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It’s hard to count how many times we’ve encountered diatoms on Journey to the Microcosmos. However, we've always talked about the more colorful variety of diatom, and not the ones that are colorless.
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SOURCES:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.749982/full
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1550-7408.2008.00388.x?casa_token=oR-EfSSYCPUAAAAA:dWKXxSfLYWLNl09GGEHxN86OQCLPnH86PUWHdBwgHZDgf7M9BRXvNsKtgWIMFsrk9pns-MJcF8SrZw
https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-46-3-361?crawler=true#R1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982204009327
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9292941/
https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajb2.1267
This episode is sponsored by Manukora Honey. It’s hard to count how many times we have
encountered diatoms on Journey to the Microcosmos. We’ve talked about the beautiful stained
glass homes they build from silica in the ocean. We’ve visited with diatoms that make little
neighborhoods for themselves out of tubes. And we’ve highlighted how their golden chloroplasts
and plentiful numbers make them responsible for a fifth of all the photosynthesis done
on Earth. But you know who isn’t contributing
to that
photosynthesis despite being a diatom? This guy. Now, it might be a little harsh for us to
blame this particular diatom for not being engaged in photosynthesis at the moment. It is, of course, a little occupied with the
fact that it is being consumed in the tendrils of a naked foraminifera. For James, our master of microscopes, this
was an incredible sight because foraminifera are usually shelled, and it’s very hard
to record them feeding. But yes, we understand that for the diatom,
this
might not be one of its finer moments. When that diatom was not being eaten, it looked
a bit more like this. This diatom came as part of a recent batch of
samples that James received from the Baltic Sea. As he was sifting through them under the microscope,
he noticed a diatom that looked like this. And what stood out to him immediately was
the lack of color. On its own, colorlessness in an algae shouldn’t
be that weird for a microscopist to see. If you’re watching algae under the microscope
fo
r a long time— like several hours— the light from the microscope will bleach
the pigments in the microbe, ultimately taking the color of their chloroplasts away. But a bleached algae is also a dying algae. And the supposedly bleached diatom that James
saw was not dying at all. In fact, as you can see here, it was gliding
around like a proper diatom, using a mucus that it secretes through a slit called the
raphe. And the more James looked, the more he kept
finding colorless diatoms, traveling aro
und like little ghostly versions of the diatoms
we are more familiar with. Let’s just take a moment to step back and
observe our own master of microscopes through what he is seeing. This is the person who patiently samples the
same pond for years, poring over samples for hours each day and tracking down rare ciliates
recorded in only a few old texts. For the rest of us on the Journey to the Microcosmos
team, it’s hard to imagine anything in the unicellular world would be a true surprise to
someo
ne like James. But that just goes to show how deep the mysteries
of the microcosmos go. And for James, those mysteries took him to
the internet. He googled “colorless diatoms,” and that’s
how he learned that colorless diatoms are a very real thing. They are also, however, a seemingly uncommon
thing. We know of somewhere around 12,000 species
of diatoms, but estimates suggest there could be as many as 200,000 species out there. And so far, only a handful of those species
seem to be colorless. The
se colorless diatoms are also known as
apochlorotic diatoms. The first one was discovered in 1854 and named
Synedra putrida. And since then, every few decades, scientists
seem to find a few more species. And while these species might be uncommon in the
grand scheme of diatoms, scientists who have found them say that they’re not particularly
uncommon in their given habitats. They can be found on nutrient-rich waters,
and particularly on the surface of decaying seaweed. For James, this tracks with
the fact that
his samples came from the highly eutrophic shores of the Baltic Sea. Their tendency towards these habitats also
makes sense when you remember that they lack the photosynthetic capabilities of other diatoms. They can’t make their own food, so they
need to make sure they live in a place that is full of the nutrients they need to survive. To understand how apochlorotic diatoms became
colorless, we first have to understand how diatoms became so colorful to begin with. A very, very, ve
ry, very long time ago, a
eukaryote consumed a cyanobacterium and instead of converting it into food, the eukaryote
retained the cyanobacterium as a photosynthetic organelle called a plastid. That event is what we
call a primary endosymbiosis, and it spawned an array
of photosynthetic eukaryotes… including red algae. And eventually— but still a very, very, very long time ago— that red algae was consumed by another eukaryote
that converted the red algae into its own plastid. That event is what
we call a secondary
endosymbiosis, and through evolution, it eventually brought us the colorful
array of diatoms that we so love to look at. Recent genetic analysis suggests that after
that point, some species of diatom lost their ability to do photosynthesis and that led to the
creation of new, non-photosynthetic species. And at least as far as science can see right
now, that loss has happened only twice. The interesting thing is that these apochlorotic
diatoms do still have plastids— those o
rganelles that made diatoms photosynthetic
to begin with. It’s just that their plastids are colorless,
lacking chlorophyll and other components necessary for photosynthesis. And yet their plastids are still at work,
able to produce other compounds essential for the survival of the diatom. It’s hard to know what exactly sparked the
loss of these diatoms’ ability to do photosynthesis. They aren’t the only organisms that have
experienced that particular evolutionary loss. There are species of green
and red algae,
along with plenty of other eukaryotes, that have gone through this process as well. But while we’re not going to speculate about
the past, we do want to make a few guesses about the future. Because this question struck James as he was
looking at the colorless diatoms: could we be facing a future where we see more
of them? As we keep dumping nutrient-rich wastewater
into habitats that weren’t originally meant for them, maybe we’re also setting up a
world where colorless diatoms be
come more and more abundant. This question isn’t a judgment on what’s
good or right for the world. It’s about how we may or may not shape the
future of an organism that has shaped our own past and present, and the questions built
on each prior answer. If colorless diatoms do become more plentiful,
how does that affect the trajectory of diatom evolution at large? And how does that affect the creatures who
live in close proximity with them? And how does that affect the ones who don’t? And so on, a
nd so forth. But like we said, this is all speculation. We don’t know the future of colorless diatoms. And we’ve made enough episodes about diatoms
to know that despite the seeming rigidity of their individual bodies, they are overall,
quite difficult to predict and even more fascinating to question. Thank you for coming on this journey with us
as we explore the unseen world that surrounds us. And thanks again to Manukora Honey for sponsoring
this episode. This rare, single-origin honey is only
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eople whose names
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Comments
Head to https://manukora.com/microcosmos to get 3 FREE Gifts with your Starter Kit - a $25 value! Thanks to Manukora for sponsoring today's video!
Ah yes, diatoms.. the rectangles of the microcosmos
I’ve been seeing a decrease in views on these videos… please do not stop making them, I love them so much 😭
I'm having quasi-ptsd flashbacks of my family trying to force me into the family business. "We photosynthesize in this house, little mister!"
I love episodes like this one that give more information on specific microbe species. Expanding knowledge of show regulars as well as spotlight episodes on individual microbes are definitely my favourite!
Considering I barely understand the small things im looking at. I'm almost more amazed at the even smaller things wiggling around them. What a great channel!
Oh it just means you can use any color of mana to pay for its mana cost. Edit: They changed the title of the video. It used to be "Why some Diatoms are Colorless"
Ah, the phytoplankton that made my master's thesis such a pain in the ass... I performed phytoplankton counts on 120 samples, and they were preserved with Lugols solution, so the dye made counting even more annoying... the question came to "this frustule has nothing in it, do I count it or not?" I still have no faith in my counts, I have a lot of confidence in the statistical analysis.
!!! Diatoms are literally my favorite organism, this is so fascinating!! :D
most of the organisms at 0:27 are green algae not diatoms. For example the 4 cells clustered together with the little tails on each corner are from the genus Desmodesmus
LETS GO DIATOM VIDEO DROPPED
Thank you so much for this wonderful content, never stop. Also we need a James interview!
Amazing! Love the background music also!
If you have a decent monitor then by god turn up the resolution to max! Simply outstanding footage
Uh oh it's playing the boss music during the intro. That means badass predatory microbe.
This was a good one to think on. We are not aliens on this planet, this is our home and is as beautiful as it is deadly and very much it is wanting to devour you eventually.
You do it every time and it's why I am inspired by you. You mail the topic and why it's important in as few words as possible but with as much meaning as necessary.
You have encountered diaTONS of 'em!
Oh no 😢 poor diatom...so violent
Still a great series.