Since 2021, Calima’s episodes They have been increasingly frequent and intense. In fact, in these few years, the intrusions of Saharian dust in Spain have doubled.
We already knew that this was becoming A huge public health problem And that, at the same time, it was a key factor in fertilization of large areas of the planet. What we just discovered is, in addition to dust, there are many more things in that calima.
How are “more things”? A joint research team of the Blanes Advanced Studies Center (CEAB-CSIC) and the Ecological Research and Forest Applications Center (CREAF) He has discovered that “bacteria and fungi from the soils of the deserts of North Africa occupy the skies of southern Europe continuously.”
They do, in fact, “even long after the great injections of Saharian dust produced by the episodes of Calima.”
Analyzing 30 years of rains. To discover it, researchers They have studied Rain samples between 1987 and 2014 and have compared the results with the soils of the deserts of North Africa. In addition, they have recreated the main atmospheric dynamics that are in charge of dispersing microorganisms globally.
And this is important? The truth is that yes. Until now It was thought that the microbiota present in a specific ecosystem was basically derived from that ecosystem and its neighbors. Now we have experimental record that continental distances can travel without major problem.
On a practical level, all this not only has an impact on soil fertilization, but also on the spread of antibiotic -resistant genes or allergies. Could it be that the growth of allergies among the population was linked to that growth in dust intrusions on the peninsula?
The increasingly small world. During the last decades we have believed that new information and transport technologies have made the world smaller and smaller. And it’s true. What we did not know is that the world was already very small before all this.
And that changes the preconceived ideas we had been handling.
Therefore, it is getting clearer, that we will have to assume the complicated task of manage comprehensive all ecological systems of the earth. And we better be prepared to do it well.
Image | Copernicus