unusual marine organisms that rely on calcium carbonate, like corals, sponges and crabs came into view, causing a buzz as we tried to shell-producing animals and calcareous algae. This is because the work out exactly what they were. increasing concentration of dissolved CO2 in the oceans decreases But we weren’t just there to watch. As part of ‘Team Coral’, the carbonate saturation of the water, so there is less carbonate I carried out short-term experiments to see what effect ocean available for coral skeletons and shells. warming and acidification have on the growth and overall health This acidification of the oceans, often referred to as ‘the other of the corals. Using samples carefully collected by the ROV’s CO2 problem’, may be the biggest threat facing marine calcifying robotic arms, we kept Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata organisms today. in specially designed tanks for the duration of the cruise. We In May 2012, I set sail for the North Atlantic on the RRS James manipulated the temperature and CO2 levels in these ‘mini- Cook, part of an international team of scientists on the Changing oceans’ to mimic one possible set of future conditions, in this Oceans Expedition. Our mission was to examine the potential case a 3°C increase in temperature and a near-doubling of impact of ocean acidification and warming on cold-water coral atmospheric CO2. We then measured the respiration and growth reefs and the creatures they support. rates of the corals over three weeks. My team-mates looked at how In our four weeks at sea we visited a range of cold-water coral other aspects of the corals’ biology responded to their changing

18 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Coral images: Changing Oceans Expedition

Above: A black coral amongst dead Lophelia rubble.

Below: Laura and James Burris setting up a stand-alone pumping system (SAPS) to measure the amount of carbon around the coral reefs.

environment, including microbial communities and protein expression. All of an animal’s biological processes, such as growth and respiration, are controlled by proteins, so changes in the concentration of various proteins give us a clue as to how processes like calcification may respond to increased temperature and ocean acidification in the future. Along with longer-term experiments under way at Heriot-Watt University, these will help us to work out how the corals will respond to global climate change – whether they can adapt, or whether ultimately it will be impossible for them to survive. Alongside the ROV campaign, a host of other activities took place out at sea. One was the deployment of the CTD and SAPS. CTD stands for conductivity, temperature and depth, which this particular instrument measures at the bottom of the ocean. Attached to the CTD frame we had a SAPS – Stand Alone Pumping System – which is a big pump with a filter and timer. We use the SAPS to look at the amount of particulate organic carbon (coral food) that is reaching the reefs. When it reaches the seabed the pump switches on and records how much water Wicks Laura flows through its filters, which capture the organic carbon. Back in the lab, we analyse the amount of carbon on the filters and the water flow, to calculate how much food the corals have access to. Combined with surveys of the reef and CTD data, this information can help us understand why the corals live where they MORE INFORMATION do, and how any future changes in climate and currents may affect Dr Laura Wicks is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for these ecosystems. Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology, Heriot-Watt University. Four weeks at sea passed by in a flash, and everyone on board Email: [email protected]. collected a wealth of information. Now we’re all back on dry land, The Changing Oceans Expedition is part of the UK Ocean it’s time to process samples, extract data and try to understand Acidification Research programme. what the future holds for these cold-water creatures as our oceans www.changingoceans2012.blogspot.com change.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 19 You heard it here first

Halley team, 1971.

An unofficial history of Britain in Antarctica

Formal records are generally silent about the human details of events, the things that really bring the past to life.

The British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) oral history archive gives a new view of the British endeavour in Antarctica, focusing on the period from the first continuous British presence there, during Operation Tabarin in 1943-45, to the present day. It includes testimony from a wide variety of people, including those who served the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) and BAS. The bulk of this collection is the work of the ongoing British Antarctic Oral History Project (BAOHP), which so far has 200-plus audio and video recordings.

The recollections of men and women who worked in Antarctica give a unique perspective on the social, scientific and political interactions of their times, the development of polar science and technology, and the hardships, triumphs and eccentricities of everyday life in one of the world’s most hostile environments.

The audio recordings from which the following extracts are taken – plus many more – are available on the British Antarctic Oral History Project webpages.

20 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 An unofficial history of Britain in Antarctica

Petra Searle Directorate of Overseas Surveys map officer 1953-60, BAS 1984-88

Women didn’t go further south then, it just was not done. Sir Raymond1 was from the heroic age, women stayed at home and waited for their men to come back again. Women didn’t start going south certainly until Bunny2 had retired. I think probably Dick Laws3 was against it as well. For one thing the accommodation on the ships was much more suitable. I think the ones that did go journeyed round on the ship, saw the bases then came home. I saw a lot of life in the Falkland Islands. I kept a diary of that time and it was a really exciting,

different thing for me. 1 Sir Raymond Priestley became director of FIDS in 1955. He had been a geologist with Shackleton in 1907-09 and with Scott in 1910-12. 2 Sir Vivian Fuchs, first director of FIDS. 3 Richard Laws, director of BAS 1973–1987.

Stuart Lawrence Ship’s master 1970–2003

RRS Bransfield was BAS’s main supply vessel from 1970 to 1999 and was in the Southern Ocean during the Falklands conflict. Everybody was wound up, it’s not surprising that they were. I was woken at about midnight to be told the whole ship was being taken over and they were going to sink her in the narrows in the entrance to Stanley Harbour. They’d got somebody in the engine room who was on their side, and it was all definitely going to happen. So I sat them all down and said, ‘OK, let’s talk this through. But before we do that, anybody want a drink?’ So I got a case of beer out and everybody had a beer, then another case of beer and everybody had a beer…. By the time six o’clock rolled round I’d sat there for about six hours, with my brandy and my cigars, letting them have their say, and we continued on our way rejoicing.

Peter Robert ‘Bob’ Bond RAF pilot seconded to BAS 1960-63

Julian Taylor There was quite a sizeable cargo area and Alan Precious [in the Single Otter aircraft] and 1954-55 you could get a dog sledge in there with dogs either side quite happily. If you needed to transport a dog team we put Julian and Alan were charged with monitoring the dogs’ health. the sledge in first then tied the dogs down either side of the Ron Mottershead and I built – I don’t know what you would fuselage so they couldn’t get at each other – huskies love to call it – a dog’s urinal. We did it with sheet metal, a sort of big get at each other. square funnel with a grid on top and the dogs were supposed to We would have the lead dog up front with us. He’d sit stand on the grid and do a wee wee, which would be collected between the pilot and whoever else was up front, tied to underneath in a suitable vessel. Only the dogs wouldn’t one of our seats, so he could sit up there and keep an eye on cooperate… them. And that suited his status, he was something special. …No and you complained bitterly when I boiled the faeces … We turned the heat up full and generally speaking they … So the next thing was to hang around with a bucket of some went to sleep, which was nice. kind and when they cocked their leg up at the base of the hut you collected it as it came out, and gave it to Julian.

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 21 Alan Wright Surveyor 1961-62 Vicky Auld Physicist and base commander 1997-2008 I had one experience on Bransfield – I lost the tent. It is bad weather up there – you’re in the cloud very often and you can’t see any detail. I went out to feed [At Birmingham University] the dogs and then went to the toilet, and I lost the A BAS man came and gave tent – completely! Luckily by then I a lecture – I’d just seen a poster and thought that looks knew how you could make the pretty exciting. I had a word with him after that talk and dogs howl. So I worked my he said, they’re not actually taking women down there for way upwind and howled, any physics-based work, so come back in a couple of years which I hoped would set and see what we’re doing. That was 1994. the dogs off. Then I went So I went and did a Masters in atmospheric downwind and I picked science. I was brought up to think I could do up the sound of the anything I wanted; to suddenly find out there dogs, so I could go back were still careers that were closed off to women upwind to the dogs, and quite surprised me. There were women doing then I found the tent. summers, but it was the wintering positions I was interested in.

John Croxall Bird biologist 1976-2006

We got a bit of an alarm call – the albatrosses aren’t doing too well. Our first thought was: is this something to do with us? We were studying them fairly intensively, disturbing some colonies on a daily basis. We quickly set up controls – areas where we didn’t go – and found, actually no, it didn’t seem to be us. We then started to look at the ringing recoveries. We knew these species migrated to Australia and New Zealand as we had ringing recoveries from there since the 1960s in the BAS archive; now we were getting a completely different pattern – all these birds reported from fishing vessels, many in the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean. So something completely strange was happening. That led to the recognition that it was a problem to do with fisheries. And we started to team up with other people, who had been on fishing boats and seen albatrosses being killed. We had data on population-scale impacts and enough data on marine recoveries to make at least a plausible case. From that we felt, not only did we have a huge responsibility to document this, we actually had some responsibility to fix the problem.

John Huckle Helicopter pilot 1956-62

We were sending a surveyor to the top of Tower Island by helicopter, and the helicopter as it came in to land stirred up a great deal of loose powder snow which gave the pilot a white out and he unfortunately missed his landing. And the helicopter overturned and of course was smashed up. Later on there was an inquiry into what had caused the crash. The colonial secretary asked the surveyor, ‘What did you think when the helicopter overturned as you landed?’ And the surveyor said, ‘Well, it was the first time I’d ever flown in a helicopter and I didn’t know quite what to expect, but it did seem a bit peculiar when I found myself hanging upside down.’

22 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 An unofficial history of Britain in Antarctica

Derek Clarke fids Diesel mechanic 1953-61

Remembering close encounters with whales The first thing is you hear the noise – the whales blowing up. Then after a while you can see the open water in the distance. But the main thing is the dogs tend to make for that sort of thing, they might think it’s a penguin, a seal – something to eat, you know. They tended to draw you towards it. On the main route there were quite a few small holes; there was a bottlenose whale and a couple of grey whales, and the bigger pool was the killer whales’, they were looking round at the top. But the others would come up on the edge of the ice and just rest there, and you could just go over and give them a little tap. ‘So you were patting killer whales..?’ Not the killer whales, no! We’d draw the line at killer whales.

John Croxall Bird biologist 1976-2006

That was the walk I never tired of doing, even on a Sunday when you had the hangover from hell. You had to go up 250m of pretty steep climb to get off the base, but then this panorama opens up and you’ve got this wonderful short-sward grassland flanked by tussock, with screes to the left and this wonderful view out to the Willis Islands and the ocean on your right. The whole of the meadow is just full of wandering albatross. There’s this huge macaroni penguin colony, you can hear it – it’s like a football crowd, as you came over that ridge the crowd applauded! If it was a blue day with icebergs in the background you’d sit down, you couldn’t keep walking, you just had to stop and take it all in. It was just such a magnificent spectacle, still a view to conjure with.

Richard Taylor Meteorologist 1954-56

The most wonderful thing – the most joyous thing – was the actual beauty of the place, and the physicality of it. I can still remember now those times when you had really marvellous, perfect sledging weather. You had this deep blue sky, this whiteness everywhere; you’re on the sea ice, the surface is just beautiful, it’s crisp and you can just skim over it. And around you this wonderful fjorded coast and these magnificent 6000ft peaks. And you had the dogs, so excited too. The exhilaration and the purity of it was just magnificent. And all the petty little squabbles were totally forgotten – this made it all absolutely worthwhile.

MORE INFORMATION The BAOHP is a collaboration coordinated by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) and involving BAS, BAS Club and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), and additional funding partners: www.ukaht.org/outreach/oral-history A detailed database and access to all archived items is available through the BAS Archives Service. The service holds a unique resource of physical and digital collections, including scientific data, maps, administrative records, publications and artwork. A list of interviews and audio clips held by the archive is available online: www.antarctica.ac.uk/oralhistory Email: Ellen Bazeley-White or Joanna Rae [email protected]

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 23 Can butterflies keep cool in a warming world? Moving to new habitat could allow animals to cope as climate change makes their old haunts less suitable. But will this work in practice? Andrew Suggitt’s work suggests there’s no simple answer.

he difficulties that climate change can create for wildlife are quarters of the species used cooler habitats in Catalonia than in well known. Many species will need to migrate substantial Britain, confirming our hypothesis that the hotter the climate, T distances to higher ground or towards the poles in order to the more likely species are to seek refuge in cool habitats like stay within their preferred temperature range. shady woodland. When comparing the annual differences to the Microclimates, or local variations in environmental conditions, regional ones, a similar proportion of the butterfly populations present an intriguing idea: what if species could use this variation shifted habitat per unit of temperature change; another to find their required temperature niche in a warmer world? Such encouraging sign. behaviour might allow species to adapt to climate change while So far, so good. But – and there nearly always is a ‘but’ – these remaining where they are, similar to the use of ‘microrefugia’ – effects were small, in terms of the proportion of each population small climatic refuges – when glaciers last covered much of the that was undertaking the shift. On average, only around 6-7 per landscape. This could render migrations across hostile, human- cent of individuals were found in different habitats in response to modified landscapes unnecessary. the temperature difference between Britain and Catalonia. To test the idea, we used data from the wonderfully rigorous Like most ecological analyses, a clear and precise prescription British and Catalan Butterfly Monitoring Schemes. In Britain and for conservation was elusive. The effect seemed to be widespread, Catalonia, we had two study regions that were far enough apart to but the butterflies’ response wasn’t enough to merit actions be independent tests of our hypothesis, but also close enough to based solely upon it. We also couldn’t tell what mechanism was share common species and habitat. The schemes involve dedicated responsible for the habitat shifting. Was it simply different rates volunteers walking transects of a few kilometres through butterfly- of survival between the habitats? Was it genuine movement of rich habitats every week, recording what they see. This gave us individuals to preferred habitats? Or was it just a difference in the detailed information on which butterflies were in which habitats, amount of time spent in each habitat? and when. Combined with yearly climate information, this let us These questions will likely be the subject of further work as we measure how the butterflies respond to changes in the climate. try to unpick how individuals use habitat at the local level. But So what did this hard work reveal? What came out was a mixed thanks to the true commitment of hundreds of volunteers, we are bag. Most species we tested responded as expected – that is, at last beginning to understand how species’ habitat associations they used cooler habitats in warmer years, and vice versa. Three might alter with climate change.

MORE INFORMATION Dr Andrew Suggitt is a biologist at the University of York. Email: [email protected] This work formed part of a NERC Ecology & Hydrology Funding Initiative project, ‘The impact of

climate change on habitat use: Jordi Jubany implications for predicting species’ range changes.’ 24 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Ocean acidification – no enemy to anemones Many are deeply concerned about how ocean acidification will affect marine life. But if some organisms will be badly hit, the work of David Suggett and Jason Hall-Spencer suggests others will flourish.

cean acidification (OA) is the relatives of corals can thrive under ocean anemones with more energy to grow. process by which the pH of acidification conditions. Elevated CO2 is not the only factor O the oceans falls as they absorb We examined what happened to these that seems to favour the dominance of more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the creatures with increasing proximity to a sea anemones. Localized eutrophication atmosphere – the lower a solution’s pH, natural CO2 vent site on the seabed near (addition of excess nutrients, often due the more acidic it is. Substantial declines the Italian island of Vulcano, where CO2 to run off from farms) and blast fishing in ocean pH are predicted for this century (and pH) conditions are similar to those can also result in ‘blooms’ of anemones as as anthropogenic emissions continue to predicted for much of the world’s oceans in well as soft corals. So local environmental raise atmospheric CO2 levels; therefore, 50-100 years. pressures, as well as climate change, appear intensive international efforts, including the NERC-funded OA programme, are trying to unravel how OA will affect ALTHOUGH CALCIFIED ORGANISMS DISSOLVE marine ecosystems. Unsurprisingly, calcifying corals have AWAY, SEA ANEMONES GROW LARGER AND MUCH been a major focus of these endeavours. MORE ABUNDANT WITH INCREASING CO2 AVAILABILITY. Corals are the foundation for the high productivity and biodiversity associated with reef ecosystems, which in turn support the livelihood of millions of people Our observations, recently published in to favour this group of organisms. worldwide. Global Change Biology, reveal that while Sea anemones perform essential and Research has shown that corals and whole calcified organisms dissolve away, unique ecological roles in temperate other calcifying organisms – ones which sea anemones grow larger and much more and tropical ecosystems. So we need to produce outer shells or skeletons of soluble abundant the more CO2 there is. This is, understand just how widely our current calcium carbonate – will be corroded by at least in part, because CO2 appears to observations of anemones under high ocean acidification (see p18). However, new increase the productivity of the symbiotic CO2 conditions apply. Will all anemone- research led by the Universities of Essex algae that live in cooperation with the algal symbiont combinations respond in and Plymouth has shown non-calcifying anemones. In effect the CO2 provides the the same way? Will other non-calcifying relatives of corals, such as jellyfish and Demetris Kletou, University of Plymouth soft corals, also thrive in a high-CO2 world? What are the wider ecological and biogeochemical ramifications of these changes? Ultimately, calcification will inevitably be more difficult for corals – that is, more energetically costly – as ocean CO2 concentrations continue to rise. We now need to identify just how well non- calcifying corals and their close relatives can take advantage of the space left behind.

MORE INFORMATION Dr David Suggett is a senior lecturer in marine biogeochemistry at the University of Essex; Professor Jason Hall-Spencer is a marine biologist at Plymouth University. Email: [email protected] The research described here was partly supported by NERC’s Ocean Acidification programme; for more information, see www.oceanacidification.org.uk

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 25 Can money grow on trees? Peter Newton (below) describes his work investigating whether medicinal oil could help provide income for people living deep in the Amazon.

ntonio taps share their knowledge and to learn more. the bark Copaíba harvesting has only ever been A hopefully opportunistic here, not systematic, so by with his machete: drilling trees throughout the study area ‘Espero que ela and recording what we find, we hope to vai dar muito build up a more complete picture of the óleo,’ he declares. possibilities. I hope that she’ll Our study site is the vast (900,000ha) give us a lot of oil. extent of two sustainable-use reserves: the Ten minutes later primary forest here is interrupted only by he is sweating with the effort of drilling meandering rivers. Small communities a 15cm-deep hole into the hardwood of Amazonians live by fishing, hunting, trunk with a hand-borer, but his wish is harvesting forest plants and growing granted and the familiar trickle of copaíba crops such as manioc. People are largely (cop-ay-ee-ba) oil begins to seep from the self-sufficient. They have to be; there are no tree. Pensamento grabs the waiting plastic shops or roads here, and the reserves are a tubing and deftly fits it to the hole. Already 12-hour boat ride from the nearest town, attached at the tubing’s other end is an Carauari, itself a week’s river journey from empty two-litre plastic drinks bottle, which the state capital, Manaus. now begins to steadily fill with the copper- Governments and NGOs in tropical Brazil, have spent years documenting the coloured oil. forest countries around the world are biochemical compounds behind its healing The three of us are in a remote part increasingly recognising that people living properties. of the Brazilian Amazon, collecting in rural areas need help to find ways of medicinal copaíba oil as part of a study earning a living that don’t damage the Harvesting from the forest – profits of the potential for forest resources to forest. One option is to develop local and perils provide an income for families living here. industries based on collecting and selling On the face of it, copaíba is as close as Antonio has been harvesting copaíba his forest resources. you’ll find to money growing on trees – or whole life, but only occasionally and only There is a growing demand both in at least, dripping out of them. In Carauari, to use at home as a medicine. Now, new Brazil and abroad for sustainably-sourced the oil sells for $7 a litre, and we drilled opportunities are emerging, and a non- rainforest products – health food shops trees that yielded up to four litres of oil government organisation (NGO) working in the UK regularly stock products made within 24 hours. The average household in the area has asked us to see if it’s feasible from Brazil nuts, açai palm fruit and – income in these communities is just $275 for them to train and equip local people to increasingly – copaíba oil. This natural a month, so a sale like this would be a harvest the oil commercially. oil is stored in the trunks of copaíba trees welcome financial boost to a family. And so we have formed our team: me (various members of the Copaifera family). There are some catches. Nine different and my colleagues from the University Brazilians have used it for centuries to cure species of copaíba are found in the of East Anglia, with an interest in the colds and flu, and to help treat wounds and Brazilian Amazon alone, and not all are sustainable use of tropical forests, and ten infections. This is no placebo; colleagues created equal – as we found when we began local Amazonians, who are keen both to at the Federal University of Amazonas, experimentally drilling trees of different

26 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Left and below: Drilling for copaíba oil. Above: Andiroba seeds drying.

causes of injury in this region; I was lucky that a profitable volume of oil could be to escape unscathed when an unseen extracted from a tree just a year after its Bothrops – a kind of venomous pit viper – first harvest. struck out at the bottom of my boot. No Having worked out the rate at which surprise that many Amazonians have opted oil could be collected, our task was to to focus their efforts on compile data on oil volumes, prices, tree agriculture. densities and travel costs – all the factors Nonetheless, experience that together determine whether it’s worth shows that if the rewards harvesting a resource commercially. We are sufficient then people estimated that the reserves contained will go into the forest. A few more than 38,500 litres of oil, and that years ago, a cooperative in harvesting just two litres per family per a neighbouring community month would generate five per cent of an established a small plant average household’s income. to process the oil found in There are still some uncertainties – such andiroba seeds, the product as whether oil extraction has any long- of another Amazonian tree. term impact on a tree’s health, and how Now, almost every family many times a tree can be reharvested. But on the river spends a couple we concluded that, as long as a market of weeks each year collecting for the oil could be secured, then copaíba their quota of seeds, to harvesting could complement andiroba sell on to the cooperative. seeds, rubber and other forest products as Could a similar system be a source of income for men like Antonio, developed for copaíba oil? who are trying to support their families and A key unanswered look after the forest at the same time. sizes and species, and in different types of question that would determine whether forest. In fact, most trees didn’t yield any harvesting copaíba trees could be truly oil at all. Even those that did showed huge sustainable was whether oil could be MORE INFORMATION variation in volume – many produced less extracted from an individual tree more Since finishing his NERC-funded PhD in than 100 millilitres. It takes time and effort than once. Anecdotal evidence suggested September 2011, Dr Peter Newton has to locate and drill a tree and if it turns out it could, but common consensus held been working as a postdoctoral research to be hollow, or to contain little or no oil, that it might take several years for trees to fellow at the University of Michigan with that effort goes unrewarded. replenish their stocks. the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network, and the CGIAR Collecting forest products as a money- To find out, we returned to trees that program on Climate Change, Agriculture making option has other downsides, too. had been drilled either one or three years and Food Security. Travel by river is costly, either in time spent earlier. We found that they were just as Email: [email protected] paddling or in fuel. Passing through the likely to produce oil as were ‘virgin’ trees. www.tropicalforestresearch.org/people/ forest on foot is hard work and dangerous. Although they only produced around half pnewton.aspx. Snake bites are one of the most common the original harvest, here was firm evidence

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 27 Adrian Glover/ Nick Higgs

Whales, worms and the story of life

What’s the point of studying dead whales and the worms that eat them? Recondite research can be more relevant than you’d think, as Nick Higgs explains.

An individual Osedax mucofloris.

hy is NERC even funding this before it can become a fossil? What effect dinosaurs, so who knows how long Osedax research?’ asked a perplexed has this had on whale fossilisation in the has been devouring skeletons. That’s the ‘W volcanology professor in my past? In short, I am trying to find out how problem; they usually destroy any evidence department. I had just given a nervous whales become fossils. of their existence. five-minute talk introducing my future Understanding how fossils form is The fossil record of worms is patchy, PhD work to a bemused audience of vital to interpreting the fossil record, and since they don’t have many hard parts, but Earth scientists. It was a question that I that of whales is especially important. uniquely Osedax leaves distinctive traces on hadn’t given a lot of thought to, but one The evolution of whales is one of the best bones. I’ve been using the Natural History I have subsequently spent a lot of time examples of macro-evolution, where one Museum’s micro-CT scanner to study the considering. Since then I have been asked kind of animal evolves into a very different borings of Osedax in modern whale bones. the dreaded question by broadcasters and one. The fossil record provides us with an Recently, we discovered their traces in a teenagers alike, sometimes with a soul- exquisite sequence of skeletons, showing three-million-year-old fossil whale bone crushing tone of perplexity or distain: why how land mammals adapted to aquatic and from Tuscany in Italy. Palaeontological does your work matter? You see, I’ve spent the last three years studying whales… sort of. That’s what I DO THIS RESEARCH BECAUSE I AM FILLED WITH I say to get people interested. The truth WONDER AT THE NATURAL WORLD. is that I only study dead whales and, if I’m honest, I’m more interested in the worms that live on dead whales. But these then fully marine environments, becoming detective work let us show that Osedax aren’t just any old worms. They live only the ocean giants we admire today. had colonised much of the world’s oceans on animal skeletons at the bottom of the Equally important is understanding by this point. Another group of scientists ocean – which they use as food. Their Latin the evolution of the worms themselves. found similar traces in a 30-million-year- name, Osedax, means ‘bone devourers’. Originally it was thought that they evolved old whale bone from the north-east Pacific, Amazingly, they don’t even have a mouth at the same time as whales, but new showing that Osedax has been around since or gut to digest the bones. Instead they findings show they can thrive on other the emergence of the whales. have root-like tissues that grow into the types of bones – fish bones, for example – These two finds are just the tip of the bone and dissolve it, like fungi growing suggesting that they may have been able iceberg and we need much more work to into a log. to live on the skeletons of big fish and get a handle on how Osedax has affected My research looks at how Osedax affect large marine reptiles. These leviathans the fossil record of whales, and other the whale’s fossilisation. Do these worms were around long before mammals entered marine vertebrates for that matter. The completely destroy the whale skeleton the oceans and later died out with the problem is that museum collections are

28 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 Osedax worms living on a whale bone found off Japan. inherently biased. No one wants to display immediate practical applications. History sense of wonder that connects me with my a half-decayed, broken-up skeleton; they shows that fundamental research often audience. It is the same awe that enthrals covet the most complete specimens to study spawns previously unimagined benefits. us with natural-history programmes on anatomy. Unfortunately it is the pock- For instance, I am now looking at how my TV and enriches our lives through books ridden, eroded bones that are the smoking work on the decay of porpoise carcasses can and art. In the dozens of talks I have guns of Osedax activity. help forensic investigators when bodies end given since I first fumbled my response For example, the fossil bone in which we up in the sea. Along with pioneering work to the volcanology professor, the ‘why’ discovered Osedax traces had been sitting by a Canadian team using pig carcasses, question has never come up first. Curiosity in a dusty box for over a century and wasn’t these studies help us understand common beats out cynicism every time. For a few even on the museum’s official catalogue, processes of decomposition in the sea. moments the audience becomes part of the probably because it wasn’t much use as I have specialist knowledge of how bones discoveries, they become scientists, and a whale fossil. The other problem is that decay and can identify different animal then they demand more information… small holes in bones can easily be confused traces on them. Both give clues to how long more than I can give them. with sponge borings, so palaeontologists a body has been in the water. I could never There is still a lot more to learn about the may not even realise what they have. We have imagined that my research would natural world and in tough economic times need collectors and curators to keep their lead me down this path three years ago, funding for such research is at a premium. eyes peeled and spread the word. By piecing but with hindsight it makes sense. I should It is therefore all the more important to together the evolutionary history of Osedax, have guessed after Osedax featured in an acknowledge the role of curiosity-driven we may be able to explain some gaps in the episode of the crime drama Bones! research in capturing our imaginations and fossil record of whales. My research is aimed at understanding fulfilling our primal desire to explore the Whether of whales or worms, the fossil basic questions about how the natural limits of our knowledge. record is part of the wider evolutionary world works, which may even have useful story. As the naturalist John Muir wrote: outcomes for modern problems. These ‘When we try to pick out anything by are both great reasons why this type of itself, we find it hitched to everything else science should be done. Similar arguments MORE INFORMATION in the Universe.’ Since evolution is what are routinely put forward in favour of Nick Higgs recently finished his PhD hitches us to the rest of the living world, fundamental research, but I think that at the University of Leeds and is now a getting it right matters. On a broad scale, these arguments lack force because they are postdoctoral research assistant at the Natural History Museum in London. research like mine helps shape how we missing a human element. Email: [email protected] think about ourselves and our relationship I do this research because I am filled Twitter: @BahaNick to the living world. with wonder at the natural world. When This is not to say that there are no I give talks on my work it is this shared

PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 29 Slime power: bioenergy from the sea As global oil supplies decline and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the search for renewable energy sources is more urgent than ever. Joanne MacDonald and Michele Stanley explain how marine algae could be part of the answer.

Dr Michele Stanley studies which microalgae are most appropriate as a biofuel crop – here in the culture collection of algae and protozoa.

30 PLANET EARTH Winter 2012 ll plants turn sunlight energy and CO2 into organic molecules such A as sugars and lipids (oils), which we can extract and use to produce biofuels like bioethanol, biobutanol and biodiesel. This bioenergy is likely to be a big help in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. But the biomass – the raw materials – have to be both sustainable and economically viable, and that’s proving to be a bit of a problem. The most common biofuel – bioethanol – is made from sugar cane and maize. It currently accounts for 90 per cent of Seaweed being harvested in China. the world’s biofuel supply, with biodiesel from plant oil such as rape seed and palm accounting for the rest. But these ‘first generation’ biofuels are still far from significant economic and carbon costs at Seaweed farms could provide an answer. meeting even existing demand for bio- the scale required for fuel production, and These are already commonplace in China based alternatives to petroleum. And we even in warmer regions where light and where nine million tonnes of seaweed are can’t simply increase production, because temperature are more reliable, the costs of cultivated each year. The plants are grown these energy crops compete with food crops harvesting and processing large amounts of on long ropes held afloat by plastic buoys for land and water. algae are still high. and harvested by hand. So attention has turned to the other 70 So large-scale production of algal biofuel While most of China’s seaweed is per cent of the Earth’s surface – the oceans is in its infancy, but there is considerable currently used for food, textiles, cosmetics – and the potential for aquatic plants to global investment to realise its potential. and medicines, attention is now turning to provide a sustainable fuel source. The US Navy and shipping giant Maersk cultivating it for fuel. But Europe’s relatively Algae are a diverse group of have successfully tested algal biofuels in high labour costs mean harvesting by photosynthetic aquatic organisms their ships and are investing in further hand wouldn’t be economically viable; we which includes seaweed (macroalgae) research and development. would need to develop a machine to harvest and microscopic floating plants such as and process enough phytoplankton (microalgae). Like other macroalgae for fuel plants, algae also make sugar and oil MICROALGAE HAVE THE production. molecules through photosynthesis. In the POTENTIAL TO PROVIDE UP TO And crucially, we also right conditions some species of microalgae 24 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF OIL PER need to understand the can accumulate oil in quantities up to half potential impacts of their dry cell weight, and this means they ACRE THAN PALM. industrial-scale seaweed have the potential to provide up to 24 times farms on the marine the amount of oil per acre than palm, the ecosystem. most productive terrestrial crop. Algae are Macroalgae offer different opportunities. In future, micro- and macroalgae could also incredibly flexible: they can grow in a Large brown seaweed grows very fast and is be a sustainable source of energy; there is wide range of conditions including marine, common around the UK coast, particularly plenty of evidence to suggest that large-scale brackish or nutrient-rich wastewater. All in Scotland. Because of its structure biofuels production from algae is possible. this means algae could be a highly efficient seaweed can easily be biodegraded to But there are still many unknowns. We need energy source. produce methane gas. This could provide to ensure their long-term sustainability – Microalgal biodiesel has other benefits a local source of biogas for remote coastal economically, socially and environmentally. over traditional land-grown biofuels. It has communities, where grid connections The next steps must include assessments high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids are poor and gas supplies expensive. of the short- and long-term impacts of so it can remain fluid at low temperatures, Macroalgae could also be fermented to growing algae, so we can be confident of the which improves the performance of diesel make ethanol. But, as with microalgae, sustainable limits of production and make engines in cold conditions. using macroalgae on a commercial scale sure that marine ecosystems and biodiversity Yet despite these potential benefits presents problems. are properly looked after. to yield and performance, growing, There’s an estimated ten million tonnes harvesting and processing algae remains of seaweed around the Scottish coast, but expensive. Microalgae are grown in large harvesting these wild stocks could spell MORE INFORMATION open ponds or in photobioreactors – disaster for the surrounding ecosystem. Dr Joanne MacDonald is NERC knowledge artificial environments that provide light, Seaweed is home to many small fish and exchange fellow, and Dr Michele Stanley invertebrates which are an essential part is director of the Algal Bioenergy Special CO2 and nutrients. But the amount of Interest Group (AB SIG). light and constant temperatures needed of the food web for migrating seabirds. Email: [email protected] for optimal growth come at a price, Standing stocks of seaweed also provide www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/ especially in the UK where sunlight can defence against erosion and flooding, algal/ be scarce. Using artificial light would have which would be lost if harvested at scale.

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