Still so much we just don’t know

If they do travel to Sri Lanka, they could be among the thousand-plus mantas hunted for their gill plates each year. To properly protect these enigmatic animals, we need the right knowledge.

Plankton ecologist Kevin Flynn of Plymouth Marine Laboratory has been following up on his deep curiosity too. His work has drawn him into exploring something called the mixoplankton paradigm. It turns out that much of what we thought we knew about plankton was wrong.

“Over the last decade we have realised that many of the photosynthetic plankton (the phytoplankton) are not growing as marine science has thought for the last century,” he explains. 

“They not only fix carbon dioxide like land plants do, but they eat … bacteria, their competitors, sometimes even their predators.” 

Bonding

Some of these mixoplankton even steal body parts from other plankton to allow them to obtain nutrients by eating as well as through photosynthesis. 

This revelation not only gives us a cool new fact about how the ocean ecosystem operates, but also highlights the importance of having an open mind, says Flynn. “Because we were not looking for it; we were making preconceived judgements based on how life on land works.”

This discovery was discombobulating. “If marine science has managed to miss the importance across the oceans of such a fundamental trick of Nature as this, what else is waiting to be discovered?”

It seems that the more we learn, the more the plot thickens. Scientists recently confirmed the first recorded case of a lone orca killing a great white shark, which raised the question, what mechanism does a killer whale use to tear the shark open? 

Similarly, we recently saw the first documentation of humpback whales having sex, and the realisation that they were two males left researchers asking, are they doing this for social bonding, showing dominance, or something else? Each answer is another cliffhanger, leaving us wanting more.

Mysteries

There are still many things we know we’ve missed. Experts still have no idea where whale sharks or mantas give birth. Humaam Nihad, an intern at the Maldives Manta Conservation Programme, would love to know the answer to this question, as well as where juvenile whale sharks spend the first years of their lives. 

Finding the answer is important for conservation, he explains: “As neither of these animals has been seen giving birth in the wild, it would be crucial to protect the areas that these endangered animals use for these life stages.”

How can we properly conserve and restore important ecosystems if we don’t know which habitats species use, and how? Similarly, how can we protect biodiversity from human activities and the impacts of climate change if we don’t know how it’s affected by them?

Like me, scientists and conservationists around the world are searching for the answers to the ocean’s compelling mysteries. And, as the ocean supports all life on Earth, it’s essential that they do.

This Author

Melissa Hobson is a freelance writer specialising in marine science, conservation and sustainability. She became fascinated with the ocean when she learned to scuba dive around 15 years ago, and since then she hasn’t been able to keep away from the water. This article first appeared in the Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.