Over the Christmas break, i kept my producer Damien and myself busy in getting ready the fourth episode of the series Mountains - a fragile source of life. There are so many things, I could tell you about mountains....
Mountains harbor an important amount of different species, many of which are particularly well adapted to mountain ecosystems and the extreme environment mountains represent. Human impacts on mountain ecosystems, such as pollution, climate change and pastoralism will disturb biodiversity across all trophic levels, from microbes, plankton to higher animals with little understood consequences for the whole ecosystem.
In this fourth episode, I will concentrate on the community of micro-organisms, scientists refer to as microbiome. The microbiome comprises the community of fungi, yeasts, bacteria, viruses and protozoans, all so tiny that we cannot see them with the naked eye. They are everywhere: in the air, on the surfaces, in the water, the soil, on our skin, in our bodies – well, just everywhere! Despite their small size, these communities drive major processes in and on animals, plants as well as in the environment. For example in freshwater or in the soil.
In case you have missed on my other videos, go to my playlist:
The next episode will be on fish introductions in mountain lakes and how that changes the ecosystems. I am currently planning more episodes and those will then be more on what we all can do to preserve our mountains. So, subscribe to my channel and enjoy the new video!
PS.: Yes, my shirt was not ironed :D