Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Science
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag
No Result
View All Result
Home Science News Marine

Marine plankton behaviour could predict future marine extinctions, study finds

April 17, 2024
in Marine
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
FIg 1
66
SHARES
597
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth’s warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.

FIg 1

Credit: Tracy Aze

Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth’s warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.

All but the most specialist sea plankton moved to higher latitudes during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, an interval of sustained high global temperatures equivalent to worst case global warming scenarios.

When the team, comprised of researchers from the University of Bristol, Harvard University, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the University of Victoria, compared biodiversity and global community structure, they found that the community often responds to climate change millions of years before losses of biodiversity.

The study, published today in Nature, suggests that plankton migrated to cooler regions to escape the tropical heat and that only the most highly specialised species were able to remain.

These findings imply that changes on the community scale will be evident long before extinctions in the modern world and that more effort must be placed on monitoring the structure of marine communities to potentially predict future marine extinctions.

Dr Adam Woodhouse from the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, explained: “Considering three billion people live in the tropics, this is not great news.

“We knew that biodiversity amongst marine plankton groups has changed throughout the last 66 million years, but no one had ever explored it on a global, spatial, scale through the lens of a single database.

“We used the Triton dataset, that I created during my PhD, which offered new insights into how biodiversity responds spatially to global changes in climate, especially during intervals of global warmth which are relevant to future warming projections.”

Dr Woodhouse teamed up with Dr Anshuman Swain, an ecologist and specialist in the application of networks to biological data. They applied networks to micropalaeontology for the first time ever to document the global spatial changes in community structure as climate has evolved over the Cenozoic, building on previous research on cooling restructured global marine plankton communities.

Dr Woodhouse continued: “The fossil record of marine plankton is the most complete and extensive archive of ancient biological changes available to science. By applying advanced computational analyses to this archive we were able to detail global community structure of the oceans since the death of the dinosaurs, revealing that community change often precedes the extinction of organisms.

“This exciting result suggests that monitoring of ocean community structure may represent an ‘early warning system’ which precedes the extinction of oceanic life.”

Now the team plan to apply similar methods to other marine plankton groups. This study has only worked on the planktonic foraminifera, however there are many other microfossil groups which have important roles in marine food webs which need to be studied. They also need to use the patterns they’ve observed in the past and present to model future community structure using new climate models.

 

Paper: 

‘Biogeographic responses in marine plankton functional groups to Cenozoic climatic and environmental changes’ by Anshuman Swain, Adam Woodhouse, William F. Fagan, Andrew J. Fraass, and Christopher M. Lowery in Nature.



Journal

Nature

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Biogeographic responses in marine plankton functional groups to Cenozoic climatic and environmental changes’

Article Publication Date

17-Apr-2024

Share26Tweet17
Previous Post

Storks fly with a little help from their friends

Next Post

Virtual-dimension increase of EMG signals for prosthetic hands gesture recognition

Related Posts

blank
Marine

MBARI Researchers Unveil Advanced Imaging System to Track Deep-Sea Octopus Movements

August 6, 2025
blank
Marine

Rediscovering Vision: Using Snails as a Model to Advance Sight Restoration

August 6, 2025
blank
Marine

On-board Camera Footage Provides Bird’s-Eye View of Seabird Flight and Feeding Behaviors

August 5, 2025
blank
Marine

Unexplained Mystery Surrounding Great White Sharks Leaves Scientists Baffled

August 5, 2025
blank
Marine

EMBARGOED until 00:01 AEST, 6 August 2025: Great Barrier Reef Experiences Increased Volatility with Dramatic Drops in Coral Cover

August 5, 2025
blank
Marine

Breakthrough Ice Age Bone Discovery in Norwegian Cave Unveils Ancient Secrets

August 4, 2025
Next Post

Virtual-dimension increase of EMG signals for prosthetic hands gesture recognition

  • Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    Mothers who receive childcare support from maternal grandparents show more parental warmth, finds NTU Singapore study

    27530 shares
    Share 11009 Tweet 6881
  • University of Seville Breaks 120-Year-Old Mystery, Revises a Key Einstein Concept

    941 shares
    Share 376 Tweet 235
  • Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance

    641 shares
    Share 256 Tweet 160
  • Researchers record first-ever images and data of a shark experiencing a boat strike

    506 shares
    Share 202 Tweet 127
  • Warm seawater speeding up melting of ‘Doomsday Glacier,’ scientists warn

    310 shares
    Share 124 Tweet 78
Science

Embark on a thrilling journey of discovery with Scienmag.com—your ultimate source for cutting-edge breakthroughs. Immerse yourself in a world where curiosity knows no limits and tomorrow’s possibilities become today’s reality!

RECENT NEWS

  • New Trends in Mental Health Patient Involvement
  • CT Radiomics Predicts Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Outcomes
  • Unveiling Fast N-Type Inactivation in Kv Channels
  • AI and Tech Boost Finance via Government in G20

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Athmospheric
  • Biology
  • Bussines
  • Cancer
  • Chemistry
  • Climate
  • Earth Science
  • Marine
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine
  • Pediatry
  • Policy
  • Psychology & Psychiatry
  • Science Education
  • Social Science
  • Space
  • Technology and Engineering

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 5,184 other subscribers

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • SCIENCE NEWS
  • CONTACT US

© 2025 Scienmag - Science Magazine

Discover more from Science

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading