"Diversity of Brachyuran crabs caught using Fyke net on Selected Mangrove-dominated tidal creeks in Barangay Jose P. Laurel, Panabo City."

They are the subject for the research paper, and the thesis of Mr. Arzelo Rivas, a fourth year BS Biology student of University of Southeastern Philippines Obrero, Davao City.

Little clams play big part in keeping seagrass ecosystems healthy, new study finds

Sometimes it’s the little things that matter most. That’s definitely the case for endangered and threatened seagrass ecosystems according to a new study. Little clams living in the soil of seagrass beds consume toxic sulfides that accumulate in the silty sediments and turn what should be a toxic soup into a healthy aquatic environment where communities of fish, clams and shrimp thrive.

 

 

 

 

Suspended Sediments - Monitor suspended sediments: single point and profile measurements

The study, a collaboration between a University of Florida researcher and a team of Netherland scientists, appears in the June 15 edition of the journal Science.

“Seagrass meadows are buffers against pollution and erosion that can damage the coast,” said Brian Silliman, the UF associate professor of biology who co-authored the study. “They also serve as nurseries for a variety of important fishery species and support healthy coral reef communities by absorbing nutrients and reducing turbidity.”

In short, seagrass meadows do a lot of the ecological heavy lifting along the coastal shelves where they exist. But the same speed bump action that buffers the shoreline from incoming waves also causes free floating organic debris and dead leaves of seagrass to settle in the underwater meadows. As the debris settles and decomposes, it blankets the soil with a sulfide offgassing layer of marine humus. Left to fester, the sulfides build up in the sediments and become toxic to the grass. But in most seagrass meadows throughout the world, they don’t – and for decades scientists have wondered why.

Lucinid clams live in the silty soil of a seagrass meadow

Silliman and his team suspected that clams belonging to the Lucinidae lineage might be playing a role. Lucinid clams are known to host bacteria in their gills that oxidize sulfides in the water and convert it to energy that sustains the mollusk.

The team tested their theory in laboratories at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. They grew containers of seagrass in aquariums and monitored the rise in sulfide levels as leaves of grass died and accumulated in the tank. The researchers then introduced clams into half of the containers and noted that sulfide levels began to drop relative to tanks without clams.

Satisfied with the results of their experiment, the team began to look for hard evidence that what they saw in the lab was representative of what happens in nature. They analyzed data from 84 studies describing fauna of seagrass beds in 83 sites around the world and found Lucinid clams in 97 percent of the tropical systems. 

“Finding the clams in 97 percent of the tropical sites shows that this is a globally important interaction that supports the foundation of seagrasses,” Silliman said.

The researchers calculated that at least 40 percent of the variation in grass growth across expansive meadows of seagrasses could be directly attributed to the abundance of Lucinid clams.

The more clams, the higher the grasses grow.

The study is an important one because it clearly shows that preserving natural interactions between species is vital to success when seagrass beds or other habitats are being restored, said Tjisse van der Heide, the study’s lead author from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Making sure the little clams are present when new seagrass is planted could give a new meadow a big advantage, he said.

Internal cellular sensors make Salmonella dangerous: study

Salmonella bacteria (in green) are engulfed by immune system cell called a macrophage. The direct threat from the immune cell activates genes that trigger the organism to become virulent and dangerous to the host

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(Phys.org) -- Salmonella becomes dangerously virulent only when molecular sensors within the organism sense changes in the environment, a team of researchers from the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale Microbial Diversity Institute report in the June 14 issue of the journal Nature.

 

Immunogenicity Testing - Episcreen T cell assay technology for biologics 

Other dangerous pathogens probably possess analogous sensors to activate virulence genes and cause maladies such as food poisoning and tuberculosis, the authors suggest. This mechanism may present a novel target for drugs that can disarm bacteria’s ability to cause disease, said Eduardo A. Groisman, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the Yale School of Medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

“There will never be a world without Salmonella because it exists in many, many animal reservoirs,” Groisman said. “So you can try to avoid getting Salmonella or learn how to fight it.  Hundreds of thousands of people die from Salmonella poisoning each year, and tens of millions of people are infected. It is a major public health issue.”

Groisman and Eun-Jin Lee of Yale investigated whether signals from outside the bacteria triggered one of its virulence genes. The researchers meticulously tracked the molecular chain reaction that occurs after Salmonella becomes engulfed by macrophages, immune system cells that respond to bacterial invaders. Salmonella then can reproduce rapidly, often overwhelming defenses of the host.

The Nature paper discovers that it is not the direct threat from the environment itself that triggers the virulence gene within the bacterium. Instead, changes in the level of acidity in Salmonella’s surroundings trigger an increase in levels of ATP, the energy currency of all cells. It is the change in ATP levels within the organism that activates virulence factors and enables Salmonella to survive within its host.

This internal sensor acts in concert with several other factors necessary before these bacteria can become virulent, Groisman said. Understanding all these processes should help scientists develop defenses against infectious diseases, he adds.

Philippine Eagles Facing Extinction, Deforestation Main Cause

By Henrylito D. Tacio

Davao 1 August 2009. Visitors, both foreigners and locals, who come to Davao City for the first time, are almost always attracted to the Philippine Eagle Center in Malagos, Calinan. Some 30 kilometers northwest and about an hour’s ride from downtown Davao, the center is the transient home of the Philippine eagle. Here, a dozen male and female eagles are being induced to breed in captivity.

Pag-asa, the first tropical eagle conceived through artificial insemination, just celebrated his 17th birthday last January 15. The bird was given the name Pag-asa, which is the Tagalog word for hope. “Pag-asa connotes hope for the continued survival of the Philippine eagle, hope that if people get together for the cause of the eagle, it shall not be doomed to die,” said Dennis Salvador, the executive director of Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF).

PEF manages the eagle center. A private, non-stock organization, it is dedicated to saving the endangered bird. “By using the Philippine eagle as the focal point of conservation, we are, in the process, saving wildlife and their habitat,” said Salvador.

The Philippines is among the world’s seventeen “megadiversity” countries, which together account for some 60-70 of total global biodiversity. The World Conservation Union has identified the country as one of the most endangered of the world’s biodiversity “hotspots” -- threatened areas with very high levels of biodiversity.

 

 The Philippine eagle is one of the most endangered species in the country. According to Salvador, the reason for this was due to massive deforestation. “Deforestation is terrible,” he pointed out. “The Philippine eagle has become a  critically endangered species because the loss of the forest had made it lose its natural habitat.”

Forest covered 57 percent (or 17.1 million hectares) of the total land area of the country in 1934. By 1990, this has been substantially reduced to 6.1 million hectares. Today, only about 800,000 hectares of the remaining area is classified as primary forest.

At the eagle center, visitors can see more than a dozen eagles, some of which were rescued after they were trapped or shot. PEF aims someday to release birds back into its natural habitat. “If time will come that we have enough stocks, where shall we release them” Salvador asked. “And how will the eagles sighted in the wild survive if factors which threaten their lives continue to haunt them?”

Pag-asa, the first tropical eagle conceived through artificial insemination, celebrated its 17th birthday.

 

The principal causes of deforestation in the Philippines are logging (both legal and illegal), shifting cultivation (locally known as kaingin farming), and forest fires, as well as conversion to agricultural lands and human settlements. About 20 million people currently live in upland areas, where most of the forests are located.

General Charles Lindberg, a well-known aviator, spearheaded a drive to save the bird which he described as “the world’s noblest flier” from 1969 to 1972. Within this time frame, several helpful laws were passed.

During the time of the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos, he declared the bird – which is bigger than the American Bald eagle – as the national bird. This brought the bird to the top of the priority list of Philippine wildlife conservation efforts. If the national bird dies, so will all the country’s efforts at conserving its natural resources and treasures, Ramos said at that time.

Deforestration in Philippines

 The eagle center has been doing its best to educate the Filipino people as to the importance of the bird and its habitat. Its facility was actually opened to the public in 1988 to raise awareness among those who visit the center. Majority of its visitors are children on school-sponsored field trips. “Many of these children came from all over Mindanao,” Salvador said. “We use the opportunity in telling them the importance of wildlife conservation. Our mode of dissemination ranges from providing lectures, slide and film presentations, to guide tours.”

A painting of the endangered Philippine Eagle.

 Foreigners and adults also visit the center. “Knowing what they are doing and how the birds are faring is one of the highlights of my visit to Davao,” said Melvin O. Uy Matiao, an information technology specialist from Dumaguete.

The Philippine eagle was formerly known as monkey-eating eagle (its generic name, Pithecophaga, comes from the Greek words pithekos or monkey and phagein meaning eater). It was later renamed the Philippine eagle by Presidential Decree No. 1732 in 1978 after it was learned that monkeys comprise an insignificant portion of its diet, which consists mainly of flying lemurs, civet cats, bats, rodents, and snakes.

The eagle stands a meter high, weighs anything from four to seven kilograms and has a grip three times the strength of the strongest man on earth. With a wing span of nearly seven feet and a top speed at 80 kilometers per hour, it can carry unsuspecting monkey and carry it off without breaking flight.

Unlike most animals and humans, Philippine eagles are monogamous and bond for life. Once an eagle reaches sexual maturity – at around five years for females and seven years for males – it is bound for life with its mate. They can be seen soaring in pairs in the skies.

The female eagle lays once every two years. The breeding season ranges as early as July to as late as February. During the breeding season, the eagles do aerial courtship and mate in the nest or near it. Female eagle lays only one egg. Both parents alternately incubate the egg for about 60 days, although the female spends more time incubating while the male hunts.

Upon hatching, the eaglet remains in the nest for about five and half months. Once it fledges, the eagle parents will continue to look after its young for as long as 17 to 18 months teaching the young eagle how to fly, hunt, and to survive on its own. The young eagle matures in about six years.

The Philippine eagle is truly a Filipino pride. This is the reason why they have to be protected and saved from disappearance in our land. If only Philippine eagle could speak, these would be his pleading:

“I have watched forests disappear, rivers dry up, floods ravage the soil, droughts spawn uncontrolled fires, hundreds of my forest friends vanish forever and men leave the land because it was no longer productive. I am witness to the earth becoming arid. I know all life will eventually suffer and die if this onslaught continues. I am a story teller, and I want you to listen before it’s too late.”

 Please, listen!

DNA used as rewritable data storage in cells

DNA used as rewritable data storage in cells

They aren’t yet competition for Intel, but bioengineers have created a one-bit “memory” made of DNA that can record, erase and rewrite data within living cells.

One day, doctors might be able to insert such devices into a cancer patient to tally how many times a cell divides and flag when to shut the cancer down. Or researchers might track exactly what happens inside cells as they age.

The work is a step forward in synthetic biology, a new field in which scientists create tools to control life’s basics from the cell on up.

“We can write and erase DNA in a living cell,” says Jerome Bonnet, a bioengineer at Stanford University. “Now we can bring logic and computation inside a cell itself.”

Bonnet and his colleagues, led by Stanford’s Drew Endy, describe the feat in a paper published online May 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have long dreamed of putting tiny computers inside the body to monitor and perhaps even control what’s going on. But nobody has yet made a silicon-based computer chip small enough to embark on a fantastic computing voyage inside a cell.

So researchers are turning instead to biological tools, such as enzymes and DNA. Some biologists have devised DNA switches that can be turned on and off within a cell. And in 2009, bioengineers reported making a genetic “counter” that could tally the number of times a particular event, like a cell dividing,

But these previous efforts made systems that could write a piece of information only once. Truly useful digital data storage allows the information to be erased and rewritten over and over again, like burning new information onto a CD with each pass. “What we didn’t have is some kind of logic that also has memory,” says Pakpoom Subsoontorn, a graduate student on the team.

The researchers chose DNA as the stuff of memory and used enzymes called recombinases as the tools to flip it on and off. Those enzymes came from bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria. These viruses use one enzyme to integrate into the genome of the bacterium they’re infecting.

This colorful nudibranch is one of the more than 300 new species discovered in the Philippines

Biologist Dr. Terry Gosliner discovered this new species of nudibranch. This brightly colored mollusk has no shell but produces powerful toxins to keep potential predators at bay.

               The survey, headed by the California Academy of Sciences, documented both terrestrial and marine life forms from the tops of the highest mountains to the depths of the sea.

Over the course of the expedition, scientists discovered more than 300 species that are likely new to science, including dozens of new insects and spiders, deep-sea armored corals, ornate sea pens, bizarre new sea urchins and sea stars, a shrimp-eating swell shark, and more than 50 colorful new sea slugs. These discoveries will be confirmed and described over the coming months, as the scientists use both microscopes and DNA sequencing to analyze their specimens.

A Wonderful Discovery in the Philippines

Long regarded for its rich biodiversity, the archipelago that makes up the Philippines is an unsung wonder of the world. Comprised of over 7,000 islands, the Philippines sit on the notorious Pacific Ring of Fire. Being in such close proximity to one of the world’s most active seismic and volcanic regions certainly has its drawbacks, but the silver lining here is the mineral deposits from volcanic activity that result in a stunning variety of life on land and in the sea.

More than 2,400 species of fish and 500 species of coral were known to proliferate the Philippines, but a recent discovery of about 300 new species have brought a new level of excitement to the region. Among the newfound species are sea urchins, starfish, corals, nudibranchs, and sharks. One such species is a newly discovered swellshark, so named for its ability to inflate its stomach with water in order to evade predators. The tactic works best when the swellshark is wedged in a crevice; the inflation of its body makes it difficult for predators to remove it from the small space. This particular swellshark differs from its cousins in that it is a deep water creature, whereas other swellshark species are often found in shallow reef waters.

Another amazing discovery was that of a starfish that feeds exclusively on submerged driftwood, in addition to roughly 20 other new species of starfish and urchins. More than 50 new species of nudibranchs were recorded, and animals that were previously undetected due to their diminutive size were written into the history books during this 6-week study in the Philippine region.

The expedition was conducted by the California Academy of Sciences and the University of the Philippines, with assistance from the National Museum of the Philippines. Scientists from the Steinhart Aquarium, located in San Francisco, CA, collected samples and species to be brought back and added to their Philippine reef display, in order to further educate people about the special nature of the Philippines and the life that exists there. The process is meticulous, from permitting to extraction, to ensure the reef is not harmed. The Steinhart Aquarium houses the coconut octopus, which is indigenous to the Philippine region, and is the only place in the US to have one. The Academy is one of the few institutions that is allowed to extract reef species, as the area is protected by law.