In the same way that bees, butterflies and hummingbirds play a vital role in the pollination of flowering plants on land, scientists have discovered that small, bug-like crustaceans work hard to help the propagation of algae underwater.

While Idotea balthica specifically pollinate red seaweed, found growing in tidal pools, the findings published in the journal Science suggest that animal-mediated underwater pollination may be widespread and perhaps even first evolved underwater rather than on land. While fertilization with the help of animals was believed to have emerged among plants when they moved ashore 450 million years ago, red seaweed arose over 800 million years ago meaning their animal-based fertilization may predate that of pollination on land.

Just as with bees and plants on land, the benefits may well be mutual. The findings suggest the crustaceans use the algae as a safe place to shelter as well as a source of food in the form of the single-celled algae that grows on red seaweed. 

Geese on the loose

The snow goose, a conservation success story, is beginning to worry scientists for the impact its rapidly-growing population is having on fragile ecosystems.

In the early 1900s, only 3,000 snow geese were estimated to be left. In recent years, a population explosion has seen their numbers top 15 million. This growth can be attributed to two factors that cause harm to most species: climate change and habitat loss. Melting snow in the geese’s Arctic breeding grounds is providing more food and  nesting sites, while, to the south, destruction of marshland is pushing the birds into farmers’ fields, where a diet of grain and corn is keeping them well-fed. 

While once something to celebrate, a ballooning snow goose population can be problematic. Banks Island, in the Beaufort Sea, and the Fraser River Estuary, in southern B.C., are both expected to see the arrival of more migrating snow geese this year than their ecosystems can handle. 

A possible solution is increasing the snow goose hunt in affected areas. However, this won’t work in areas where there are too few hunters and too many geese. The snow goose represents a strange consequence of warming temperatures, a species thriving despite, or because of, changing environments. 

A shark out of water

For the first time, a Greenland shark — typically found in freezing Arctic waters at depths of up to 2,000 metres — has been found in Caribbean waters. 

Spotted by Devanshi Kasana, a doctoral candidate at Florida International University, while out tagging tiger sharks with a crew of Belize fishermen, the surprising discovery in the warm, shallow waters of Belize’s coral reefs suggests this mysterious species is more pervasive than previously thought.

Kasana and her crew made the discovery after hauling up a longline they’d dropped deep into the waters at the edge of Glover’s Reef. The goal was to catch and tag tiger sharks to study their movement and ecology. 

Kasana initially thought they’d caught a six gill shark, and it took a quick call with her Ph.D. advisor, Demian Chapman, to identify it as a Greenland shark. As the world’s longest-living vertebrate, Greenland sharks can live upwards of 400 years and are the largest fish in the Arctic Ocean. It has previously been theorized that sleeper sharks, such as the Greenland shark, could occur globally in waters deep enough to keep them sufficiently cool — as well as out of sight of scientists. 

Think again