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Algae dance
A macro alga known as Neptune's necklace is experienceing increasingly variable temperatures.
Animation: Lisa Roberts
Data: Martina Doblin:
Temperatures experienced by an alga
at Bilgola Beach, NSW, Australia
Concept design: Martina Doblin and Lisa Roberts
Music: Sophie Green
Tides that flow over a rock platform at Bilgola (north of Sydney) temporarily cool this habitat of the macro alga Hormosira Bansksii (Neptune's necklace). The cooling flood tides reduce the stress of dessication and high temperature and help regulate the alga's activity and abundance. Wave patterns represent the ebb and flow of tides. Dots are the algae eggs. The central figure is the fertilized embryo and the fronds its adult form (these are not to scale). When the tide is out, the stress of exposure is reflected in the activity and abundance of eggs and embryo, and matches the gentler tempo of the music. The stress and discomfort of algae when heated are expressed as less movement and abundance.
The young Earth, at the time of Life's arrival, was a hostile, highly volcanic world with a poisonous atmosphere that did not contain oxygen but had high Carbon Dioxide levels. It was photosynthesis, first by some Bacteria, then by Algal cells with green pigment (Protists) in the sea, and much later by Plants on land, that created an oxygenated atmosphere... Earth is the GREEN PLANET where the energy for nearly all Life depends on Photosynthesis.
Big Picture Story, Mary E. White, 2012
