UNU BIOLAC 289d ago

Ok, this year's World Water Week is about water for climate action, and one of the most noticeable effects of a warming climate on the planet is the reduction of dissolved oxygen in the water. Water de-oxygenation has implications for marine and freshwater ecosystems and, by simple ecological logic, for the rest of the biosphere. One of these implications is that anaerobic organisms will expand their geographical range, as oxygen-depleted waters increase their coverage. At the start of 2025, three young researchers from Argentina coordinated the UNU-BIOLAC course AnaeroLAT, an effort to explore the anaerobic world and train professionals in the particular techniques specially designed to manipulate and study microorganisms that can't survive in oxygen rich environments, which a are a massive part of biodiversity and can potentially be used to develop critical biotechnological applications. Now, this course wasn't designed to tackle the new realities of climate. Still, science works to explore and understand everything so that when the conditions arrive, people already have enough information and knowledge to confront and manage new realities. We feel hopeful about supporting Micaela, Macarena, and Camila in this project, which will become all the more relevant as oxygen depletion in the planet's waters becomes tangible. We thank Mr. Pablo Bedogni for kindly producing the footage for this video.