Ocean circulation map of the North Atlantic, the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay, the Arctic Ocean, the Greenland Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the North Sea by Dr Neil Banas, based on data models by Dr Emma Tyldesley.
Some marine species migrate passively, that means they are carried across distances, through local and / or international waters, by ocean circulation.
Plankton such as copepods migrate passively, travelling from the North Atlantic, around the Arctic Ocean and back over multiple generations. They also actively migrate vertically, travelling to greater ocean depths during the daylight hours to hide from predators near the surface, and rising to the surface at night, and Arctic Night, when it is dark. They also migrate vertically to lower depths to overwinter during their developmental stages.
Other species such as whales and other marine mammals migrate actively, choosing locations based on access to resources and seasonal temperature changes.
Origami Plankton
Marine biologist and data mapper, Dr Neil Banas from the MOCA team, has created a series of origami plankton that you can try out at home.
Why plankton?
Most of the life of the oceans takes place at what to a human is micro-scale. The forests and grasslands of the open oceans consist of swirling fields of single-celled phytoplankton. The ants, deer, and bears that graze and hunt in those forests mostly consist of zooplankton from a fraction of a millimetre to the size of a fingertip. These organisms are the base of the food web, and their adaptability and vulnerability under climate change has big implications for the fish we eat and the seabirds and marine mammals we share the coasts with.
Origami has always celebrated the natural world. (It also has a lot of parallels as a practice with mathematical computer modelling, a mainstay of oceanography and climate research: both are creative negotiations between mathematical rules and biological realism and complexity.) Here we explore origami as a medium for making hidden worlds visible: letting us hold untouchable worlds in our hands.
Triceratium, a triangular diatom:
Diatoms are single-celled, plant-like organisms found throughout the world’s oceans and freshwater. They form dense, short-lived blooms that the rest of the ocean food web depends on, like microscopic rainforests that come and go with the weather.
Their exoskeletons are made of silicate (glass) and can take a huge variety of geometric forms. Triceratium diatoms are often triangular, although they can take other shapes as nutrient conditions change.
Like all diatoms, their exoskeletons are made of two halves that fit together like the lid and base of a traditional origami box (masu). Dasa Severova played with this fact to design a Triceratium model that you can keep your collection of beach pebbles in. You can download complete folding instructions here (16 MB PDF).
The model starts from an equilateral triangle: the last page of the instructions shows you how to construct one from a rectangle or square.
