“It Took Mountains to Rise...” Diatom Cenozoic Spring

Image Mount Everest North Face Tibet. Luca Galuzzi (Lucag) 

Until today it was a mystery how one of the largest community and most contributing community of ocean species came to reach such numbers. Diatoms are among the smallest organisms on Earth but when “these little guys team up things begin to get pretty interesting”. 

The spring of the marine Diatoms -microscopic algae took place millions of years ago sometime in the Cenozoic Era. Now the Spanish National Research Council CSIC assures to have broken the secret and states that it took the rise of entire mountain chains for Diatoms to increase population numbers. 

On March 24th Fisica Hoy reported on the conclusions reached by a new investigation of CSIC. In the front-line of ocean science the organization breaks into Diatoms kingdom secrets unlocking a new paper published at the Magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS.

“The formation of mountains, such as, the rising of the Himalaya cordillera 40 million years ago, accelerated continental erosion, increasing the silicic acid input in superficial ocean waters and facilitating as a consequence the expansion of marine diatoms,” CSIC simplified it. 

Marine Diatoms require silica for the formation of outer shells also known as exoskeletons. Diatoms utilize the elements and are capable to biologically synthesis it for basic cycles of life and biochemical energy and biological construction of morphological characteristics.  

The main source of silica in oceans -as well as most other elements is sourced from terrestrial activity including erosion -meaning from land. Simple stuff indeed -when silica levels rose because the massive movement of mountain formation caused the element to reach the oceans Diatoms took advantage of the abundance event and bloomed and flourished. In Evolution this type of success is known as niche opportunity but is mostly used for in-between specie gaps. Nevertheless when  Diatoms reached such numbers they began altering first their environment, then the region and finally the altered the entire world. From gas balances to ecological energy for food webs, to ocean dynamic alterations, like dominos the butterfly effects spread rapidly.

CSIC assures that their new Diatom work will provide better understanding in the carbon dioxide cycles, levels and mechanisms which regulate gases on Earth. Marine Diatoms are part of the “Carbon Biological Pump” a biological mechanism empowered by the smallest organisms on Earth operating in the Ocean waters. It is today believed that the Carbon Pump stores as much Carbon Dioxide as there is in the entire atmosphere. It was the smallest organisms which through the geological history of Earth which gave final shape the levels of gases in the atmosphere which make life as we know it possible on the planet. 

The group of scientists responsible for the work started off their investigation with the hypothesis that competition diatoms and radiolaria, plankton require silicic acid to grow and that the presence of the element contributed to the expansion of marine diatoms. 

“Our results show that this process (evolutionary competition for silicic acid) is not sufficient to explain the ecological success and that an external source of silicic acid in the oceans was necessary sourced from the continental erosion,” Pedro Cermeño, researcher of CSIC in the Institute of the Sciences of the Sea stated. 

Flanders Today reported on March 15th on the quest of a Flemish Scientist in search of the “exotic world of diatoms”. The search took the Scientist down south as it gets to iced off Antarctica. 

“Take a drop of water from the sea, a river or even a shallow pond and put it under a microscope, there’s a good chance you’ll be stunned by what you see. All the most bizarre and complex forms and shapes are there,” Flanders reported inspired by the finding. 

With over 150 thousand estimated species of diatoms each with unique external skeletons spanning no larger than a 10th of a millimetre the secrets of Diatoms seem to be infinite. 

“Scientists Bart Van de Vijver discovered and described his 300th species -Halamphora ausloosiana. Like three-quarters of the species Van de Vijver has discovered, H ausloosiana comes from the waters around the South Pole. He is one of the lucky people who get to do fieldwork in one of the most untouched places on Earth: the Antarctic,” the media reported. 

Responding on the evolutionary uses of the skeletons of Diatoms Van de Vijver admitted “I don’t have a clue,” Van de Vijver admits. “Every day I’m stunned by the incredible variety of shapes, forms and patterns that they possess”.  

“For the shapes, however, I can make a guess. All plankton needs to be very buoyant, so they require some necessary structures,” Van de Vijver concluded. 

The uses of skeleton structure in ocean microorganism signals probably to evolutionary necessary uses such as navigation, transportation, mobilization,buoyancy, protection, evolutive competitive issues and other basic needs for survival in the ocean environment

“Diatoms consume 70 million tons of carbon from the world’s oceans daily,”CSIC the organization who assures that it took massive mountain chains rise for one of the smallest but most significant organism on the world to spring to it numbers ended it.