The Great Antarctic Food Web Puzzle

Summary

Short Wave: The Great Antarctic Food Web Puzzle

Host: Regina Barber
Guest: Biologist Martina Mascioni
Release Date: March 10, 2025

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Introduction to Phytoplankton

In the episode titled "The Great Antarctic Food Web Puzzle," NPR's Short Wave delves into the crucial role of phytoplankton in the Antarctic ecosystem. Host Regina Barber introduces phytoplankton as one of her favorite ocean creatures, a sentiment reinforced by her conversation with biologist Martina Mascioni.

Regina Barber [00:14]: "One of my new favorites after talking with biologist Martina Mascioni is phytoplankton."

Martina Mascioni emphasizes the foundational role of phytoplankton in oceanic food webs:

Martina Mascioni [00:34]: "They're the base of the food web in most of the ocean areas and like our earth is like 70% ocean. So everything that happens in the ocean relies on phytoplankton eventually."

Phytoplankton, deriving from the Greek word for "drifter," are microscopic organisms that cannot swim against currents. Unlike jellyfish, phytoplankton are capable of photosynthesis, converting sunlight into energy, which not only sustains marine life but also contributes significantly to Earth's oxygen supply.

Martina Mascioni [01:09]: "There are some estimations that say like 50% of the oxygen that is on the atmosphere has come from the ocean and specifically from the phytoplankton."

The Antarctic Polar Fjords

Martina Mascioni's research focuses on phytoplankton residing in Antarctic polar fjords—narrow ocean inlets sculpted by glaciers. These fjords are characterized by crystal-clear waters rich in nutrients such as nitrates, phosphates, and sulfur, creating an abundant environment for phytoplankton.

Regina Barber [01:23]: "Martina studies phytoplankton that live in Antarctic polar fjords, these narrow ocean inlets that have been carved out by glaciers because of the crystal clear water and the abundance of nutrients like nitrates, phosphates, and sulfur."

During the Antarctic summer, an abundance of phytoplankton supports millions of tons of krill, which in turn sustain migrating whales and other marine life. Martina describes these communities as "very productive" and "very diverse."

Martina Mascioni [01:49]: "So it's very, very productive community, and it's also very diverse."

The Fjord Fido Community Science Project

To monitor changes in phytoplankton populations, Martina participates in the Fjord Fido Project, a community science initiative that leverages the involvement of tourists and tour operators in Antarctica. This project aims to assess the impacts of climate change on the ocean's foundational food web by collecting continuous data across different seasons and years.

Regina Barber [01:54]: "But new research Martina is doing as part of a community science program called Fjord Fido suggests that balance may be shifting."

Research Methodology: Engaging Tourists in Science

The Fjord Fido Project collaborates with tour vessels operating in Antarctica's Southern Hemisphere summer months (November to March). Tourists onboard these vessels are trained to collect water samples at designated sites using specialized kits provided by the project.

Martina Mascioni [05:46]: "So what we do is train those two guys that are going to be with different passengers to run the program with their own boats."

Participants embark on inflatable boats equipped with sampling instruments and bottles to collect data from various GPS-marked locations. This citizen science approach not only expands the data pool but also engages the public in meaningful scientific research.

Martina Mascioni [06:10]: "And so they kind of like have a list of samples and data that they have to gather when they are there."

Continuous Data Collection and Insights

Traditional research vessels often provide limited temporal coverage, capturing data snapshots that may not accurately reflect long-term trends. In contrast, the Fjord Fido Project's partnership with passenger ships facilitates more continuous and comprehensive data collection.

Martina Mascioni [07:55]: "When you go with a research vessel, sometimes you go like a month or like two weeks or very short periods of time."

Through this sustained data collection, scientists can better understand seasonal variations and year-over-year changes in phytoplankton populations.

Martina Mascioni [08:48]: "So how regular people are fueling research on some of the tiniest, most influential critters on Earth and how the shifting balance of power could ripple across the entire ocean."

Phytoplankton Blooms and Their Detection

Phytoplankton populations can experience explosive growth known as blooms, which can sometimes be visible from space due to color changes in the water. Martina reports that the Fjord Fido Project has recorded numerous blooms, varying in frequency and diversity across different years.

Martina Mascioni [10:18]: "So yeah, we have been looking at the samples and finding a lot of different blooms in the different years. Some years with, like, more Blooms or, like, diverse blooms and some with less phytoplankton."

These blooms are indicative of favorable conditions—such as optimal temperatures and nutrient availability—that allow phytoplankton to proliferate rapidly.

Impacts of Phytoplankton Decline on the Ecosystem

A significant decline in phytoplankton populations would have cascading effects on the Antarctic food web. Krill, a small crustacean resembling shrimp, depend on specific phytoplankton like larger diatoms for food. A reduction in these phytoplankton would force krill to seek alternative food sources, jeopardizing the survival of predators such as whales and penguins.

Martina Mascioni [11:39]: "Everything kind of relies on krill. Krill is this little crustacean. It kind of looks like shrimp. And it's what we sometimes hear about, like, oh, what whales eat."

Martina underscores the uncertainty surrounding future phytoplankton trends, noting that shifts in species composition could also disrupt ecological balances.

Martina Mascioni [11:39]: "So everything kind of relies on krill, and krill relies on a specific group of phytoplankton, which are the larger diatoms. So what happens if the diatoms are not there anymore? They will have to look for other food, and that would have, like, a major impact on the rest of the ecosystem."

Urgency in Understanding Antarctic Phytoplankton

Martina emphasizes the critical need to study Antarctic phytoplankton before environmental changes render these ecosystems fragile or lost. She highlights the potential for discovering novel biological compounds and the importance of preserving the unique adaptations of Antarctic organisms.

Martina Mascioni [12:52]: "I feel like the time is now to understand these places before, like, they change or they're gone. A lot of things that could be super cool happening, and we have no idea."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the interconnectedness of phytoplankton and the broader marine ecosystem, urging continued research and public engagement to safeguard these vital oceanic foundations.

Regina Barber [13:41]: "It's a very optimistic thought. Martina, thank you so much for talking with me today."

Listeners are encouraged to learn more about the Fjord Fido Project through the episode notes and to stay updated by following Short Wave on their preferred podcast platforms.

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Credits:
Produced by Burleigh McCoy
Edited by Rebecca Ray Ramirez
Fact-checked by Tyler Jones
Audio Engineer: Jimmy Keeley
Senior Director: Beth Donovan
Senior VP of Podcasting Strategy: Colin Campbell

Transcript

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[Regina Barber]

Amazon Pharmacy, you're listening to Short Wave from npr. If you had to pick a favorite ocean critter, what would it be? Whale, dolphin, penguin, coral. One of my new favorites after talking with biologist Martina Mascioni is phytoplankton.

[Martina Mascioni]

They're the base of the food web in most of the ocean areas and like our earth is like 70% ocean. So everything that happens in the ocean relies on phytoplankton eventually.

[Regina Barber]

Plankton comes from the Greek word for drifter and, and refers to anything that can't swim against the current, which makes jellyfish plankton. And the plankton we're talking about today, phytoplankton can make their own food from sunlight through photosynthesis. Because of this, the whole ocean needs them and so do humans.

[Martina Mascioni]

There are some estimations that say like 50% of the oxygen that is on the atmosphere has come from the ocean and specifically from the phytoplankton.

[Regina Barber]

Martina studies phytoplankton that live in Antarctic polar fjords, these narrow ocean inlets that have been carved out by glaciers because of the crystal clear water and the abundance of nutrients like nitrates, phosphates, and sulfur. There are a lot of phytoplankton in and near the surface of these waters, so many that in the summer, there are enough of them to feed them millions of tons of krill that then feed all the whales that migrate to Antarctica.

[Martina Mascioni]

So it's very, very productive community, and it's also very diverse.

[Regina Barber]

There are a lot of kinds of phytoplankton that have adapted to live in these polar fjords in a certain balance with each other. But new research Martina is doing as part of a community science program called Fjord Fido suggests that balance may be shifting. Samples collected by Antarctic tour operators and tourists are beginning to pick apart the influence of climate change on the foundation of the ocean's food web. So today on the show, how regular people are fueling research on some of the tiniest, most influential critters on Earth and how the shifting balance of power could ripple across the entire ocean. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from npr.

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[Regina Barber]

Okay, so, Martina, what do we know about phytoplankton? Or maybe a better question is what don't we know about them?

[Martina Mascioni]

So, like, there's so many things that we don't know about phytoplankton, specifically from Antarctica, like how phytoplankton will behave with, like, changes in the environment. Then the diversity, like, how diverse is phytoplankton? How many species are there? And I feel like year after year, there are more and more species coming through. And the more that we get also into the genes of those specific species, the more that we learn that, oh, actually, we have no idea what is going on there.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, so we're talking about these fjords. We're talking about these phytoplankton. Where do they live? In the water column.

[Martina Mascioni]

So phytoplankton, they depend on the sunlight to photosynthesize. You can find phytoplankton 60 meters below the water level. But the highest concentration of phytoplankton is always going to be in the first few meters.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, so they're in these fjords, they're surrounded by these glaciers that are melting into the ocean. What do we know about that process?

[Martina Mascioni]

Yeah, I mean, we know how the glaciers are retreating. Some studies that say 87% of the glaciers that are in the Antarctic Peninsula are retreating, that means they're melting faster or they're not growing or stable. But how much actual meltwater it is in the ocean and how that meltwater is affecting the communities is what we're trying to understand better.

[Regina Barber]

So a huge way that you've learned about phytoplankton in these waters is the fjord Phyto Project. It's a massive community science project where, like, regular People on like tour ships are collecting samples that you and other scientists can then like analyze in the lab. So how do passengers physically collect these samples?

[Martina Mascioni]

So we collaborate with different tour vessel that go down to Antarctica from like November till March, so like Southern summer months. So what we do is train those two guys that are going to be with different passengers to run the program with their own boats.

[Regina Barber]

Oh, wow.

[Martina Mascioni]

And so what happens is, like, when they're down in the peninsula, they have like a list of sites that they can go sample. So when they're like, oh, tomorrow we're going to one of these sites and we want to do fear phyto. And so they have like a GPS location they can go. So they go down in like an inflatable boat with the kit for the sampling, like the instruments and the bottles and everything. A group of guests that are interested in helping gather the samples. And so they kind of like have a list of samples and data that they have to gather when they are there.

[Regina Barber]

So you rely on these passenger vessels to collect water samples from like dozens of locations. And. And sometimes you get to go like, what is that like?

[Martina Mascioni]

Yeah, I feel like it's very meaningful because, like, the passengers, sometimes they didn't expect at all, like, to go to Antarctica, do some science. And so when they're doing that, they're like super excited. Like, they didn't even even think about that when they were like, you know, booking a vacation. And then most of that people have never heard, like, even the word phytoplankton before. So when you talk about like how whales depend on them or like penguins, which is actually what they wanted to see in Antarctica, whales and penguins. So when you talk about like, well, the whales and penguins wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fightbank too, I feel like that kind of blows their mind a little bit and I think it adds a lot of value to their trip.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, so why passenger ships? Like, how does that help with the phytoplankton research?

[Martina Mascioni]

So first of all, we kind of like start like describing what happened in these places that the ships actually go. We have no idea what happened there. There was sometimes no description for the fight plankton before. And we're also understanding better what happens through the whole season. So from November to March, it is a lot of information. When you go with a research vessel, sometimes you go like a month or like two weeks or very short periods of time. So you have sometimes one month of information from one year and then the next year they couldn't go on the same month, so you have another month. And so then you have to put it all together like a big puzzle.

[Regina Barber]

And from the, like, Fjord Fido project, you have, like, more continuous data, like, from these passenger ships. What have you learned, like, in putting together this puzzle so far?

[Martina Mascioni]

So from this, we learned how these places were behaving, like, the whole summer, and then year after year, how that was changing.

[Regina Barber]

So you're just trying to, like, figure out, like, what the ecosystem even looks like.

[Martina Mascioni]

Yeah.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, cool.

[Martina Mascioni]

At least for the fire. Brungton Leila. Yeah.

[Regina Barber]

Okay, so you've got samples from all these passenger ships. What can you learn from those samples?

[Martina Mascioni]

We gather different kind of samples. So one sample is for microscopic counting. And that's the sample that I or the people, the university where I work analyze. What we do with that sample is discriminate different species and how much of the different species are in the water column. There's another sample that is for meltwater. What we do with that sample is analyze how much of the ocean water comes from the melting glaciers. Then another sample is for genetic analysis. There's also other people that is going to analyze that sample and try to look at the diversity of the phytoplankton, but in a genetic way.

[Regina Barber]

So there's all different kinds of phytoplankton, and I know that they can bloom, like this explosion in population, like, maybe a couple times a year. And even some of them are so big you can see them from space. So can you see, like, a huge jump in the population in the samples that people, like, return to you during these blooms?

[Martina Mascioni]

Yeah. So from the samples that we collected, we have recorded, like, several different blooms. So a bloom is like, when a phytoplankton species or a group species, they're like, super happy. They like the temperature, the nutrients, whatever they have, and they can just divide themselves and grow exponentially in a couple hours or days. And so you get, like, millions of cells per liter of water. Wow. And so you can have these huge blooms and you can sometimes see them, like, from space or like, even in the water. You see, like, you know, there's what they call, like, red tides when you see, like, red coloration in the water. That's phytoplankton blooms. But sometimes they are, like, not evident at all unless you count the cells or you look at them under the microscope that you actually identify these blooms. So, yeah, we have been looking at the samples and finding a lot of different blooms in the different years. Some years with, like, more Blooms or, like, diverse blooms and some with less phytoplankton.

[Regina Barber]

Can you talk about what would happen if something happens to these phytoplankton and their numbers start to decline? Like, how would that affect other things?

[Martina Mascioni]

Yeah, it's really hard to say if the phytoplankton is actually going to decline or not or if it is more. I mean, there are some theories that say they're more likely to switch. Like, the species are going to be different. But of course, every single thing that happens going to have an impact on the rest of the ecosystem in Antarctica especially. So everything kind of relies on krill. Krill is this little crustacean. It kind of looks like shrimp. And it's what we sometimes hear about, like, oh, what whales eat. But mostly everything in Antarctica at some point relies on krill, and krill relies on a specific group of phytoplankton, which are the larger diatoms. So what happens if the diatoms are not there anymore? They will have to look for other food, and that would have, like, a major impact on the rest of the ecosystem.

[Regina Barber]

Why do you think, like, really understanding this ecosystem, really understanding the populations of phytoplankton in Antarctica, why is that so important?

[Martina Mascioni]

Well, I feel like the time is now to understand these places before, like, they change or they're gone. A lot of things that could be super cool happening, and we have no idea. Like, you know, sometimes you see in the news, like, oh, they discovered, like, this very weird protein that has this antiquagulant aspect or something, and they found it in, like, a fish that was hiding in the word. So probably there's a lot of the things happening, too, that we have no idea, especially thinking about, like, Antarctica and, like, how the organisms are adapted to live that way. So, yeah, maybe it's the key for something good hiding there.

[Regina Barber]

I. I like that thought. It's very optimistic. Martina, thank you so much for talking with me today.

[Martina Mascioni]

No, it was super fun.

[Regina Barber]

To learn more about the Fjord FIDO Project, check out the link in our episode notes. And if you liked this episode, follow us on whatever podcasting platform you're listening from. That way, you'll never miss a new episode. This episode was Produced by Burleigh McCoy and edited by showrunner Rebecca Ray Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer. Beth Donovan is our senior director, and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave from npr.

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