EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Tiny Things Are All Around Us

upper left: fruit fly (Drosophila), 60x ... upper right: shrimp eggs, 200x
lower left: fern spores, 60x ... lower right, fern spores, 200x

Explanation:  Last week, we saw a surprisingly "tiny thing" ... but tiny things are all around us, from eyelash mites to dust mites to microspiders to tiny "bird's nests."  

We constantly live immersed in an environment of the miniature.  

Most of these organisms are benign.  Many are beneficial that help our agriculture and play a key role in our food and beverage industry.  Our intestinal tracts house over 400 species of bacteria alone, that help us create vitamins and digest fiber!   

Of course, some forms of micro-life are intensely harmful.  Some escape detection as we travel, and they become invasive species or they spread as new diseases or pathogens, and adversely alter the ecosystems (and our own personal "endosystems") in which they take hold.

It is this preface to a proposal that we will explore next week in an ecological venue that is perhaps as surprising as the tiny things that run our world.