A Journey from Nongoma to the Atlantic Ocean: Mayi, currently in the second year of his Ph.D. at the University of Pretoria, takes us through his remarkable journey. Born and raised in the small village town of Nongoma in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, Mayibongwe’s connection with the ocean began unexpectedly during a school trip in grade 10 or 11. Despite being inland, he pursued microbiology, eventually participating in prestigious cruises, exploring the Atlantic Ocean’s marginal ice zone.
Microbial Marvels in the Ocean: Mayi’s research focuses on marine microbial communities, specifically bacteria and single-cell algae. He delves into the intricate world of microbial ecology, emphasising the importance of understanding microorganisms’ role in processes like carbon sequestration and nitrogen cycling. His work, centred around Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), seeks to uncover microbial physiological responses to environmental fluctuations. Mayibongwe explains the significance of studying microorganisms in the ocean, highlighting how these tiny organisms, with their enormous impact, play a crucial role in maintaining Earth’s balance by cycling essential gases and nutrients.
Sailing the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT): Mayibongwe shares his experience aboard the RRS Discovery during the latest AMT. The AMT, an annual multidisciplinary program, conducts biological, chemical, and physical oceanographic research between the UK and the South Atlantic. Mayibongwe’s role involved collecting seawater samples for his Ph.D., contributing valuable data to the AtlantECO project. Mayibongwe reflects on the unique experience of being the only representative from his region, the joy of encountering penguins in Falklands Island, and the unexpected birthday celebration during the crossing of the line. He expresses gratitude to his supervisor, Prof. Makhalanyane, and the AtlantECO programme for exposing him to these extraordinary opportunities.
Future Aspirations: Looking ahead, Mayi acknowledges current collaborators like Prof. Jonathan Todd and his research group at the University of Norwich, emphasising the importance of collaboration in DMSP research. His immediate goals include completing his Ph.D., publishing papers, and continued engagement with the AtlantECO program. Ultimately, Mayibongwe aspires to establish his own research group and collaborate with scientists globally.
Stay tuned for the next episode and more engaging conversations with scientists shaping the future of marine research.
More on AtlantECO: www.atlanteco.eu The AtlantECO project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 862923. This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Welcome to the atlantico podcast where we talk about the science behind the atlantico project the Atlantic Ocean and the human Adventures experienced along the way here we have conversations with guests from around the world who work together so that we can better understand manage and protect the ocean
So let’s embark on the Journey of atlantico and discover the world that lies above and beneath the surface of the beautiful Atlantic Ocean Welcome back to the atlantico podcast and in today’s episode I’m having a conversation with May bongu Bui who went on board of the RRS Discovery earlier this year to implement the atlantico protocols during the Atlantic Meridian Transit he’s here to tell us all about his experience and also the contribution
Of his efforts to the atlantico project May hi and welcome to the podcast I am so excited to hear all about your experience good afternoon so if you’ve listened to our podcast before I don’t know if you have but if you have you’ll know that I like to start with a quick
Introduction about our guests so I’d like to ask you if you can tell me a little bit about yourself and where your connection with the ocean started what’s been your journey like from when you started in Marine Sciences of 10 now I am currently doing a second of my
PhD at University of Petoria South Africa but maybe to take you through my background I was born and grew up in the small village town called nonga it’s situated in guul Natal here in South Africa so I attended my primary and secondary school from my Village Schools
Until I finished my secondary school I did not know anything about my Marine Sciences fast forward I did my microbiology undergrad degree and honors at the University of zululand and my master’s degree in St por University but it’s always interesting when you speak to people who are
Situated in the Inland part of South Africa the moment you tell them that you are from guasu natal they often think that or you staying closer to the ocean it wasn’t the case with me because I remember very well I got to see the ocean when I was on my school trip I
Think I was doing around grade 10 or or 11 that time so that was the first time I got to see the ocean but I started to enjoy this journey the moment I knew that I was going to work with Prof tan since then I’ve been exposed and I participated on various prestigious
Cruises like the Marion relief Voyage where I got to see the Marion Island and the scale Cruise which went to the marginal eyesone of Atlantic Ocean from reading the literature review where I got to to read about the biodiversity and how these microorganisms live together as communities and to get to know the
Different metabolic Lifestyles that they have evolved into and all the system that they are steering in different parts of the ocean so at the meantime I do think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done because this information is only priv to scientist and normal citiz in especially
Here in South Africa they do not know about these Ed sustaining phenomenon so I do think there should be an effective system that allow the flow of this information down to our society I will have all these experiences without my supervisor to learn thanks to him and I count them as
Blessings from from good yeah we work with Tani and he’s a great Pi great researcher and I have no doubt he’s also a great supervisor as well so if we start by talking about your research the work you’re doing at the moment so can you maybe explain what it is that you
Are studying the field that it sits in and why it is useful to do these kinds of research my PhD project is based on investigating the capacity and the effectiveness of microbial communities so by microbial communities I’m referring to bacteria aay single cell algae that offers ecosystem food web
Sustenance through the synthesis and the scavaging of organic sulfa metabolites particularly Dy suino propenes we often call it dmsp so I do the quantification of dmsp from Marine water samples from the Southern Ocean and the atactic ocean and that data we infect it with microbial genomics in this case it’s metag
Genomics and metat transcriptomics to understand the correlation between dmsp availability and the abundance and the distribution of microbial dmsp cycling Mar genes so my study is motivated by a lot of important previous studies where scientists subject microorganisms into different environmental conditions for instance High poor nutrients such as nitrogen and exposure to
Oxidants so these are some of the well-known conditions that trigger microbial physiological response to produce the MSP as an metabolic incentives against the environmental fluctuations you also find that in some cases some heterotrophic bacteria they mainly rely on dmsp as their source of organic sulfur for cell growth and
Biomass and other group oxidize the prop of dmsp as their carbon source so this is where this field stand on Marine microbial ecology you can put it maybe on applied microbiology and also in molecular biology as well so the main aim searching D MSP is to understand all these Pathways for microbial
Physiological response to withstand unfavorable conditions and also so with the continuation of ecosystem food web while continuing facilitating other important biog geochemical processes that sounds interesting and complex at the same time I can’t say that I’ll follow it all completely but if you try to explain to the like of me
Nonexperts so why is it important to study these kind of things what does it mean if you kind of Zoom back and look at at the ocean at a wider scale why is it important maybe someone when they look at the ocean they will just look at
Water but when you take a meal of that water you found an enormous amount of microorganism more than a million cells and these microorganism they carrying out important processes that help in the sequestration of carbon in the cycling of nitrogen those are important gases and nutrients in the sustainance of
Earth so all this information they in the flowchart of answering All Those Questions when you talk about the importance of the ocean to give balance on air yeah so tiny little things that have a huge impact on how the ocean behaves and how it provides these ecosystem services that are also
Important for life in the water but also life on Earth and if we now turn to atlantico so the atlantico project and your recent experience so you went on board of the discovery a ship that is doing this program the AMT can you tell us first a little bit
About what the AMT is and what it does and then maybe what you were doing on board and how what you were doing is contributing to attic goals the AMT is Atlantic meridon Transit I participated on the latest one which is the number 13 It’s a multidisciplinary program which undertakes biological chemical and
Physical oceanographic research and it’s an annual Cruise between UK and destination in the South attic including Funland Island and South Africa so Mt assist scientist in the identification of long-term trends and also to have a databased prediction for future outcomes the resulting data from these empty cruises is not only
Available to Scientific understanding but also addresses a wider scope of societal content such as sustainability climate change and marine ecosystems maybe to take you on what I was doing during that cruise I was collecting SE samples during the transit every day in the pre-own Stations from
Funland island in the South antic Bas to South amp the UK and the not Antarctic Waters so those samples they part of my PhD so I was generating data for dmsp and now also with d msop which is dthy sulfoxonium propen so we wanted to look at a partitioning of these two organic
Sulfur compounds in natural system in the Antarctic ocean so collecting data for genomics analysis so this data is very much important for my thesis and also it will help us to get some really cool papers out of it and the nicest thing about the AMT is that during the cruise there was also
Compliment data that was generated parallel to my samples or to my data collection as well and that data will also help us to make a lot more sense from what we got and all this data that you collected it’s very important for your thesis and your thesis will also
Contribute into the attical project right so all of this will help us in the wider scope of what we’re trying to do in the project and I want to turn to maybe a more personal questions and and ask you about your personal experience on board so what was it like for you
Well first of all there was a lot of work for me because I was just a team of myself but nonetheless it was an amazing experience I think this Cruise had a lot of of positive influence on how I think understand and even the patient that I have about Marine
Microbiology besides that I got to experience Funland Island Stan in Stanley so I went to see the Penguins and the beautiful landscape of the island but to tell you the truth I wasn’t really sure of what to expect because I was the only one from my
Region here but with no doubt I can tell you that it was really an amazing experience share a space with everyone from that ship from the captain and his crew and also a team of scientist we always living in harmony but what was interesting to me as well was to share a
Space with people who were telling me that they started to do these cruises since 1998 I think I was still learning to walk by then so I can only learn and because of the details the quality and the level of understanding of Atlantic Ocean from those people from the
Experience that they have and to have a chief scientist like Dr Andis who was very much helpful I think to everyone and also to me in particular because at some point I was short of some equipments to work with but he was always a helpful person to give me
Whatever that I was in short of but what was a a on top of this cake to me I I got to experience the crossing of the line and exactly that day it was my birthday so it was really an amazing experience to see everyone happy and the
On the ship and while it was also my birthday often time people will come like how did this happen that it’s the biggest day in the sheep and also you celebrating your birthday and then I was like if you’re a chosen one you’re a chosen one so but I owe all these lifetime
Opportunities to to my super advisor who have exposed me into this greatness and to opportunities that I didn’t even know that they existed and also Stefan and his team for selecting me amongst other people who have applied to be part of the mt30 through the Atletico program
And I’m highlighting this because I do believe they were also deserving to be part of the AMT but thanks to the Atletico program which thrive on integrating scientist from the Southern and the Northern Hemisphere so it was really an an amazing opportunity hopefully we can get some other people
In the next transact and they get to to experience what you’ve experienced on that ship and it sounds like an experience to be remembered for sure I’d like to ask maybe a final question for our conversation today and it’s about what’s on the horizon for you what are
Your dreams and Ambitions for the future where where are you going I think it would be unfair if I not me mention people like Professor Jonathan toau from the University of norch in the UK I think his lab is one of the leading dmsp research group he open hands to
Collaborate with us and all the dmsp and dmop measurements I did it in his lab and we have we really have a very active and a fruitful collaboration and I’m very much thankful to my research group here in University of Pictoria especially people like ran and Oliva they are very much helpful in
Guiding us with doing these complicated analysis of metag genomics um but what is immediate now is to get papers and get my PhD but I am really looking forward to engage even more to Antico program believe that I’m helpful in Sample collection laboratory experiments and genomics data analysis um I’m really looking forward
To establish myself collaborating with young scientist who are my peers and also the old and experienced scientist both locally here in South Africa Africa and across the globe so I’m going to continue to work hard until I reach my ultimate future ambition which is to have my own or to establish my own
Research gr well and for that I wish you all the best of luck and I think you’re on a on a great trajectory to get there and we’ll follow your journey along and yeah let’s see how we can collaborate even more yeah thank you very thank you may
For this conversation today and of course we carry on the conversation outside of the the podcast on on the project and carry on our collaboration we hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s episode and look forward to seeing you next time you can follow the atlantico project on our website on
Www.atlantic.edu and you can also find us on Twitter Instagram and Facebook all the links and information on the project and on today’s episode is in the show notes atlantico is a project funded under Horizon 2020 a European Union research and Innovation Program