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Brit Tourists Banned From Spain Holiday Beaches After Horror Sea Creatures Spotted

Red flags - banning bathers - have gone up at both Tamarit beach and Altafulla beach, which close to the east coast Spanish city of Tarragona, after the potentially deadly Portuguese man o'war were seen

Portuguese man o'war have appeared on the beaches (

Image: SOLARPIX.COM)

Tourists have been banned from going in the water at two beaches in Spain after the appearance of dangerous sea creatures, whose sting can be deadly.

Red flags - banning bathers - have gone up at both Tamarit beach and Altafulla beach, which close to the east coast Spanish city of Tarragona, after a deluge of Portuguese man o'war. The dangerous jellyfish-like animals have become more common off the Spanish coast in recent years, with seven people stung off Benidorm in June 2019, resulting in three beaches facing temporary closures.

The same month Naomi Mateos, 22, was left with excruciating marks all over her body after being stung by one of the creatures while she was swimming at Punta de Calnegre beach in the south-east province of Murcia. She said after a two-day stay in hospital: "I felt as if fire or acid was being injected into my body."

Tourist can't enter the water at Altafulla beach (

Image:

SOLARPIX.COM)

The Portuguese man o'war is often called a jellyfish but is actually a species of siphonophore, a group of animals that are closely related to jellyfish. Their tentacles are loaded with coiled, barbed tubes that deliver venom capable of paralysing and killing small fish and crustaceans. Although they are rarely deadly they can be dangerous to children, elderly people, asthmatics and people with allergies as they can cause fever, shock and respiratory distress.

Portuguese man o'war (

Image:

SOLARPIX.COM)

Last week a Portuguese man o'war was spotted off the coast of the Brit-popular holiday resort of San Antonio in Ibiza. Barcelona-based marine biologist Josep Maria Gili said after the sighting: "There have not been any recorded deaths from their stings in Spain but there has been in Sicily and Sardinia. Beaches have to be closed if a single Portuguese man o'war is spotted."

Plankton: Why These Tiny Creatures Are The 'building Blocks Of Life In The Sea'

This week at the Oceanarium, I was stopped short while explaining that the eggs from a crab hatch into larval stages and become plankton. The question that stopped me was, "What is plankton?"

Now, my husband has often ribbed me about being caught up in science speak and forgetting that not everyone knows what I am talking about. While I strive to explain things succinctly, sometimes I slip up.

So, what is plankton? NOAA states, "An organism is considered plankton if it is carried by tides and currents and cannot swim well enough to move against these forces."

Isopods dart around in their tank at the Oceanarium in Hampton Beach.

If you have ever glanced at a tidepool or seaweed floating at the tide line, you have probably noticed tiny things darting about. Some people describe them as baby shrimp or insect-like, both good descriptions. Plankton comes in all sizes and shapes, from microscopic to several inches. Some larger jellyfish are considered planktonic. Plankton are the building blocks of life in the sea. Everything depends on them.

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that can be as small as one cell. They contain chlorophyll, which allows them to photosynthesize. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants make sugars (their food), and in doing so, they use carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the water.

Holy mola! Check out video of ocean sunfish spotted off Hampton Beach

Today, I was listening to the BBC news, and they were reporting that most of the world's oxygen is produced by photosynthesis in the world's oceans. I can honestly say I hadn't thought about this recently, but it makes complete sense. Since phytoplankton need the sun's rays to produce energy, they are usually found close to the surface of the water.

Now, zooplankton are animals. They feed on nutrients in the water, phytoplankton and other zooplankton.

The two major types of zooplankton we see in our tidepools here are crustaceans (in the same family as crabs and lobsters) called amphipods and isopods. Most of these are considered macroplankton due to their size (from ¾ of an inch to 8 inches). Amphipods look a little like tiny seahorses, or tiny shrimp swimming like sea horses. They are flattened side to side. Isopods look like those insects we see in the dirt as kids that we called pill bugs or roly polys. They are segmented and flattened from top to bottom. Both plankton play a huge role in keeping our ocean ecosystem healthy. Most zooplankton sink towards the bottom of the ocean during the day, and at night they migrate towards the surface and feed on phytoplankton. NOAA says this is considered the largest migration on Earth and can be seen from space!

More: Basking shark spotted off Hampton Beach: Check out the video

Most animals, both invertebrates (such as crustaceans like crabs, lobsters, and shrimp, and mollusks like clams, mussels, scallops, and snails) and vertebrates (including all bony fish), lay thousands of eggs at a time. These eggs hatch into larval stages, which make up a significant portion of the plankton in our oceans.

Most animals have several larval stages before they grow into something that looks like the adult animal they will become. With invertebrates, out of several thousand eggs, about 3 to 5 will live to be adults. The rest are part of the food chain. That is how the oceans work. To ensure the survival of their species, the marine animals lay thousands of eggs and as a byproduct, ensure survival of everything else by providing plankton for food.

Amphipods are seen in the water at the Oceanarium in Hampton Beach.

We always have any number of plankton in our tanks at the Oceanarium, microscopic and macroscopic. You can observe amphipods hanging perpendicular in the water around the seaweed and isopods darting about. We monitor the females with eggs as they mature, and then, miraculously, their eggs hatch overnight, filling the tank with tiny juvenile amphipods.

My two junior biologists, James and PJ, brought in a few isopods from the tidepools a couple of weeks ago. They were curious about them as they hadn't seen this species before. They have more hours of observation in tidepools than any scientist I know. I was able to identify them as isopods, but that is as far as I could go on the spur of the moment. NOAA estimates that there are 10,000 species of isopods worldwide, about half of them found in every ocean and estuary in the world! The largest isopods are found in the abyss and can reach over 3 feet in length! Honestly, I would not want to meet one of those live and in person!

Some of the largest plankton are krill and feed the largest of animals, baleen whales.

My first foray into the scientific world was a job sexing Jassa falcata (a tiny amphipod) under a microscope. I had to count the eggs on the gravid (pregnant) females. This job convinced me I was not cut out for that kind of work. I just couldn't envision myself spending my life over a dissecting scope with those tiny animals. My scientific career had to move in a different direction. I had a soft spot for the larger invertebrates, and I wanted to spend my life studying live specimens, not animals preserved in alcohol!

Ellen Goethel is a marine biologist and the owner of Explore the Ocean World at 367 Ocean Blvd. At Hampton Beach.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Plankton: The tiny creatures that sustain our oceans

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These Adorable Sea Creatures Play A Key Role In Tracking Climate Change

A surprising technique has helped scientists observe how Earth's oceans are changing, and it's not using specialized robots or artificial intelligence. It's tagging seals.

Several species of seals live around and in Antarctica and regularly dive more than 100 meters in search of their next meal. These seals are experts at swimming through the vigorous ocean currents that make up the Southern Ocean. Their tolerance for deep waters and ability to navigate rough currents make these adventurous creatures the perfect research assistants to help oceanographers like my colleagues and me study the Southern Ocean.

Seal sensors

Researchers have been attaching tags to the foreheads of seals for the past two decades to collect data in remote and inaccessible regions. A researcher tags the seal during mating season when the marine mammal comes to shore to rest, and the tag remains attached to the seal for a year.

A researcher glues the tag to the seal's head – tagging seals does not affect their behavior. The tag detaches after the seal molts and sheds its fur for a new coat each year.

The tag collects data while the seal dives and transmits its location and the scientific data back to researchers via satellite when the seal surfaces for air.

First proposed in 2003, seal tagging has grown into an international collaboration with rigorous sensor accuracy standards and broad data sharing. Advances in satellite technology now allow scientists to have near-instant access to the data collected by a seal.

New scientific discoveries aided by seals

The tags attached to seals typically carry pressure, temperature and salinity sensors, all properties used to assess the ocean's rising temperatures and changing currents. The sensors also often contain chlorophyll fluorometers, which can provide data about the water's phytoplankton concentration.

Phytoplankton are tiny organisms that form the base of the oceanic food web. Their presence often means that animals such as fish and seals are around.

The seal sensors can also tell researchers about the effects of climate change around Antarctica. Approximately 150 billion tons of ice melts from Antarctica every year, contributing to global sea-level rise. This melting is driven by warm water carried to the ice shelves by oceanic currents.

With the data collected by seals, oceanographers have described some of the physical pathways this warm water travels to reach ice shelves and how currents transport the resulting melted ice away from glaciers.

Seals regularly dive under sea ice and near glacier ice shelves. These regions are challenging and can even be dangerous to sample with traditional oceanographic methods.

The amount of excess heat (shown as energy) that the upper ocean (above 700 meters), deep ocean (below 700 meters), atmosphere, and Earth have been taking up has increased over the past few decades. All values are relative to 1971, and uncertainty in the ocean values dominates the total uncertainty (black dotted line).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Across the open Southern Ocean, away from the Antarctic coast, seal data has also shed light on another pathway causing ocean warming. Excess heat from the atmosphere moves from the ocean surface, which is in contact with the atmosphere, down to the interior ocean in highly localized regions. In these areas, heat moves into the deep ocean, where it can't be dissipated out through the atmosphere.

The ocean stores most of the heat energy that is put into the atmosphere by human activity. So, understanding how this heat moves around helps researchers monitor oceans around the globe.

Seal behavior shaped by ocean physics

The seal data also provides marine biologists with information about the seals themselves. Scientists can determine where seals look for food. Some regions, called fronts, are hot spots for elephant seals to hunt for food.

In fronts, the ocean's circulation creates turbulence and mixes water in a way that brings nutrients up to the ocean's surface, where phytoplankton can use them. As a result, fronts can have phytoplankton blooms, which attract fish and seals.

While we traditionally consider the ocean to be blue, it can actually appear green from space because of phytoplankton blooms. Currents can stretch out these blooms, and seals prefer to feed in these locations.

NASA

Scientists use the tag data to see how seals are adapting to a changing climate and warming ocean. In the short term, seals may benefit from more ice melt around the Antarctic continent, as they tend to find more food in coastal areas with holes in the ice. Rising subsurface ocean temperatures, however, may change where their prey is and ultimately threaten seals' ability to thrive.

Seals have helped scientists understand and observe some of the most remote regions on Earth. On a changing planet, seal tag data will continue to provide observations of their ocean environment, which has vital implications for the rest of Earth's climate system.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Lilian Dove at Brown University. Read the original article here.

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