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An unprecedented global assessment revealed 603 wild animals and five taxonomic groups of breeding animals that do more than just inhabiting the earth: they shape it.
Estes “Animal Architects”Literally move their own mountain versions, while small ants and termites build imposing hills and the beams influence the paths of our watercourses.
The study, in PNAS comes the same week as a second investigation, in Nature Communicationswhich focused specifically on the influence of “animal architects” in the depths of water.
According to, through analysis of nuclei taken from the deepest part of the ocean, the researchers verified how excavatorslike the and other invertebrates, move the sediments through a network of tunnels.
Even smaller animals are capable of amazing engineering achievements. Since Bearfish that creates wet zones even Ants that build mounds of earththese various natural processes are crucial, but we risk losing them as biodiversity decreases. ”
Discoveries not only support why it is so important to preserve biodiversityas well as give us options when we try to reshape the landscape.
“” Can take advantage of the power of workers animals like the beaver to make the habitats degraded are what they were again, and this is not the first time that the Value of ecosystem services is recognized.
Imponants of thermal ending in Brazil can be seen from space, but in the deepest part of the ocean there are more subtle signs of engineering.
Here, scientists collected samples and used micro-CT scans To see what was happening at the bottom of the sea, and found traces of animals that bury and feed on the sea bed, shaping the bottom of the ocean.
The “walking colon-like” cucumbers are famous for their ability to dump five Towers Eiffel of Matter by Coral Recife, a kind of ecosystem engineering, known as bioturb.
For animals, it is a way to access resources hidden in the sediment, but has the Beneficial effect of mixing the sediment and remodeling the bottom of the sea.
The impact of bioturbation is practically the same 7.5 kilometers below the ocean surfacewhere the team found that there is a diverse range of excavated life. This includes sea cucumber, polyquettes, bivalves, isopods and gastropods.
This cast of characters has been sucking particles of organic matter in the sediment and moving them as they bury themselves, creating spiral networks of tunnels as they disturb the sediment.
This starts a three -phase processin which opportunistic feeders, those who bury themselves more deeply and the species that feed on microbes rush to see what is offered to them.
The evidence of its activity was observed in sediment nuclei of the Japan pit sediment nuclei in the Pacific Ocean, a region that is in the obscure depths of the Hadal zone.
This ecosystem is a relatively unknown part of the oceanso understanding how excavating animals contribute to the nutrient cycle is a fundamental piece of puzzle ongoing.
What was once thought to be a very sterile part of the marine environment is actually boil of life, creating a self -sustainable system which is constantly recycling organic matter and supporting microbial species that forms the base of the food web.
The findings have great implications for the conservation of these invisible species, especially at a time when deep water mining extraction is a potentially less disturbing means of accessing battery metals, but can threaten numerous species.
Teresa Oliveira Campos, Zap //
