Photo Credit: Maria Faust, Smithsonian Institution

Science contributor Josh Kurz, tells the story of dinoflagellates through “music from the bottom of the food chain.” There are “billions of these microscopic creatures in every bucket of the salty sea,” Kurz reveals. Learn which dinoflagellate has a special glow, and which one is responsible for killing more people every year than sharks.

Learn more about dinoflagellates on the Encyclopedia of Life.

One Species at a Time is brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life, hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro and produced by Atlantic Public Media.

Atlantic Bluefin can weigh up to 1,000 pounds (454 kgs) and swim up to 45 mph (72 km/ph). Scientist wondered where these tuna were going so turned to electronic tagging to follow them. They were surprised at what they discovered.

You can experience the daily life of a bluefin tuna in this Google Earth Tour video, or download the Google Earth file.

Learn more about the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna on the Encyclopedia of Life.

This tour was created by Eduardo Garcia-Milagros, in collaboration with Atlantic Public Media, Randy Kochevar and Andre Boustany. Narrated by One Species at a Time host, Ari Daniel Shapiro.

Photo Credit: Dean Pearson

The hills near Missoula, Montana, are changing, native grasses and other plants increasingly squeezed out by nonnative plants. Knapweed, cinquefoil, and other weeds aren’t only changing the look of this ecosystem but its very structure. As ecologist Dean Pearson’s research has shown, however, some species are benefitting from the changed habitat in unexpected ways. You just have to look closely to see them.

Learn more about these spiders on the Encyclopedia of Life.

One Species at a Time is brought to you by the Encyclopedia of Life, hosted by Ari Daniel Shapiro and produced by Atlantic Public Media.

Until April 2009, most of my hands-on experience with marine life had been limited to scrubbing algae from the walls of my freshwater aquarium. Then one day I found myself onboard a NOAA ship, dissecting Atlantic cod, winter skates, and yellowtail flounder, and up to my elbows in fish slime – and I could not have been happier.

The Fisheries and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division (FEMAD), of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, has conducted bottom trawl surveys as part of NOAA since the 1960s. These surveys collect valuable information each fall and spring on fish populations, as well as meteorological and oceanographic data. I participated in April 2009 as a volunteer scientist on a 10-day cruise, just one leg of the 10-week survey.

To survey the populations of marine species, research vessels tow large fishing nets in specific locations off the northeast coast; the catch is dumped into a large bin (a hopper), and everything is sorted into buckets and baskets by species. Eventually, anything pulled aboard is weighed and measured individually. This quickly becomes a vast and thorough data set, because hundreds of fish and other marine species may be brought aboard in a single tow. In a 12-hour shift, the ship’s Chief Scientist will aim to complete between 5 to 10 tows. After only a 10-day cruise, that’s a lot of fish.

Although called a cruise, these trips are anything but a vacation. Survey ships are active twenty-four hours a day, with two teams of scientists working in 12-hour shifts. I was on the day shift, which means I worked from noon to midnight. Coordinating as a team to be efficient, the scientists must immediately identify each fish species carried along on a small conveyor belt, grab the slimy creatures, and separate them into buckets. It is both physically and intellectually demanding labor. The challenge is to think and move fast, and especially to take care when picking up the spinier species, with the conveyor belt continuously carrying more fish down the line, all the while standing on a rocking boat – for a long shift. After the fish were sorted, we weighed and measured each one at computer workstations in the wet lab. Depending on the research being conducted on each species, we also gathered additional information, including the individual’s sex, maturity, stomach contents, and the weight of some internal organs.

The information collected on these voyages contributes to an enormous data set on fish populations off the Northeast coast. NOAA scientists use this data to study a wide range of topics in regards to the sustainable management of marine resources, which I will discuss in a future post. Thanks for reading!

I have been working up in Sudbury, Ontario for the past two and a half weeks at the underground lab I mentioned in the overview posts (linked from the right of this blog). What is it like? Well, it's pretty cool, I have to admit. Life at the lab is in many ways defined by the cage schedule of the mine, as I'll explain. I get up before 7, because I have to catch the 7:30 cage underground. If I miss that cage, I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to go under on that day. So, I'm up at 7 (I don't have to shower, as you'll soon see), drive to the mine, go to my locker. I take off the civvies, and put on a mining jumpsuit (lots of reflective tape), hardhat, glasses, wellington boots. I get my head lamp (there's a slot on the hard hat for the head lamp to slide into), tag in (the mine has a lot of safety rules, but the main one is the tag-in and tag-out system. If you go underground, you have to be tagged in, and then when you come back up you tag out. That way, when the company wants to do some blasting, they can make sure no one is underground. If you forget to tag out, or tag out the wrong person, they are not allowed to blast. People do get calls at 4 in the morning about being tagged in, you do not want to be the person who forgets) and wait for the cage. When it arrives, we all pile in. The cage is very cage-like. It's maybe 5 ft wide and 15 ft deep, made all of beat-up metal, and the miners and lab workers pile in in rows of 4. Sometimes, when it's full, we'll be squeezed all the way in, and I hear stories that "in the old days, we used to put 5 in a row." Then we drop. A couple of people will put their lights on at this point, otherwise we'd just be going down in the dark. We stop at a few places along the way for people to get off at various levels (if we stop too many times, that's known as a "milk run"), and then finally, we arrive at the 6800 ft level.

Next, we have to hike about 1.5 km down a drift. The drift is 10 ft wide maybe, with screen or "shotcrete" helping to support the walls. We'll hike half the way down, and then we call ahead to the lab where someone has advanced ahead of us with an air monitor (the modern version of a canary) to make sure it's safe to proceed. Sometimes there will be water on the ground to tramp through, and there's evidence of mining all over the place. Eventually we arrive at the lab. At this point, we take off our clothes, and take the garbage bags off anything we've brought down with us. We shower (there's a built in shower every morning, which is nice when you're getting up so early [at least for a grad student]) and put on a clean jumpsuit and hair net, etc. The entire lab is a "clean room," which means that considerable effort has gone into making sure that all the dirt and dust picked up on the walk through the drift is cleaned off before we enter the lab. Hence the cleaning precautions.

So now we're in the lab. The walls are all whitewashed (but not straight, since it's a cave, essentially), and most of the ventilation and wiring is visible. It looks like the set of a sci-fi movie. So off I go to my experiment where I do the day's work (fiddling with high voltage power supplies, making sure the detector stays cold, that there is enough liquid nitrogen, doing various radioactive source calibrations, etc). Then, 45 minutes before the cage up time (again, there's a fixed schedule. I can't just come in and out whenever I want), we go through the reverse process, take off the lab clothes, put back on the mining gear, hike back out through the drift, etc. And you'd better make that cage.

So up we go back to the surface (there's a signal system for the cage, and you always know that when they signal 2 short pulses twice, the next stop is the surface), take off the mining gear, shower again (I love that the day is bracketed by showers), and voila, life underground at the lab.

It's a good thing I'm done this little summary, because a liquid nitrogen fill just completed so today's tasks are all done and the detector will survive the weekend, and I have to start cleaning up to catch the next cage out (I'm taking the early cage today).

White Tailed Deer

White Tailed Deer are herbivores. Their stomachs only allow them to digest a varied diet like leaves, twigs, fruit, and nuts. Young deer are called fawns. Their tails wag when they sense danger.

Zebras

Each zebra’s stripes are unique, like fingerprints. They are social animals that spend a lot of time in herds. They eat grass and groom one another. A zebra’s family will come to its defense if it is attacked.

Baboons

Baboons are some of the world’s largest monkeys. They eat fruit, grasses, seeds, and roots, but also have a taste for meat. Males generally show physical power to dominate opponents.

Giraffes

Giraffes are the world’s tallest mammals. They only need to drink water once every few days because they get most of their water from the plants they eat. Female giraffes give birth standing up, so the young are born falling five feet to the ground.

Vervet Monkeys

Vervet monkeys eat and sleep in trees. Grooming is very important. They spend several hours picking dirt off their coats. They rarely drink water.

Grants Gazelle

Grants gazelles are found on open grass that is not very high. Their diets change according to season. They are a potential source of protein for humans. The closest relationships these animals form are between a mother and her most recent offspring.

Elephants

Elephant are the largest land animals on Earth. Their ears give off heat to help keep them cool. The females go through 22 months of pregnancy and at birth the young weigh 200 pounds.

Hyenas

Hyenas eat other predators’ leftovers. They live in much of Africa, and throughout Arabia and India. They are closely related to cats and groups of hyenas are run by the females.

Water Buffaloes

Water buffaloes have been domesticated for more than 5,000 years because of their strength and survival skills. They spend most of their day submerged in muddy waters of tropical forests. They are endangered and live in only a few protected areas.

Lions

Lions are the only cats that live in groups. These groups are called prides. Female lions do most of the hunting.

Wildebeest

Wildebeest travel in herds and are active day and night. The young learn to walk within minutes of their birth.

Hippos

Hippos spend up to 16 hours a day submerged in rivers to keep their bodies cool against the sun. Soon after birth they join groups called schools to provide protection against crocodiles, lions, and hyenas.

Ostrich

Ostrich are the world’s largest birds. They cannot fly but are very strong runners. Their eyes are the largest of any land mammal, almost two inches wide. Their kicks can kill a human or potential predator like a lion, because of their sharp claws.

Jackal

Jackals are native to southeastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Scavengers like hyenas, jackals are territorial and mark and defend their territory.

Thompson’s Gazelle

Thompson’s gazelle can reach a speed of up to 40 mile an hours. They are found in Africa and Asia. There are 19 different species.

Photos by Danielle Dana, captions by Betty Diop and Rosalee Washington