Geophysiology and Parahistology of the Interactions of Organisms with the Environment*

Abstract. Ecology and Global Ecology (GE) are terms by which the relations between the organism (or living matter as a whole) and the environment (or Earth as a whole) have been treated for almost a century. Geophysiology and Parahistology (PH) are terms slowly replacing older scientific thoughts jointly with an increasing number of modifications and alterations of the Darwinian Evolution (DE) concept. Somehow Geophysiology and Parahistology seem to describe evolution in a non-Darwinian domain. According to V.I. Vernadsky (1929,1930,1988) - the great Russian naturalist and biogeochemist - the biogeochemical processes on Earth are controlled by the force of living matter rather than by species associations developing in and with individual ecosystems as expressed by darwinian evolutionary terms. He also claimed that Goethe was incorrectly regarded as a predecessor of DE by some authors (including Darwin) and that “Natur” (nature) and “Lebendige Natur” (the totality of creatures) are two very different things for Goethe. Detailed analyses of microbial mat systems in the German Wadden Sea and in artificial hypersaline WInogradsky columns have shown that the totality of creatures and matter around them i.e., the “lebendige Natur”sensu Goethe or “living matter”sensu Vernadsky of such environments control to a considerable extent the structure, stability. and (geo-)morphology of sediments and thereby the geological structure of the living Earth. These structures do not follow the rules of sedimentation formulated by the laws of Stokes They represent growth structures (Aufwuchs), whose physics and dynamics are controlled by complex fractal systems. The factors controlling the ultimate shape and stabilisation potential of the eventually resulting rocks and fossils are comparable to tissue development in macroorganisms. Also, certain microbial associations in the sub-recent and in the fossil record may be compared to metazoan tissues. Chemical gradients in the sedimentary column, regulated by the interplay of living matter and sluggish (slow-reactive to non-reactive) compounds, combine to create a pattern of porosity and structure of the resulting deposits that clearly indicates microbial influences and especially those of extracellular polymeric substances on the morphology and texture. The combined effects of microbiota or living matter on the sedimentary record are described as parahistology of sediments in analogy of the histology of tissue on a geological scale. This conceptual living tissue made up of microbially generated rocks and ore deposits cycled through metabolic processes and forced into tissue-like structures by microbial biofilms and mats may extend down to the upper mantle of Earth and far up into the stratosphere when Earth is regarded as a living entity over geological periods. We may have to conceive Earth as a living specimen, which is breathing at a frequency of thousands of years instead of the normal physiological breathing rate of man or an insect. Macroorganisms in all terrestrial systems represent the transport and logistic media, which, however, utterly depend on myriads of intra-, inter-, and extracellular microbial symbiotic partners.     

Control over natural resources in ecological economical systems

We consider the problem of stable development of natural economical complexes from the viewpoint of basic balances in an ecological economical system. We construct a basic dynamical model of the complex capable of predicting various scenarios of the industrial development, consumption of natural resources, and pollution of the environment and propose a mechanism of control over the process of development by introducing rent payments for the use of natural resources and ecological fines for the pollution of the environment. The efficiency of the applied model is demonstrated by analysing the process of control over the concentration of biological resources in marine media as an example. We describe the results of numerical experiments performed to show the possibility of creation of the information technology of control over marine bioresources. Translated by Peter V. Malyshev and Dmitry V. Malyshev     

The impact of the M2 internal tide on data-assimilative model estimates of the surface tide

We use a synthetic data experiment to assess the accuracy of ocean tides estimated from satellite altimetry data, with emphasis on the impact of the phase-locked internal tide, which has a surface expression of several centimeters near its sites of genesis. Previous tidal estimates have regarded this signal as a random measurement error; however, it is deterministic and not scale-separated from the barotropic (surface) tide around complex bathymetric features. The synthetic data experiments show that the internal tide has a negligible impact on the barotropic tidal fields inferred under these circumstances, and the barotropic dissipation (a quadratic functional of the tidal fields) is in good agreement with the energetics of the three-dimensional regional primitive equations model which is the source of the synthetic data.     

Variations of antioxidant efficiency and presence of endosymbiotic diatoms in the Antarctic porifera Haliclona dancoi

The role of endosymbiotic diatoms as pro-oxidant stressors in porifera has been investigated in the Antarctic sponge Haliclona dancoi in which the presence of diatoms is influenced by marked seasonal variations during the austral summer. Both chlorophaeopigments and frustules were absent in sponge tissues sampled in early November at the beginning of the summer and increased from the mid of December with slightly shifted temporal trends. The efficiency of antioxidant defenses in the sponge showed a marked response to symbionts with clearly enhanced values corresponding to the peak of diatoms.     

Harpacticoida taxocen diversity in the silty-sandy littoral zone of Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea

The fauna composition, ecological groups, and life forms of Harpacticoids of soft littoral grounds from 15 sites off the Karelian coast in Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea were studied. Six types of harpacticoid taxocens with different sets of dominating species are described. On silty sands with clear signs of desalination, the Stenchelia palustris taxocen is common; medium-grained sands are characterized by the Heterolaophonte minuta, Paraleptastacus kliei — Huntemannia jadensis, and Amphiascoides nanus — Scottopsyllus minor taxocens; while on coarse sands, the Ameira parvula and Ameira scotti — Mesochra lilljeborgi taxocens have developed. The diversity of the taxocens is partly explained by the differences in the grain-size composition and salinity at different sites. In addition, groups of various taxocens dwelling on the same type of the sediments were found in different minor bights of the coastline.     

Interstitial water chemistry of villefranche bay sediments: Trace metal diagenesis

Pore water aliquots were taken with an in situ close interval sampler: the “Peeper”.We report here the pore water concentration profiles of TCO₂, SO₄, TH₂S, Ca and the trace metals Mn, Cu, Pb, Cd and Cr from sediments of a relatively polluted area, the Villefranche Bay, on the French Riviera (close to Nice).We investigated the major ion concentrations in order to establish geochemical mass balances of organic matter oxidation. ΔTCO₂/ΔSO₄ was <−2.0, reflecting the precipitation of calcite as confirmed by the calcium profile. Reduction of sulfate led to increasing sulfide concentrations with depth.Trace metal interstitial water concentrations decreased from 63 to 5 nM, 18 to 4 nM and 6.6 to less than 2 nM for Cu, Pb and Cr, respectively. Cd showed a different pattern with top and deep values of 0.7 nM and a minimum of 0.27 nM.Thermodynamic calculations were performed which suggest the potential formation of mineral phases such as sulfides.