{"id":46849,"date":"2025-03-07t15:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-07t15:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?p=46849"},"modified":"2025-03-07t16:15:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07t16:15:24","slug":"bug-bacteria-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/bug-bacteria-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"bugs and bacteria: how one northwestern lab tracks climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

what do mud, bugs, and cyanobacteria all have in common? they can teach us a lot about climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

at northwestern university\u2019s quaternary sediment laboratory, ph.d. students working with professor yarrow axford analyze cores of sediment taken out of lakes from illinois to greenland. cut in half and laid in pvc, upon first glance the mud looks pretty nondescript. but, on closer inspection, it\u2019s a sediment layer cake full of climate clues. a five-foot sediment sample can span tens of thousands of years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ph.d. student mia tuccillo said that as the earth\u2019s climate rapidly warms, \u201cgoing into the past is really powerful, because if you can understand what happened in the past, you can better understand what might happen in the future.\u201d you can also recognize the accelerating pace of climate change now.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

tuccillo\u2019s ph.d. research focuses on the climate clues in the cores, but she also studies the impacts of climate on ecosystems and drinking water quality in greenland\u2019s indigenous communities. by looking at the sediment samples, tuccillo found that cyanobacteria, a type of bacteria also known as blue-green algae, increased in greenland\u2019s lakes 5,000 years ago \u2014 when temperatures were much warmer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the existence of cyanobacteria in sediment cores indicates anoxic events in lakes, which effectively cut off oxygen for fish. some types can even be toxic. tuccillo said that today, a lake she studies in greenland is undergoing an increase in potentially toxic cyanobacteria never seen before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201ctoday, as we\u2019re going into a period of really intense warming, it kind of allows us to predict what might happen in these small lakes,\u201d she said. \u201cthese are lakes that people drink from, these are lakes that people fish from, and an anoxic environment is very bad for ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ph.d. student aidan burdick doesn\u2019t study the sediment itself, but the critters fossilized in it. in sediment samples from new england, he catalogues the exoskeletons of fly larvae called chironomids under a microscope, leafing through a guidebook to determine what species they are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthere is a really strong link globally between where different species live and what the temperature is,\u201d he said. \u201cif it gets too cold, they\u2019ll move. so basically, the community of flies for a given temperature will look really different.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

burdick said he finds 70 to 300 chironomids per sample. he records the numbers and types of chironomids into a database, which synthesizes the information to produce temperature estimates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cit\u2019s pretty bizarre, but it actually works really well and it allows us to answer a lot of interesting questions about climate,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

burdick said north america goes understudied by scientists, as they typically seek grants for more \u201cexotic places.\u201d his samples, because they are from new england, demonstrate the effects of the laurentide ice sheet melting in canada at the end of the last glacial period. the ice sheet covered much of north america in ice a mile thick as far south as st. louis. as it rapidly melted it gushed freshwater into the atlantic ocean, disrupting ocean circulation and causing cold temperatures in the northern hemisphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthere is some evidence that a similar type of phenomenon might be happening with the melting of the greenland ice sheet,\u201d he said. \u201cand while that might not be as extreme as it was 12,000 years ago, it might be kind of an analog for how that region could respond to these changes if they were to also happen in the future.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

burdick and tuccillo\u2019s sediment research offers quantitative data for models that predict climate change. however, tuccillo said working directly with indigenous communities in greenland is just as important, as their experiences inform her research questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthere\u2019s a lot of people that want to talk to you,\u201d she said. \u201cthe field work is so much more than just like, collecting samples. it\u2019s also kind of like a cultural immersion, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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