Overlooked in the oceans

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I was a bit disappointed to read this Nature news piece about the most recent update of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). See if you can find what I'm grumbling about in this quote:

Taxonomists undertaking the daunting task of compiling a list of every species in the sea say that there are 228,445 known marine organisms[...] Jan Mees, the director of the Flanders Marine Institute and WoRMS co-chair, says that after a decade of work, the team has "nearly completed the inventory of all marine organisms that have ever been seen and described". The world's oceans are thought to contain somewhere between 700,000 and 1 million eukaryote species, however, so WoRMS has plenty more work to do.

The problem here is the narrow definition of an organism as a eukaryote. It's a common enough assumption. Ask anyone to name as many marine organisms as they can and I'd bet they mention bacteria as an afterthought. 

Don't get too sediment-al, little sablefish. Your species is just one among hundreds of thousands, at least.

Don't get too sediment-al, little sablefish. Your species is just one among hundreds of thousands, at least.

To WoRMS' credit, their records include more than 2,000 bacterial species, more than 100 species of Archaea, and a small but growing collection of viruses. Each group concerns numerous additional records without species-level assignment. This highlights one issue causing non-eukaryotes to be overlooked: they're often nearly impossible to fit into the taxonomy! For the viruses, any newly-isolated sample may not even fit into an extant taxonomic family. Animals, in contrast, are often kind enough to provide some distinct phenotypes to compare.

Most of the life on this planet may be microbial and most of those microbes may live in the oceans. They may not even be freely-floating as there's plenty of sediment to go around; a recent Nature Geoscience paper found actively respiring microbial cells as far as 75 meters below the sea floor in the South Pacific. Any truly accurate view of biodiversity should include microbial - and viral - isolates, especially those from marine environments.

Curious gorge

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I spent a few days this past week visiting family in Texas. One day involved a tour of Canyon Lake Gorge, both a location named for three different geological features and a novel example of the last one. The Gorge is truly a new feature - especially in geological time - as it's only existed since a massive flood in 2002. It's all on federally-protected land so it can only be visited through a guided tour (or a very specific research permit, but I wasn't there for research).

Photos of rocks and such are below.

It would be nice to sample one of the limestone pools to see if there are any interesting microbes in there. It's not an active flood zone anymore so I'd assume any microbiota should resemble those in or near Canyon Lake but the different physical conditions must play a role in selection. I couldn't find any published biogeochemical or metagenomic studies of Canyon Lake Gorge but there has been recent work in somewhat similar settings. 

I can verify that at least three species may be found in the gorge: humans, carp, and air plants.

American Psychographic: the US VALS

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At Scott's suggestion, I added the US VALS Survey to my list of personal assessments today.

This survey is intended to be a psychographic test for different market segments. It ends up a bit more like an MBTI in that its questions address dichotomies and the final product is a particular classification. It's a short survey and not terribly satisfying. Here's my result:

Diamonds: they're like squares, from a New Angle.™

Diamonds: they're like squares, from a New Angle.™

I'm primarily an Innovator and secondarily an Achiever. According to the market segments, this means my life is characterized by variety and my favorite things are the following:

  • A rewarding experience
  • Problem solving
  • Personal challenges
  • Authentic products
  • Recognition and rewards
  • Peer-group acceptance
  • Material possessions
  • Rules following that leads to success

So what does this tell me? At first glance, not much, as the survey is intended to categorize people rather than psychoanalyze them or inventory all their motivations. It does tell me how others (in this context, marketers, but perhaps everyday contacts as well) may see me. 

I know that some of these traits apply to me and others don't. I enjoy new experiences, problem solving, and challenges. Recognition and rewards are appreciated but usually not my primary motivation. The same goes for material possessions: I tend to use things until they break and stuff doesn't motivate me. If someone gets the impression that I'm a bona-fide Achiever, will their assumptions about me match the truth? Will those assumptions influence their relationship with me? Let's just predict No and Yes. I'll have to make up the difference through my own actions.

One man operation

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I found a rather fun collection of industrial musical recordings today while poking around Spotify. It's a three-album collection of optimistic marketing anthems intended to accompany a recently published book on the subject. Here's one of them:

The tracks all tend to sound like products of their age, but please note the prevalence of commercial song parodies over the last, say, three decades or so, to say nothing of meme-based advertising.