Scientists measure impacts of changing climate on ocean biology

The study, Climate Variability on the East Coast (CliVEC), will also help validate ocean colour satellite measurements and refine biogeochemistry models of ocean processes.

Researchers from NOAA, NASA and Old Dominion University are collaborating through an existing NOAA Fisheries Service field program, the Ecosystem Monitoring or EcoMon program.

The EcoMon surveys are conducted six times each year by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) at 120 randomly selected stations throughout the continental shelf and slope of the northeastern US, from Cape Hatteras, N.C., into Canadian waters to cover all of Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine.

This area is known as the Northeast US continental shelf Large Marine Ecosystem.

The climate study team will participate in three annual EcoMon cruises aboard the 155-foot NOAA Fisheries Survey Vessel Delaware II, based at the NEFSC's laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Findings from the climate impact project, funded by NASA, will help scientists better understand how annual and decadal-scale climate variability affects the growth of phytoplankton, which is the basis of the oceanic food chain.

The project will also examine organic carbon distributions along the continental margin of the East Coast and collect data for ocean acidification studies.

According to laboratory colleague Jon Hare, an oceanographer and plankton specialist, "The CliVEC program will provide a more complete understanding of the northeast US shelf ecosystem."

"It extends our EcoMon survey efforts, and we are excited about the new knowledge and advances in satellite models that we will all gain from this collaboration and pooling of resources," he said.

The team of scientists from GSFC and ODU is conducting water sampling and experiments to quantify primary productivity and carbon distributions.

"Phytoplankton are the foundation of the food chain in the ocean and produce about half of the oxygen on Earth," said Antonio Mannino from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

"By understanding the distribution of phytoplankton populations and how they react to natural and anthropogenic forcing, we can better predict future responses of phytoplankton and possibly even fisheries," he added.

Zoo conducts experiment on preserving Va. state bat

From the outset, the National Zoo said, it knew it was risky to work with the Virginia big-eared bat, the odd-looking winged creature that happens to be Virginia's state bat.

But looking for a way to help the species survive a disease threat, the zoo set up quarters for 40 of the animals at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. The idea was to learn how to keep at least some of the bats alive in case wild populations were devastated.

But efforts to maintain the big-eared bats in confinement "have proved challenging," and only 11 remain alive, the zoo said Friday.

A big problem was getting the animals to eat.

Normally, the big-eared bats dine in flight, picking juicy insects out of the air. In the experiment, some bats learned to eat mealworms (insect larva) from pans. But even some of them failed to thrive.

"They stress easily and do not do well in captivity," said Jeremy Coleman, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a sponsor of the Zoo's project.

In recent years, some wild bat populations have been imperiled by a new threat: white-nose syndrome. The disease has spread to Virginia from the Northeast, said Coleman, the service's national white-nose coordinator.

The Virginia big-eared bat's susceptibility has not been confirmed but is suspected, he said.

Fossils of snake eating dino eggs found in India

BANGKOK (AP) — The fossilized remains of a 67 million-year-old snake found coiled around a dinosaur egg offer rare insight into the ancient reptile's dining habits and evolution, scientists said Tuesday.

The findings, which appeared in Tuesday's issue of the PLoS Biology journal, provide the first evidence that the 11.5-foot- (3.5-meter-) long snake fed on eggs and hatchlings of saurapod dinosaurs, meaning it was one of the few predators to prey on the long-necked herbivores.

They also suggest that, as early as 100 million years ago, snakes were developing mobile jaws similar to those of today's large-mouthed snakes, including vipers and boas.

"This is an early, well preserved snake, and it is doing something. We are capturing it's behavior," said University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, who is credited with recognizing the snake bones amid the crushed dinosaur eggs and bones of hatchlings.

"We have information about what this early snake did for living," he said. "It also helps us understand the early evolution of snakes both anatomically and ecologically."

Dhananjay Mohabey of India's Geological Survey discovered the fossilized remains in 1987, but he was only able to make out the dinosaur eggshells and limb bones. Wilson examined the fossils in 2001 and was "astonished" to find a predator in the midst of the sauropod's nest.

"I saw the characteristic vertebral locking mechanism of snakes alongside dinosaur eggshell and larger bones, and I knew it was an extraordinary specimen," Wilson said.

Mohabey theorized that the snake — dubbed Sanajeh indicus, which means "ancient gaped one" in Sanskrit — had just arrived at the nest and was in the process of gobbling a hatchling emerging from its egg. But the entire scene was "frozen in time" when it was hit by a storm or some other disaster and buried under layers of sediment.

"We think the hatchlings had just exited its egg, and the activity attracted the snake," Mohabey said, adding that the site in Western state of Gujarat has revealed about 30 sauropod nests and at least two other snake specimens.

Michael Benton of the University of Bristol, also writing in the PLoS Biology, said it can be difficult to determine the behavior of ancient organisms. But he said that it was "most likely, as the authors argue, that this snake was waiting and snatching juveniles as they hatched."

"Of course, we cannot be entirely sure unless further specimens come to light showing the bones of juvenile dinosaurs in the stomach region of the snake," Benton said.

Ashok Sahni, a senior scientist at the Indian National Science Academy who was also not involved in the dig, described the find as "truly remarkable" because it is rare for fossil bones to be preserved at the site of fossilized eggs.

Foundations of modern biology

Cell theory

Cell theory states that the cell is the fundamental unit of life, and that all living things are composed of one or more cells or the secreted products of those cells (e.g. shells). All cells arise from other cells through cell division. In multicellular organisms, every cell in the organism's body derives ultimately from a single cell in a fertilized egg. The cell is also considered to be the basic unit in many pathological processes.Additionally, the phenomenon of energy flow occurs in cells in processes that are part of the function known as metabolism. Finally, cells contain hereditary information (DNA) which is passed from cell to cell during cell division.

Evolution

A central organizing concept in biology is that life changes and develops through evolution, and that all life-forms known have a common origin. Introduced into the scientific lexicon by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1809, Darwin established evolution fifty years later as a viable theory by articulating its driving force: natural selection.(Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as the co-discoverer of this concept as he helped research and experiment with the concept of evolution.) Evolution is now used to explain the great variations of life found on Earth.

Darwin theorized that species and breeds developed through the processes of natural selection and artificial selection or selective breeding. Genetic drift was embraced as an additional mechanism of evolutionary development in the modern synthesis of the theory.

The evolutionary history of the species—which describes the characteristics of the various species from which it descended—together with its genealogical relationship to every other species is known as its phylogeny. Widely varied approaches to biology generate information about phylogeny. These include the comparisons of DNA sequences conducted within molecular biology or genomics, and comparisons of fossils or other records of ancient organisms in paleontology. Biologists organize and analyze evolutionary relationships through various methods, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics. (For a summary of major events in the evolution of life as currently understood by biologists, see evolutionary timeline.)

The theory of evolution postulates that all organisms on the Earth, both living and extinct, have descended from a common ancestor or an ancestral gene pool. This last universal common ancestor of all organisms is believed to have appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. Biologists generally regard the universality of the genetic code as definitive evidence in favor of the theory of universal common descent for all bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (see: origin of life).

Genetics

Genes are the primary units of inheritance in all organisms. A gene is a unit of heredity and corresponds to a region of DNA that influences the form or function of an organism in specific ways. All organisms, from bacteria to animals, share the same basic machinery that copies and translates DNA into proteins. Cells transcribe a DNA gene into an RNA version of the gene, and a ribosome then translates the RNA into a protein, a sequence of amino acids. The translation code from RNA codon to amino acid is the same for most organisms, but slightly different for some. For example, a sequence of DNA that codes for insulin in humans will also code for insulin when inserted into other organisms, such as plants.

DNA usually occurs as linear chromosomes in eukaryotes, and circular chromosomes in prokaryotes. A chromosome is an organized structure consisting of DNA and histones. The set of chromosomes in a cell and any other hereditary information found in the mitochondria, chloroplasts, or other locations is collectively known as its genome. In eukaryotes, genomic DNA is located in the cell nucleus, along with small amounts in mitochondria and chloroplasts. In prokaryotes, the DNA is held within an irregularly shaped body in the cytoplasm called the nucleoid.[26] The genetic information in a genome is held within genes, and the complete assemblage of this information in an organism is called its genotype.

Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the ability of an open system to regulate its internal environment to maintain stable conditions by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. All living organisms, whether unicellular or multicellular, exhibit homeostasis.

In order to maintain dynamic equilibrium and effectively carry out certain functions, a system must detect and respond to perturbations. After the detection of a perturbation, a biological system will normally respond through negative feedback. This means reducing the output or activity of an organ or system. One example is the release of glucagon when sugar levels are too low.