Science Education News (SEN) Journal 2018 Science Education News Volume 67 Number 4 | Page 14

ARTICLES Stimulus Material for depth studies, courtesy of Macquarie University (continued) Surfing bacteria reveal new insights into the ocean’s health Australian scientists have recorded more than 175,000 tiny microbes dwelling in our ocean waters for the first time, providing an unprecedented baseline against which to measure the effects of climate change and human activities. Invisible to the naked eye, microbes constitute almost 98 per cent of the ocean’s biomass and are responsible for keeping the marine ecosystem healthy. A paper recently published in Scientific Data led by University of Newcastle’s Mark Brown and Macquarie University’s Martin Ostrowski (Department of Molecular Sciences), reveals the vast diversity of microbes and provides new knowledge about their environmental behaviour. The unparalleled dataset is the result of an ongoing collaborative initiative involving 18 Australian universities, Commonwealth agencies and research institutes, which recorded more than 175,000 unique species of microbes at seven sites around Australia’s coastline and into the Southern Ocean. Martin says the project team is now building models to predict where organisms will live in the future and what functions they will carry out. “We can now use the baseline data we have collected to make models that tell us how microbes respond to different environmental conditions and how we expect them to change given future climate projections. “The primary production and carbon use by marine microbes determines how much food is provided to the rest of the food chain, so our forecasts will be incredibly relevant to scientists but also to industries such as fisheries and tourism.” Find out more Syllabus link: Investigating science module 5 FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING 14 SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 4