14 DAY TRIAL // Marine biologists use the terms “marine snow” to depict small aggregates of organic matter, which tend to float around on the surface of liquid water bodies ranging from lakes to oceans. These microscopic structures have in a new study been found to provide a safe heaven, and a shelter, for microorganisms such as pathogens, which can resist in these environments more than they would otherwise survive on their own. The study holds considerable promise for experts, who may soon become able to produce computer models that account for how waterborne infections get passed on to humans.
The new investigation was conducted by researchers at the Old Dominion University (ODU), who were led by scientist Maille Lyons. The group's efforts were supported through an Ecology of Infectious Diseases (EID) grant, which is being co-sponsored by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Details of their investigation were recently published in the latest issue of the esteemed scientific journal Aquatic Microbial Ecology.
During the investigation, the ODU team also produced the first comparison between the way pathogens and other infectious microorganisms endure in marine snow and how insects, amphibians and other creatures manage to survive on desolate and remote oceanic islands. The area of science dealing with analyzing the factors that influence the diversity and richness of species on islands is called island biogeography. Some of the theories this field contains can also be applied to microscopic drifting aggregates, Lyons, who was also the lead author of the new paper, explains.
“These predictions help explain whether and for how long bacteria can thrive on an individual aggregate, and the relationship between the size of the aggregate and the diversity of species found on it,” the expert says. “This study shows that theory developed for the 'macroscopic' world applies equally to the microscopic one. It allows scientists to link the small to the large, and to provide predictive tools for understanding disease transmission,” explains the NSF Division of Environmental Biology program director Sam Scheiner. This organization co-funded the NSF contribution to the EID grant together with the Foundation's Directorate for Geosciences.