Any organismal atmospheric surveyors?

June 14, 2010 10:23 AM

ScienceFilter: I remember reading about an experiment where scientists surveyed the layers of the atmosphere to see what types of organisms could be found there, however, I cannot find any sources on this.

Am I just crazy and I made this up? I remember them mentioning that they found a spider ballooning at some ridiculous altitude.

posted by Mr. Verge to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

It's part of the plot for Andromeda Strain. Although I don't remember anything about spiders.
posted by sbutler at 10:48 AM on June 14, 2010

I recently heard a talk by someone working on surveys of organisms found in different areas of the atmosphere, though the study was focused on microorganisms, not anything as big as spiders. As far as I can tell, that particular research isn't published yet, but it's definitely an active field. (The big questions include what organisms are most commonly found in the atmosphere, how they get there, and if they're mostly being passively transported (often as spores) or whether they're actually living (metabolizing stuff, even reproducing.))
posted by ubersturm at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2010

Looks like there's a lot of recent work on biological particles in the atmosphere, here are summaries of two:
-biological particles in the upper atmosphere that influence the formation of ice
-bacteria in atmosphere influence rain

-Spiders in the atmosphere info from very brief Smithsonian link about spiders:

For many spiders, life starts out with a far-flung adventure. After they hatch, and when they're little more than speck-sized, the spiderlings travel with the wind to strange new lands on a tiny silk filament that they spin for this special purpose.

This spider "flight," called ballooning, can take young spiders high into the atmosphere (ballooning spiders have been caught on airplanes!) and hundreds of miles from their place of origin. Many of the spiderlings don't make it — they end up in water or in a hungry bird's belly, for example — but enough survive to set up shop wherever they may land.

posted by LobsterMitten at 2:57 PM on June 14, 2010

Best answer: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128389587
posted by Mr. Verge at 6:19 PM on July 15, 2010