We made it to the bottom after about 3 hours and it was a very exciting moment. It felt like landing on the moon. An eerie, barren landscape appeared, seemingly out of nowhere with shear cliffs covered in a strange slimy covering. Glass sponges greeted us around many corners and occasionally we saw eels and rat tail fish. But, the real excitement didn't begin until we found our first coral--yay!! We're a group of coral scientists, so that is the main purpose of this voyage. When we found the coral, we quickly (it's a relative term...) pulled up the specimen and stored it in a box to be taken to the surface at then end of the dive. We found a few other corals and some very exciting crustaceans that we were able to suck up into a vacuum like container. Once the ROV returned to the surface (after 8 hours), we scooped out our samples, got some genetics samples, put them in formalin and stuck them under the microscope. Everyone seemed especially relieved that nothing too terrible had happened (some of the technology was having trouble), we got some samples, and overall it was a successful day. We are now driving our way to the next dive site we will visit tomorrow!
Somehow things seem lonely in the deep sea. Every organism is a precious individual oasis in a landscape of detritus. The first anemone we came upon was a blood red color that struck a stark contrast against the white slimy substrate. Its long tentacles seemed to be reaching forever upwards like a child searching for its mother; somehow made sadder with the undulating current. Since reproduction and sexual selection are my main interest, I can't help but wonder how this lone anemone finds lovers. In reality, this anemone will likely reproduce asexually through budding, but I like the idea of it crawling through the desolate underwater mountains, desperately searching for another anemone to wrap its long arms around and trade gametes . It has the capability to surround itself with genetically identical companions, but it won't, because resources are scare in the deep sea and it is a selfish, lonely existence.
Well, clearly it has been a long day if I am ranting about the romances of a deep sea anemone... Actually, we are discovering that many of these animals have commensal relationships with other species--shrimp that live in sponges, brittle stars that live with one species of coral. That is actually a very interesting story. A certain species of coral will land as a single polyp and immediately afterward, a brittle star will land on it and they will grow up and live together and ultimately die together... There doesn't seem to be any benefit for the coral, nor is it any detriment, yet here it is--an extremely specific relationship between two species that found each other in the deep. Ok, need to go to bed. I'm finishing up work in the wet-lab and will soon be able to go to sleep (if jet lag will finally allow me to).
There are two French people on this cruise and I am learning some French from them--my favorite so far was learning that "snot" in French is "nose poop." I thought it was so adorable. Someone on the cruise said that if I think nose poop is adorable, I'm going to make a good mom. I hope that was a compliment...
More tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment