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build out interactive food web activity using site and word doc on this file: https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1525-build-a-marine-food-web "Build_a_marine_food_web.doc"

To understand the importance of elements to nutrition. Of the approximately 115 elements known, only the 19 highlighted in purple in Figure 1.26 are absolutely required in the human diet. These elements-called essential elements-are restricted to the first four rows of the periodic table (see Chapter 32 "Appendix H: Periodic Table of Elements"), with only two or three exceptions (molybdenum, iodine, and possibly tin in the fifth row). Some other elements are essential for specific organisms. For example, boron is required for the growth of certain plants, bromine is widely distributed in marine organisms, and tungsten is necessary for some microorganisms.

The short film opens with two questions: "So what determines how many species live in a given place? Or how many individuals of the species can live somewhere?" The research that provided answers to these questions was set in motion by key experiments by ecologists Robert Paine and James Estes. Robert Paine's starfish exclusion experiments on the coast of Washington state showed that removing starfish from this marine ecosystem has a big impact on the population sizes of other species, establishing the starfish as a keystone species. James Estes and colleague John Palmisano discovered that the kelp forest ecosystems of the North Pacific are regulated by the presence or absence of sea otters, which feed on sea urchins that consume kelp. These direct and indirect effects of sea otters on other species describe a trophic cascade. These early studies were the inspiration for hundreds of investigations on other keystone species and trophic cascades, as well as ongoing studies into the regulation of population sizes and species numbers.

The groundwater is cold, deep and twice as salty as seawater, but the water streaming out of Blood Falls, which teems with microbes, tells us that it is unlikely to be lifeless. "The fact that the [water] contains metabolically active micro-organisms that appear to be suited to life in a dark, cold brine supports the idea that life should persist throughout the subsurface," says Mikucki. If so, those microbes could be fuelling life in the Southern Ocean. By breaking down iron-containing rocks they might be dumping as much as 170 million kilograms of iron into the ocean each year, according to the researchers' estimates, helping to explain why marine productivity is seasonally very high near to the coast.

Vibrio harveyi is a marine bacteria that emits light only at high population density. The bacterial bioluminescence is controlled by a system called quorum sensing. In this system, signaling molecules are secreted, and when they bind to cell surface receptors, they turn on many genes, including those that produce bioluminescence.

At first glance, the research of Bonnie Bassler and Baldomero "Toto" Olivera might not appear to be medical at all. Dr. Bassler works on marine bacteria that glow in the dark, while Dr. Olivera studies venomous snails that hunt by harpooning fish. Yet their findings show what science has revealed time and again-knowledge that can be used to unlock medical secrets is often hidden in unlikely places. Nature has much to teach us, as long as we know where to look and what to look for. Join us for a four-lecture series as Bonnie and Toto guide us through intriguing slices of the natural world revealing how a deeper understanding of nature and biodiversity informs their research into new medicines.

The Hawaiian Bobtail squid has a remarkable symbiotic relationship with a species of marine bacteria that can produce light by a controlled chemical reaction. Also featured on the HHMI DVD, Exploring Biodiversity: The Search for New Medicines, available free from HHMI.

The most venomous animal on the planet isn't a snake, a spider, or a scorpion; it's a snail-a cone snail, to be precise. The Conus genus boasts a large variety of marine snails that have adopted an equally diverse assortment of venoms. Online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report an especially interesting addition to the animals' arsenal: insulin. According to the paper, this marks the first time insulin has been discovered as a component of venom.

This groundbreaking NRDC documentary explores the startling phenomenon of ocean acidification, which may soon challenge marine life on a scale not seen for tens of millions of years. The film, featuring Sigourney Weaver, originally aired on Discovery Planet Green.

This groundbreaking NRDC documentary explores the startling phenomenon of ocean acidification, which may soon challenge marine life on a scale not seen for tens of millions of years. The film, featuring Sigourney Weaver, originally aired on Discovery Planet Green.

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - Radiation from Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster has spread off North American shores and contamination is increasing at previously identified sites, although levels are still too low to threaten human or ocean life, scientists said on Thursday. Tests of hundreds of samples of Pacific Ocean water confirmed that Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant continues to leak radioactive isotopes more than four years after its meltdown, said Ken Buesseler, marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.