The Story
“Neither Plants nor Animals, These Ocean Organisms Protect Their Ecosystems against Heat Waves”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neither-plants-nor-animals-these-ocean-organisms-protect-their-ecosystems/
by Ian Rose
Scientific American, April 17, 2024
The Pitch
[Editor Name Removed],
I hope this pitch finds some interest there. Let me know if you have any questions.
Over the last few decades, several unprecedented marine heat waves have hit the world’s oceans, particularly the polar and subpolar seas, where warming is accelerating most quickly. The Gulf of Alaska experienced an extreme heat wave in 2019, impacting both wildlife and fisheries. A new study in the journal Aquatic Microbial Ecology shows how some tiny, adaptable creatures in the water column kept the heat wave’s effects from being even worse.
Mixotrophs are organisms that can get their food from photosynthesis or chemosynthesis as well as consuming prey in their environment. Their importance in marine ecosystems has been well established (and reported on in Scientific American in 2018), but we are only now starting to understand how they respond to rapid heating. In the attached paper, researchers from Western Washington University, led by Dr. Suzanne Strom, show that mixotrophs increase as a proportion of the plankton community during heat waves. When both pure autotrophs and pure heterotrophs struggle, the animals that can do both survive better, and in turn, maintain the foundation of subarctic food webs that could otherwise collapse.
The 2018 piece is a great explainer on mixotrophy in general. I think coverage of this new study and the context of heat waves and ocean warming could be a great update to it. I have been in touch with Dr. Strom already, and would interview both her and other subarctic food web and climate experts for a story on how important trophic flexibility is to these systems.
Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for your time. Have a good day.
Ian