Pelagic plastic items are commonly colonized by a diversity of encrusting and fouling animals. Most of these are sessile, hard-shelled or crustose organisms and dominated by moss animals (bryozoans). Also included are barnacles, tube worms, foraminifera, coralline algae, hydroids and bivalve molluscs.
Aggregations of marine debris can provide habitats suiting the larval and juvenile stages of numerous marine organisms. They may also attract free-living, ocean-roaming predators that often gather under fish aggregating devices, and where others simply sought a protective haven.
Example of colonization and encrustation on plastic debris from the New Zealand coastline:
(a) Heavy and varied colonization of a plastic slab recovered (note the hard bodied encrustations and soft fleshy epibionts.
(b) Cuttings from a tangled mass of synthetic rope, carrying a cargo of the warm-water Indo-Pacific oyster, Lopha cristagalli, a species that is alien to New Zealand waters.
(d) Small bryozoan colony (Galeopsis mimicus) attached to a frayed plastic flake (arrowed) recovered from a depth of 393 m off the east coast shelf off the South Island. scale bar 0,2 mm.
During a visual exploration in the north-western Mediterranea using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) a noticeable level of anthropogenic impact was observed in all studied zones,with 158 recorded artificial objects of various types detected.
Different types of anthropogenic impacts observed:
Majuro Lagoon is located in Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. And despite it looks like a tropical heaven, it has some of the biggest densities of macro debris.
The standing stock of macro-debris in Majuro lagoon ranges from household items such as cans and bottles which accumulate on the reef or in sandy areas, to nappies/diapers, plastic and material which cling and suffocate coral and other benthic organisms.
Derelict fishing lines and other gear are often covering structurally complex biota such as sponges, gorgonians or corals which suffer broken parts and may be more susceptible to infections and eventually die.
This is Where the International Space Station Will Go to Die
The cold void of the ocean floor is the closest thing Earthlings can come to the conditions of space. Nothing really lives there, and nothing ever visits. It’s freezing, dark and empty. However, off the coast of New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean is home to what may be the most exclusive scientific burial ground in the world: the so-called Spacecraft Cemetery has become the final resting place for hundreds of manmade space objects. Read more.
Ohhh so the Southern Pacific Ocean is the midden of countries as US, Russian, Japan and UE?
Let me tell you that the deep sea is the habitat of many unknown yet species. Is not a desert place, in fact is full of life, with rich biodiversity still waiting for being discovered!
A better idea, why these countries, who are in the Northern Hemisphere put their trash in their oceans? or better, why they don’t take responsibility of their spacecraft trash”? Like in the Mediterranean, who is full of marine trash?
Brisingid starfish, brittle stars and chrinoids on an old barrel
A large brisingid starfish is accompanied by numerous brittle stars and chrinoids on a discarded barrel on the seafloor offshore Olympic National Park at 2315 m depth.
Photo taken by ROPOS, which is operated by the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility./ Ocean Networks Canada flickr
In April 2019, in response to a community-based sanctuary nomination, NOAA announced its intent to designate a new national marine sanctuary in New York’s eastern Lake Ontario.
The proposed sanctuary would celebrate the area’s unique history and heritage and provide a national stage for promoting tourism and recreation.
NOAA welcomes your input about the proposal during the public comment period which ends tomorrow! To learn how you can submit your comments, visit: https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/lake-ontario/.
(Photo: Nick Zachar/NOAA. Image description: A diver shines a light on a submerged shipwreck.)
Both were filled at the same time with the same water, only one had oysters.
Fun Fact: Oysters are so tolerant that they can accumulate toxins from Harmful Algal Blooms like red tide, leading to illnesses with fun sounding names like Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (saxitoxin, which is 1000 times more potent than sarin nerve gas based on the LD50), Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning (brevetoxin, produced by Karenia brevis “red tide”), and Diarrhetic Shellfish poisoning (okadaic acid produced by Dinophysis algae). Gotta love it.
It’s funny how much media and sometimes even science of the past acted like animals had secret, impossible, possibly psychic senses and instincts but like
Some animals can navigate because they’ve literally got magnetic materials in them. They’ve just got compasses. In their guts.
Ants and other “swarming” insects don’t have any kind of shared mind they just communicate very very fast at their small size.
Some cephalopods just watch the world through their transparent eggshells as they develop and memorize the behavior of potential prey.
Fish schools communicate among one another by farting.
Ant communication:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150828081312.htm (this is just some newer research into it, we’ve actually known a fairly long time they’re just very good at chemical communication; the whole “hive mind” thing was always a sci-fi cliche)
Bacillaria paxillifer, AKA the carpenter’s rule diatom.
This diatom is unique in that it can slide and retract relatively quickly using a mucilage layer. They’re fun to watch!
Exactly why they do this is so far unknown. My hypothesis is that they do this to dislodge clumps of sediment or organic detritus that have fallen on top of them. Since diatoms are photosynthetic, it would make sense to try and get rid of of stuff that blocks out the light.
The Psychedelic Medusa is a deep-sea hydrozoan that is abundant in the North Pacific. The mini-jelly is found at depths between 1000m to 3800m, and are often observed drifting near the ocean floor. It also has an eccentric reproduction behavior uncommon in cnidarians. The females display viviparity, and carry the babies in her bell until they are ready to hatch.
At the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, the underwater landscape is littered with angular fragments of basalt that were the remnants of an old lava lake. This is a region that was once filled with hot lava and eventually drained. As the ROV Doc Ricketts flew by this area, researchers could see evidence of this cooling and draining in the stacked horizontal layers. The platy horizontal layers of basaltic lava along the back wall were once part of a solid platy surface layer of basalt covering a molten lake of lava. As this molten lava drained, a new top surface was exposed, and a new horizontal platy layer was formed. The pillars were actually created by seawater—as hot magma flowed into the lake during the eruption, some water was trapped below. Being less dense, this water escaped upward through the lava, solidifying tubes of basalt on its ascent. We call these “pit and pillar” features.
