Recently, a group of marine worms
have been found off the coast of the North Island of New Zealand. These worms are burrowing into the sediment
at the bottom of the ocean. The tunnels that they create provide an escape
route for methane that is stuck in and beneath this sediment. Methane is known
as the simplest hydrocarbon with a chemical formula of CH4. Methane is also a “greenhouse gas”, this
means it traps the earth’s heat and adds to global warming. However,
researchers at Oregon State University have found that most of this methane is
not being released into the atmosphere. How is this possible? Bacteria in the
water consume the methane and it then becomes converted to carbon dioxide or,
CO2. These waters also happen to be rich with oxygen, and since the
oxygen allows the worms to breathe more and therefore consume more bacteria,
the habitat is becoming dominated by the presence of both the methane and
oxygen. While the bacteria are keeping the levels of methane admitted into the
atmosphere low, there is a chance that the worms will deplete the bacteria
population and the methane will be released into the atmosphere at a incredible
rate.
Learn More at: http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/46311
since the bacteria are playing a major role in this case, it would be quite dangerous if the worms depopulate the bacteria by consuming way too many of them. However, I also belief that if there is more for the bacteria to feed off of, there would be more chance for the bacterial to survive and reproduce more. Hopefully the number of worms and bacteria would be balance.
ReplyDeleteWow, this sounds pretty cool- in a bad way I guess. But since these bacteria are obviously so crucial to the environment, is there a way we can increase their production? Like maybe cultivate them in a lab or something? And what if we found a way to somehow use them to slow global warming outside of the ocean, like feeding them to plants? I hope something like this is possible! It would be similar to how people feed chemicals to plants to help the soil, I guess. But to me this seems like a great breakthrough in global warming!
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting and natural predicament. These creatures should be monitored and not tampered with in order to observe how nature deals with carbon and methane problems like this by itself. It opens us up to the perspective that increasing carbon emissions may not be only because of us; rather, small and mostly unknown processes like this adding to a global rise. These worms could be implemented for a number of experiments, such as providing a healthy environment for other worms or maybe even killing off bad bacteria on land and in the sea. Since bacteria inhabit so many spaces in this world this is not a singularity to be overlooked or negatively tampered with. It also leads you to wonder how many of these formations are on the Earth, and how many contribute to the rising emissions that have been trending lately? Another subject of concern is whether or not this is near a shipping or fishing zone, which could greatly skew results of a potential experiment as well as wreck the habitat.
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