Worldwide scientific adventure on marine environment
Rajarata University participates in global research
activity :
by Dr. Ranjith Edirisinghe
A simultaneous sampling of the world's oceans was the single biggest
attempt to gather information on the marine environment. On June 21,
2014, the summer solstice, thousands of scientists all around the world
joined together to participate in Ocean Sampling Day (OSD), an
international collaboration to study the marine microbial life in the
oceans.
The event, coordinated by the University of Oxford United Kingdom and
the Jacobs University of Germany, encompassed more than 165 marine
research locations, belonged to 40 different countries, from Greenland
to Antarctica and from Moorea (French Polynesia) via the Americas to
Indian and Pacific oceans.
The event enables to gather oceanic data to understand the conditions
of the oceans simultaneously on a single day, like a huge snapshot of
the world's oceans.
 The data generated from the project expresses to the scientists about
the state of the world's marine environment which links to wide range of
topics from the waters' relationship to climate change and global
warming, water current, how fish stocks are changing etc., and also
contributes to on-going research on biologically active organisms that
could one day be used to treat human diseases.
Insights
This simultaneous, sampling campaign of the world's oceans will
provide insights into fundamental rules describing microbial diversity
and function. Microbes are pervasive and can evolve rapidly in response
to changes in the environment and could be used as indicators of changes
in the oceans. In fact, marine microbes are "the canary in the coal
mine" of the marine environment. It is very important to acquire
baseline information from all over the world against which future
changes could be observed and measured.
Further, identification of new microbes and their derived natural
products will also contribute to the identification of novel,
ocean-derived biotechnologies.
Within the water samples, scientists collected, things were so small
that, in most cases, they are invisible to the naked eye.
Some, in fact, are so tiny that up to a million of them can live in
just one millilitre of seawater. They are marine microbes - Bacteria,
Archaea, Eukaryota, and viruses - and they are found everywhere, from
the ocean surface to deep within rocks beneath the ocean floor. These
microbes, nearly invisible items of scientific interest, are living
organisms that make up 98 percent of the biomass in Earth's ocean and
they are responsible for most of the biological activity that takes
place within it.
The Department of Physical Sciences of the Faculty of Applied
Sciences of the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka participated in the
"Ocean Sampling Day" event.
Seawater
The scientists from the Rajarata University collected seawater
samples from sea off Pulmoddai on summer solstice day, June 21, 2014,
and some ocean water quality parameters were measured using defined
scientific procedures.
Further, microbe samples from seawater were extracted into specially
designed filters for further analysis.
The project is very important and highly beneficial to Sri Lankan
scientists to take part in this global research program and work
together with some of the world leading universities and research
institution such as Harvard University (USA), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA-USA), Kyoto University (Japan),
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS-Australia), University of
Auckland (New Zealand), Rothera Research Station (Antarctica, UK) and
University of Bergen (Norway).
In a parallel study, the scientists of the faculty wish to study the
quality and safety of the seawaters around Sri Lanka using the seaweeds
and other macro life forms, which will help understand the marine
seawater status broadly.
The writer is a Senior Lecturer at Rajarata University, Mihintale
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