John Reed, Chief Scientist & Research Professor, HBOI-FAU

Chief Scientist, John Reed, plans target dive sites using maps collected using Nancy Foster multibeam sonar (credit: CIOERT)

I entered this cruise with some trepidation, with worries about the potential for hurricanes as I described in my September 22, Leg 1 blog, and for the second leg, of operating on Pourtalès Terrace, in the axis of the Florida Current which could make ROV operations difficult to impossible.  However, we had the most incredible weather and some of the lowest currents that I have seen on the Pourtalès Terrace, allowing us to complete 26 ROV dives and without loss of any dives.

The main objectives of this research cruise were to survey and describe the various habitats on Pulley Ridge (Leg 1) and deep-water, hard bottom sites on Pourtalès Terrace off southern Florida (Leg 2).  Leg 1 was a great success and Leg 2 exceeded most expectations.  We were able to document new reefs and deep-water habitats that had never been surveyed before.  In the Pulley Ridge region, we now have ground-truthed new multibeam sonar maps which enabled us to find extensive essential fish habitat for various grouper, including snowy, Warsaw, and speckled hind.  On the next to the last day of the cruise, we discovered four unknown deep-water sinkholes that are surrounded by extensive hard-bottom habitat supporting dense and diverse populations of sponges, gorgonians, black coral, and hard coral.  And then we discovered a large deep-water Lophelia coral reef at the foot of Pourtalès Terrace in 1,800 ft of water.  This appears to be the southern-most living deep-water Lophelia reef in the continental U.S. waters.

While our cruise had made highlights focused on discovery of new reef habitat that support important fish and corals, the discovery of the southern-most living deep-water Lophelia reef in the continental U.S. waters was a great way to finish the cruise! (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

We used various tools to sample and assess these ecosystems from the surface to the bottom.  Of course, the NOAA vessel Nancy Foster was the platform for these tools.  During the 19-day cruise we transited over 600 miles, and using the University of Connecticut’s Kraken II (K2) Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) we made 26 dives covering some 30 miles of bottom.  We documented the benthic habitat with nearly 100 hours of high definition videotapes and 5,700 digital photographs, and collected over 150 samples, including invertebrates, fish, and algae.  Each night the Nancy Foster’s sonar team conducted multibeam sonar surveys, covering nearly 140 square miles which provided detailed topographic maps of the bottom allowing us to target and discover new reef habitat.  In addition, we sampled the water column with daily CTD casts, which measure temperature, salinity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, fluorometry, and pH.  At night we made 11 MOCNESS net tows which sampled plankton in discrete layers of the water column.  And we still have the Bluefin glider, gliding up and down in the water column somewhere on Pulley Ridge, sampling the water column and sending its data via satellite back to Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.  These water column data will help us better understand the coupling of these deep-sea ecosystems with the pelagic ecosystem.

By using the K2 ROV to ground-truth new multibeam sonar maps made on this expedition by the NOAA ship Nancy Foster enabled us to find extensive essential fish habitat for various grouper, including snowy, Warsaw (pictured here), and speckled hind. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

And of course our team of scientists, students, ROV crew, MOCNESS crew, and ship’s crew made this an enjoyable and productive cruise.  My appreciation and thanks goes to them.  Special thanks go to the NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research and Technology and NOAA’s Deep Sea Coral Research Program for providing funding in part for this research expedition.

Want to know and see more?

See: http://flosee2.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/sep-22-day-11/ to read John Reed’s Leg 1 summary blog as part of our 2011 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration Expedition II (FLoSEE II).  For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

• Today the Leg 2 science party disembarked from the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster for various locations (for most, a 7-hour drive home to Harbor Branch), after completing a very successful expedition.  See the upcoming final blog by Chief Scientist John Reed that will summarize the whole cruise.

• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

Immersion in Ocean Sciences

An important part of CIOERT’s mission is education.  Both legs of the FLoSEE Expedition II included graduate students, the second of a series of CIOERT “Ocean Discovery” cruises that will increase “hands-on”, at-sea, multi-disciplinary opportunities for university students in the CIOERT region, with each cruise focused on one or more of CIOERT’s themes.  The goal of this program is to facilitate students to become successful scientists through active participation and immersion in a multi-disciplinary ocean sciences research and monitoring cruise, followed by a rigorous, laboratory-based oceanographic research course.  This year’s cruise is a preface to a course, Immersion in Ocean Sciences, which is being taught this fall at HBOI-FAU, with Dr. Dennis Hanisak as the lead instructor.  Each student will do a project initiated on FLoSEE II, work with one or more of the CIOERT faculty as mentors, submit a written research paper, and present a scientific poster in our CIOERT Student Symposium in December.

What better way to learn about the expectations for this educational opportunity then to introduce this year’s six Immersion in Ocean Sciences students?

Jennifer Grima, M.S. Student, Department of Biological Sciences, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. Shirley Pomponi, HBOI-FAU

Four FAU graduate students on Leg 1 of FLoSEE II (from left to right): Noelle Notarnicola, Drew Krupski, Jenny Grima, and Courtney Kehler. (Photo Credit: CIOERT)

I graduated from FAU in the summer of 2009 and began working as a lab technician for Dr. Shirley Pomponi at Harbor Branch.  As a lab tech, my main goal in my research was to enhance techniques for developing a continually diving sponge cell line.  Since I became a graduate student, I have been working on a project that still pertains to my main goal, but in a more concentrated area dealing with one specific sponge that produces a compound that has been found to have antitumor activity.  I was premed as an undergrad and have always been interested in the medical field.  It’s been motivating and humbling knowing that my work may be a stepping stone towards developing and enhancing the production of drugs used for cancer.  Besides working on my project, Dr. Pomponi has given me so many rare opportunities such as travelling to Spain and Panama for sponge workshops, I was able to be a part of the CIOERT cruise last year and went down in the submersible, and this year I was able to join the rest of the crew on FLoSEE II.  Being at sea is an experience like no other.  It gives you the chance to learn new techniques, meet new people, be a part of some really amazing projects, and add some more adventure to life!

Courtney Kehler, M.S. Student, Environmental Sciences Program, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. Brian Lapointe, HBOI-FAU

I am a second year master’s student doing my thesis project on alkaline phosphatase activity in reef macroalgae of South Florida.  I am on board the FLoSEE cruise as part of my graduate class Immersion in Ocean Science.  This is my first research cruise.

Andrew Krupski, M.S. Student, Ocean Engineering, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. James Van Zwieten, Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center

Three FAU graduate students on Leg 2 of FLoSEE II (from left to right): Richard Mulroy, Noelle Notarnicola, and Courtney Kehler. (Photo Credit: CIOERT)

I am working on my Master’s degree in Ocean Engineering.  On this cruise, my major responsibility was the deployment of a Bluefin Spray glider AUV.  Working with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) was the focus of my undergraduate studies at the University of Rhode Island, and I had been trying to get out on a research cruise for a long time, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me.  I became an Ocean Engineer because I love the ocean, so it’s been a great experience to get to see the living side of it, as opposed to the physical and engineering aspects I’ve been studying.  These types of hands-on operations are my favorite part of being an engineering student, but unfortunately sometimes they can be few and far between.  That is why I feel very fortunate that I was able to come on the FloSEE II cruise, and I’ll be the first to sign up the next time I get a chance to go to sea again.

Bethany Lieuwen, M.S. Student, Biological Sciences, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. James Hartmann, Department of Biological Sciences

Being only a couple weeks into my Masters program at Florida Atlantic University, I was apprehensive doing a cruise like this.  I am relatively immature in my research and experience in research at sea; I don’t even know what my master’s thesis research is going to be on!  I chose to do a class like this for an experience I have never been presented with before.  This is my first research cruise and my first taste of real scientific research.  I am not quite sure what my research focus is going to be on this cruise, although I’m hoping it is going to be fish-focused.  I am kind of a nerd about fishes, although I haven’t had the opportunity to study them as thoroughly as I would like to.

Richard Mulroy, M.S. Biological Sciences Student, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. Paul Wills, HBOI-FAU

I am currently a graduate student at FAU, researching aquaculture at HBOI.  I will be working with a team at HBOI on an integrated multi-trophic aquaculture system.  In this type of system, multiple species of organisms, feeding at different trophic levels, are raised in same system.  Species such as fish and shrimp are fed a prepared diet and other species, such as oysters and macroalgae, extract nutrients from the “waste” of the fed species.  I have taken many courses in aquaculture, marine biology, and marine science at HBOI.  This course, Immersion in Ocean Science, was a unique opportunity for adventure and education on-board a working research vessel.  Everything has been new and exciting, from viewing deep-sea coral habitats via the ROV to identifying sponges and gorgonians by viewing their spicules through a microscope.   My project for this course will be to compare data of the water quality at the sites we visit that was collected by the CTD.

Noelle Notarnicola, M.S. Biological Sciences Student, FAU; Major Advisor: Dr. Tammy Frank, NOVA Southeastern University

I am an FAU Master’s student working under the guidance of Dr. Tammy Frank of NOVA Southeastern University.  My Master’s project is a quantitative assessment of zooplankton in the Gulf of Mexico focusing on copepods, chaetognaths, and fish larvae.  I will be using the MOCNESS to collect plankton samples at various depths in the water column on this trip to use for my Master’s thesis.  I am also out on this cruise as a student in FAU-HBOI’s Immersion in Ocean Science graduate course. I am a former FAU-HBOI Semester By The Sea student and this is my fifth research cruise.

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/immersion-in-ocean-sciences/ to read about our Immersion in Ocean Sciences students on our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration (FLoSEE).

• Our ROV dive today ran up a slope from about 250 to 195 m, spanning flat limestone pavements and rugged phosphoritic boulder fields and ledges.
• Fish highlights included a large goosefish and a Caribbean rough shark, possibly the first record of this species from Florida waters.
• We crossed a broad field of the ancient broken rib bones of an extinct dugong, a relative of the manatee.
• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

You Don’t Have To Be A Marine Scientist To Love The Ocean

Georgios Kallifatidis, Postdoctoral Investigator, HBOI-FAU

As a cell biologist in the cell biology group of Dr. Esther Guzmán at HBOI, I study the potential of marine natural compounds as agents for the treatment of cancer.  My project focuses on the role of marine sponge extracts and their therapeutic potential to target diseases, such as pancreatic cancer.

The Leg 2 scientific party gathers in front of UCONN’s K2 ROV at the end of cruise, safely back in port at Key West and a job well done! Today’s blogger, Dr. Georgios Kallifatidis, is the second person on the right. (Photo Credit: CIOERT)

Even though I conduct my research at an oceanographic institute, the majority of my work is performed in the lab and does not include field work.  For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the ocean and by marine life.  I grew up in Greece near the sea, and since childhood I have explored the waters of Greece and many different parts of the world snorkeling and diving, where I observed, monitored, and photographed marine creatures.

When I learned that I was given the great opportunity to attend this research expedition and join the team of FLoSEE II, I was thrilled.  It always has been my wish to spend time on a research ship.  To get this opportunity was the best surprise I could think of.

Scientist Esther Guzmán enjoys her work! Here she is processing samples for use in HBOI’s drug discovery program. In the background, grad students Richard Mulroy, Noelle Notarnicola, and Courtney Kehler assist with processing samples from a K2 ROV dive. (Photo Credit: CIOERT)

The ocean contains so many secrets to be discovered and obtains thousands of organisms to be investigated for novel compounds to be used in drug discovery.  Being part of this expedition and to have the chance to observe the monitor for hours as the research team collects samples from the bottom of the sea, and processing them afterwards is a great experience.  I am very happy that during this trip I have the chance to combine my work/research interest with my love for the ocean and for marine life.  It is amazing to observe marine organisms, you normally only can see in books or documentaries, at a depth of up to 800 meters and I was very much impressed by the expert knowledge that Chief Scientist Dr. John Reed and Dr. Charles Messing have about each organism we observed.

Apart from collecting samples for my research and observing marine life, I am excited about the opportunity to get an insight into the life/work of marine biologists during their research expeditions.  Yesterday, Noelle Notarnicola and Richard Mulroy showed me how to operate the Multiple Opening and Closing Net Sampling System (MOCNESS), where plankton was sampled at depths up to 500 meters.  It is absolutely amazing, to observe all these luminescent organisms and fish larvae under the microscope.

This was my first research expedition in the ocean and hopefully not the last.  It really was one of the best experiences I ever had.  I am very thankful that I was given this great opportunity and that I had the chance to meet and work with all the wonderful people of our team.  Many thanks to all of you!

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/the-search-for-a-cancer-treatment/ to read Dr. Esther Guzmán’s blog on her quest for a cancer cure as part of our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration Expedition (FLoSEE).

• On the morning dive, we visited completely different seafloor habitats than previously—along the rims of enormous deep sinkholes south of Marathon, about halfway along the Florida Keys.  Here, we encountered a few colonies—our first—of the two branching stony corals that form deep-water reefs elsewhere: Enallopsammia profunda and Lophelia pertusa.

• Although much of the seafloor around the sinkhole rims is flat limestone pavement, near the edges we found long thin, blackened limestone crusts, sometimes more than half a meter high, rising steeply up out of the pavement like eroded rocky fences.

• The afternoon dive brought one of the biggest surprises of the expedition.  We found the first known Lophelia pertusa coral-dominated mound on the Pourtalès Terrace (and the southernmost in the Strait of Florida).  Living colonies reached over a meter across, and, in many places, standing dead colonies and coral rubble carpeted the substrate.

• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

Gene Expression Profiling of Deep-Water Invertebrates

Lisa Cohen, Biological Scientist, HBOI-FAU

As the yellow Kraken II (K2) ROV is lowered into the water, and I watch the video feed from the dry lab or from the navigation van, I definitely want to be down there myself, although a 700-ft scuba dive (our intended depth at this site) is impossible.  Instead, the K2 is allowing us to travel deep to document and sample on high- and low-relief hard-bottom sites with interesting ledges and geological features south of the Florida Keys.   This site is in the Deepwater Coral Habitat Area of Particular Concern (C-HAPC) just off the Florida Reef Tract.

Colonies of the deep-water reef-building coral, Lophelia pertusa, on a substrate of dead coral colonies with sponges and octocorals. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

I’m on this cruise to collect benthic invertebrates for Drs. Sara Edge and Josh Voss with the coral health and disease group of the Robertson Coral Reef program at HBOI.  Our lab group specializes in the development and use of molecular diagnostic tools for health assessments of scleractinian (stony) corals.  We can also expand our tools to analyze different taxa such as sponges (Porifera) and other Cnidarians (e.g., gorgonians, black coral, anemones, etc.).  Enlarging our datasets and profiles of a diversity of species increases the sensitivity of our diagnostic tools.  For example, one group of genes we look at represents specific metabolic pathways activated during a stress response, such as exposure to a toxin.  Another group is activated during normal cellular functions.  Closely-related organisms often have conserved gene sequences (e.g., those that have remained the same during evolution).  The recognition that a group of genes is consistently turned on or off across all taxa is useful for future diagnoses of whether organisms are stressed by toxins, disease, or other environmental factors based on fluctuations in baseline patterns.

A cluster of unknown "mushroom" sponges on dead coral rubble, with a feathery hydroid upstaging the scene. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

I was fortunate to accompany the 2010 FLOSEE cruise with the Johnson Sea-Link II  submersible when we visited sites in this same area and collected black coral (Antipatharia), sponges (specifically Hexactinellida and Leiodermatium sp.), gorgonians (Plexauridae), and lace corals (stylasterid hydrocorals).  This year, we are sampling these same taxa, collecting at least 3 individuals from each, to acquire genetic profiles.

Life at sea, and in the field in general, for me is really fun (as long as the seas don’t get too rough, which they haven’t on this trip thus far!).  Some of my favorite things, unique to being aboard ship, are going in and out of heavy fireproof ship doors that require turning a hand-wheel, the rooms with raised lips to step over when entering or leaving, getting used to running on a treadmill on a rocking boat (extra challenge!), and clear nights out on deck looking up at all the stars and the Milky Way, with no light pollution or land around and appreciating the vastness of the ocean.

One of the major highlights from this trip has been participating in dives with the K2 ROV.  After K2 gets in the water, we all watch the live video feeds for the 4-hr dives.  As the ROV pilot controls the ROV, an annotator (one of the science team) describes what is seen.  The robotic manipulator arm operator collects samples with a claw and a suction tube and delivers them into either buckets under the rear of the vehicle, or cylindrical quivers on a front-end movable tray that have to be capped with a large rubber plug after the specimen has been inserted.  I have been helping out as a data recorder, typing observations into the database and backing up data after the dives on hard disks.  The cruise thus far has generated about 50 Terabytes of data (mostly video).  I’ve been able to observe and appreciate the level of detail, precision and work required to operate an underwater vehicle like an ROV, and I’m very grateful for all the work the ROV crew and the ship’s crew have done to allow us to collect our samples so smoothly.  I feel really lucky to have seen these amazing organisms.

I am normally buried in our molecular lab at HBOI analyzing samples for most of the year, so I appreciate and enjoy the opportunity to get out in the field, collect samples and learn about the habitats where our samples originate.  I am very grateful not only for this opportunity to collect samples, but also for the experience of observing the habitat, and learning the taxonomic names and identifying features of corals, sponges, and other invertebrates.  Even though I can’t physically be in the water looking at the incredible organisms we have found on the 24 dives thus far, the experience of interacting with the ROV crew and logging data during the dives has been a fascinating and inspiring experience.

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/sampling-for-coral-health-and-disease/ to read Lisa Cohen’s blog as part of our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration Expedition (FLoSEE).

• The highlight for our fish biologist Andy David today was a little Red Dory fish with outsized fan-shaped pelvic fins.
• The deep escarpment and rugged slopes harbored few large fishes, but there was more monofilament, steel leader, and braided line on the bottom than we have seen so far.
• We collected a small colony of the deep-water coral Madrepora oculata.  This species is widespread on deep-water reefs around the world, but our specimen, collected in 176 meters, may be the shallowest record for this species in the western Atlantic.
• The afternoon dive brought a comical little red dory with outsized pectoral fins, a black coral tree about 3 meters across, and our first feather stars, which appear to be a species previously found only once on this side of the Strait of Florida.
• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

What We Don’t Know

Charles G. Messing, Professor, Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center

One of the most extraordinary things about this expedition has been repeated observations that, when we visit places that are not too far apart on similar seafloor topographies at similar depths, we often find very different communities of bottom-dwelling invertebrates.  One site may be dominated by stylasterid lace corals and sea anemones, while another supports a large population of stylasterids, sponges, and black cluster corals (Dendrophyllia).  (We find those lace corals almost everywhere on the Terrace, but more about that later.)

An isolated ledge of blackened phosphoritic limestone sits on a broad flat pavement. Its elevated surface provides a happy home for three Venus' flytrap anemones, tall brown feathery hydroids (upper left), a yellow feather star with curled arm tips, several sponges and a variety of other organisms, as well as shelter (sort of) for a big pale red roughy. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

Today, we worked our way up a slope and passed through a depth zone with large numbers of spider crabs, whereas we had seen almost none at that depth before.  Ditto for the black Dendrophyllia corals.  Another remarkable thing is that, on a smaller scale, we often run along the bottom and find abrupt changes in the bottom fauna, even where there is no discernable difference in depth, bottom type, or temperature.  All of a sudden, a dense meadow of delicate featherlike octocorals in the genus Plumarella appears and, sometimes just as abruptly a few tens of meters further on, they disappear again.  This particular species also grows on the Miami Terrace further north, but chiefly on the edges of prominent ledges and boulders where it is exposed to strong flow.  Here on the Pourtalès Terrace, great lawns of it may appear on smooth slopes. This afternoon, a field of small yellow octocoral fans quickly gave way to taller purple sea fans, with no apparent change in slope or depth.

In a few cases, we can trace changes to differences in some physical factor.  Part of today’s dives travelled over a series of low alternating ridges and shallow grooves that ran down the faces of steep slopes.  The lace corals congregated along the ridges where they were exposed to stronger flow, and their fans all grew lined up with the slope, telling us that the prevailing current runs parallel with the slope.  All fan-shaped suspension feeders, whether sponge, coral or gorgonian, will spread their growth at right angles to a one-way or back-and-forth bottom current.  However, near the top of one slope, the lace corals, which dominated here, developed bushy growth forms; a single colony often had multiple fans oriented in different directions, indicating a multidirectional bottom current.

This pair of so-far unidentified small fishes were part of a large school that sheltered under the ledge in the other photo, oblivious to both the big roughy and this sea urchin (Coelopleurus floridanus). (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

I mentioned that lace corals dominate most of the hard substrates on the Pourtalès Terrace.  This represents a huge difference from the Miami Terrace.  Although the two terraces are not that far apart, are both under the influence of the Florida Current, are both composed of limestone and really represent different parts of the same extensive geological feature (separated where the shelf is buried by deep sediment south of Miami), their seafloor communities differ in several important ways.  In particular, although we find scattered chiefly tiny lace corals on the rugged projecting slabs and ledges of the Miami Terrace, there the dominant coral is the much more robust Lophelia pertusa, which lines the projecting outcrops with much larger colonies.  Further north, it is the primary architect of deep-water reefs that run from Jupiter to North Carolina and may reach over 500 ft tall.  We have no idea why we have never seen this coral on the Pourtalès Terrace.

And, just as with the organisms, the geology of the Pourtalès Terrace is filled with mysteries.  Our detailed multibeam sonar maps of seafloor features reveal what appear to be numerous similarly shaped and oriented bottom mounds, slopes, and ridges at similar depths.  But, when we drop down to see them with the ROV, we often find very different-looking geology.  In one area, the steep slopes are relatively smooth (although the detailed surface texture may be eroded and filled with cavities), whereas another reveals a succession of those downslope-oriented ridges and grooves.  On this afternoon’s dive, we were running along an almost flat pale brown limestone pavement and came upon a two-meter wide slab of limestone blackened by the mineral phosphorite.  This chemically altered form of limestone is characteristic of the Miami Terrace and makes its rugged features look like solidified lava slopes of Tolkien’s Mount Doom.  But, we have seen very little of it here.  How did this slab get here?  Is it the last remnant of an otherwise completely eroded overlying layer?

And, what environmental cues determine which organisms live where?  Perhaps their larvae respond to subtle differences that we cannot yet detect.  Perhaps their larvae settle much more broadly but cannot survive past a young stage in different places.  Every scientist knows that every answer discovered begets more questions.  The Pourtalès Terrace will have us asking for a long time!

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/july-21-daily-blog/#more-263 to read a blog by HBOI scientist Dr. Priscilla Winder, who describes a submersible dive she made last year on Pourtalès Terrace as part of our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration Expedition (FLoSEE).

• Our afternoon dive was abbreviated because we had to travel 15 miles from the morning dive site, and because the new site lay in over 800 meters of water, far deeper than any of our previous dives on this leg, K2 took far longer to get to the seafloor and return to the surface.

• The dive planned to run up one of the steep escarpments along the outer southern margin of the Terrace.  However, the Florida Current had other plans, and we spent most of the dive running along the seafloor near the base of the slope rather than up it.

• Unlike our previous dives on this expedition, the seafloor was uniformly fine sediment, composed chiefly of the sand-grain-sized shells of near-surface zooplankton such as foraminiferans.

• The denizens were mostly few and far between, but included tripod fish, deep-sea prawns, eels, rattail fish, and deep-sea red crabs.

• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

New Students Afloat (Blogs from two of our Immersion in Ocean Science students)

Richard Mulroy, MS Student, Biological Sciences, FAU

Greetings from the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster.  I am a graduate student researching aquaculture at HBOI.  I am working with a team led by Dr. Paul Wills on an integrated multi-trophic aquaculture system, in which multiple species, feeding at different trophic levels, are raised in the same system.  In our case, pompano and white shrimp are fed a prepared diet, whereas oysters and macroalgae extract nutrients from the waste of the fed species.  I have taken many courses in aquaculture, marine biology, and marine science at HBOI.  This course, Immersion in Ocean Science, offered a unique opportunity for adventure and education aboard a working research vessel.  Everything has been new and exciting, from viewing deep-sea coral habitats via the ROV, to identifying sponges and gorgonians by examining their spicules through a microscope, and seeing things that no one has seen before.

The most bizarre and amazing fish we have seen so far are longspine snipefish, which have an equally bizarre scientific name, Macrorhamphosus scolopax. We see them singly or in twos or threes, nose downward, usually hovering behind a sponge or black coral. (Credit: CIOERT and Univ. of Connecticut Kraken2 ROV)

My project for this course involves comparing the water quality data collected by the CTD among the sites we visit.  All of this has meant long days, up at 7:00 AM to watch the ROV explore the bottom and not to bed until all the plankton samples have been processed late at night.  It has all been worth it.  One of the best things about this expedition is seeing people from many disciplines working together.  Biologists, chemists, engineers, and the ship’s crew come together to learn about the ocean.  On-board everyone is willing to lend a hand to get the job done.  This experience will last a lifetime.  Even if I never set foot on a research vessel again, I know I have learned, had fun, and contributed, in a very small way, to our knowledge of the ocean.

Courtney Kehler, MS Student, Biological Sciences, FAU

Three FAU graduate students are on Leg 2 (from left to right): Richard Mulroy, Noelle Notarnicola, and Courtney Kehler. (Credit: CIOERT)

Today the seas are calm and the weather beautiful, but this is not how it has been the whole cruise.  On Day 3, we ran into a squall when arriving at the Alligator Humps, but science, like the post office continues rain or shine!  After approval from the bridge, we were allowed to conduct the MOCNESS tow.  Now most people think the MOCNESS is the worse the cruise could get … well, think again!  MOCNESS in the rain and lighting for two hours is not exactly what you would call a good time.  But we got through it and even pulled up some bioluminescence plankton!  Needless to say, doing the MOCNESS on Day 4 was a cinch since the weather was nice.

This cruise has had some of the best experiences and worse experiences of my life.  The fact that this is a class is amazing!  I love the hands on-experience and learning from top scientists what they really do in their research!  Dr. Guzmán, Dr. Messing, John Reed, Lisa Cohen, Stephanie Farrington, the ROV crew, and the crew of the ship have been more than willing to spend hours explaining what they do to us students and have even allowed us to perform some of their responsibilities.  Of course, everyone has joked since it is Immersion in Ocean Science that we will all be thrown overboard to get the full immersion experience!

I truly feel this class has allowed me to get a glimpse into what I could be doing when I obtain my Ph.D.  This has been one of the best classes I have ever taken and, if this class is offered again before I graduate, I would not hesitate to take it again.  I will also be recommending this class to all other graduate students at HBOI.

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/undergraduate-research/ to read a blog by Dan Rowan, an FAU undergraduate student on our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration (FLoSEE).

• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http:/www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

My Zooplankton Journey

Noelle Notarnicola, MS Student, Biological Scientist, FAU

When most people hear that I am studying marine biology, they immediately think about fish, dolphins, or whales.   So when I tell them I am studying zooplankton, the question I get most often in response is … of all organisms in the ocean, why zooplankton?

To be honest, zooplankton is not what I always thought I would love to study as a kid, but the more I learn about it and see it firsthand, the more fascinated and captivated with it I become.  Not only are zooplankton an integral part of the marine food web and include the next generation of marine organisms in their larval form, but they are also extremely diverse, with more complex body structures and brilliant coloration than you would ever expect.  Peering into the microscope at a zooplankton sample straight out of the ocean is like having a window into a secret world.  This living part of the ocean is often overlooked by everyday people

Chaetognaths, also known as arrow worms, are voracious predators and have really menacing jaws! (Photo Credit: Noelle Notarnicola)

One of my personal favorites to see is chaetognaths, also known as arrow worms.  They are predatory worms and have these really menacing jaws!  Another favorite and a big hit with the science party and ship’s crew on this trip are the sapphirinids, which are a type of copepod, that shimmer purple, green, and blue and make the cod-ends of the net look like it is filled with glitter.  Many of the Calanoid copepods also have pretty pigmentation and it is always fun to see the various fish larvae that end up in the samples too.

A favorite of the scientific party in our MOCNESS samples are sapphirinids, a type of copepod that shimmers purple, green, and blue and make the cod-ends of the net look like it is filled with glitter. (Photo Credit: Noelle Notarnicola)

To collect this zooplankton, I have been using the Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System (MOCNESS).  My relationship with the MOCENSS is only 3 weeks old but it has been an interesting journey in such a short period of time.  I started Leg 1 with zero field experience with the MOCNESS and was nervous about getting it up and running and in the water successfully collecting samples.  The first deployment, towing, retrieval, and processing of samples took me about 6 hours!  Three weeks later and with 8 tows under my belt, I was able to do all of it with the help of the other FAU students onboard in 3.5 hours.  It was an interesting and quick switch from being the person who needed step-by-step instructions to turning around and going through the process on my own and instructing the other students on what to do and how to assist.  Thankfully Jim Lovin of the University of Miami is a wealth of knowledge (and very, very patient!!) or I would not have come so far so quickly.

It has been a strange sort of juggling act out here being both a student and the person in charge of the night shift and MOCNESS tows.  I was initially pretty intimidated by the task, but I jumped right in and now feel more comfortable with the MOCNESS and the decision-making than I thought possible.  I thought I was doing a decent job, then got confirmation during a random conversation with Andy David who is a Research Fisheries Biologist with NMFS, while on deck.  During this conversation, Andy asked me who the students were onboard.  I listed the 2 other students and then said myself.  He looked at me a bit taken aback and responded “You are a student?  I thought you were the person in charge!”  It was nice to know that my role transition from student to night operations lead was pretty seamless and I was not just running around like a clueless, crazy person!  But Andy was correct; I am the person in charge of the MOCNESS and the dual role playing has been an awesome, strange, stressful, and exciting experience!  I came in nervous and unsure, but think I have accomplished a lot more than I ever expected to and have some wonderful samples that I cannot wait to sort through back in the lab.

I have learned so much these past 3 weeks, and I know for sure that this trip will make me both a better student and scientist in the future.  I am so much more than grateful for this experience and opportunity and I hope to someday meet the MOCNESS again in the future!

Want to know more?

See: http://flosee2.wordpress.com/page/2/ to read Noelle’s blog from Leg 1 of our 2011 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration (FLoSEE II).

• K2 made two dives within the newly established Marine Protected Area (MPA) called “The Humps” in the eastern Pourtalès Terrace.
• John Reed and Andrew David (NMFS Lab in Panama City) observed larger numbers of fishes than on any previous dives, including aggregations of snowy grouper, barrelfish, big roughy, and schools of well over a hundred boarfish.
• Some of the attached invertebrates, including a small delicate primnoid sea feather, appeared and later disappeared from the seafloor community without any obvious change in bottom conditions or topography.
• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

How Do We Know What We Are Seeing?

Charles G. Messing, Professor, Nova Southeastern University

As a taxonomist specializing in marine invertebrates, one of my jobs on this expedition is to help identify the organisms we observe.  Although taxonomy itself focuses on the identification and classification of organisms (both living and fossil), it lies within the greater context of evolutionary biology, of our efforts to understand the pattern and history of biodiversity.  Perhaps the first question anyone asks in a new habitat is: “What is that?” or “What are those?”  The easiest answer is to offer the name of the major group to which the creature belongs.  “It’s a sponge” or “Those are sea fans.”  But, answers like that, although pointing in the right direction, are not at all final. Imagine viewing a vast assemblage of antelopes, zebras, giraffes, and buffalo on the east African plains and having someone tell you: “Those are mammals.”  So, we have to be more specific whenever we can.  We categorize organisms via a hierarchical system of classification, with smaller groups nested within larger ones, like Russian dolls: species within genera (the plural of genus), genera within families, and so on to the largest subdivisions: phyla (plural of phylum) within kingdoms (and, recently, kingdoms within realms).  When the Swede, Carl Linnaeus developed this system about 250 years ago, he could not have realized that, a hundred years later, it would provide the scaffolding for Charles Darwin’s new evolutionary approach to understanding life: that, for example, species in the same genus are not only more closely related to each other than they are to species in another genus, but that they share a more recent common ancestor than species in another genus.

The Pourtalès Terrace supports an amazing diversity of sponges. Several on a ledge include two pale fluted bouquets of Leiodermatium, which produce a chemical that has powerful antitumor activity and is currently being investigated for pharmaceutical use. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

Whenever we see a creature in the ROV’s view, we work down through Linnaeus’ hierarchy.  Of course, in most cases this is automatic.  When we (or you) see a fish, we don’t consciously think, “OK, that’s an animal, a vertebrate, a bony fish (or cartilaginous fish, if it’s a shark).  We “know” from what we have learned that it is indeed a fish.  We analyze all of its features, those of its kingdom, phylum, class, order, family (and, if we’re experienced enough), genus and species together.  (Deciding what is a fish in scientific terms is actually not that straightforward.  It turns out that lungfishes are more closely related to us than they are to salmon, but that’s another discussion.)

Marine biologists observing the sea floor (or botanists in the Amazon rain forest) bring to their work an extensive mental encyclopedia of classification that allows us to put names to the creatures we see.  But, it is often difficult or impossible to identify organisms to species or genus, or even family.  Many organisms, particularly many of the seafloor invertebrates such as sponges, gorgonians, and lace corals, require a specimen in hand, often for examination of characters that can only been viewed under the microscope.  As a result, the narration you hear coming from the scientist sitting at the K2 console may sound like: “Those are stylasterids [family]; there’s a big Geodia [genus]; I’m not sure, but that’s some kind of demosponge [class].”

A pair of delicate salmon-colored stylasterid lace corals, each about 20 cm across near the edge of a limestone ledge at a depth of 200 meters. Every one of the thousands of colonies of these corals grow at right angles to the prevailing bottom current, which here flows into the image. (Photo Credit: CIOERT, taken from UCONN's K2)

When we do manage to collect a specimen, that’s often not the end of it.  There are between 25 and 30 phyla of animals in the marine environment, and most taxonomists have expertise in only one or two, often only in one subgroup.  So, we bring along a floating library of scientific publications that may help narrow the alternatives.  My area of expertise is the Crinoidea, the sea lilies and feather stars.  However, I just set myself up to put a name to two of the lace corals we collected.  I dug out John’s copy of Stephen Cairns’ 1986 “A Revision of the Northwest Atlantic Stylasteridae”, which includes descriptions and illustrations of all known species in the region.  Of course, every group of organisms has its own descriptive terminology.  For the non-specialist, it may be like trying to decipher a foreign language, in this case, for example, words like dactylopore, coenosteum, and gastrostyle.  First, I looked at the distributions of all 42 species and found that only seven had been previously collected from the Pourtalès Terrace (although I kept an eye on several more known only from off northern Cuba).  Despite the new vocabulary, there were enough measurements and recognizable features that allowed me to get to the genus level with some certainty: Distichopora and Pliobothrus.  I’m still a little fuzzy about the species, but D. foliacea and P. symmetricus are the only species in their respective genera that are well known from our area.

If it turns out, for example, that some organism produces an important biomedical compound, we will always try to verify our identification with an expert who has seen many specimens of many closely related species and understands their variations.  It was, after all, the variations within and between species that Darwin focused on in developing his theory of evolution by natural selection.  If I find variations that make it difficult to determine which species I have, it’s not surprising.  A species is both a pattern that varies in space across its range under different environmental conditions, and a process that takes place through time.  Species diversify over time into more species, and an important line of evidence supporting evolution is that we often cannot tell where one species begins and another leaves off.

Want to know more?

See:http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/center-of-marine-biomedical-and-biotechnology-research/ for a blog written by Kathleen Janda and Tara Pitts, HBOI-FAU, during our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration (FLoSEE), about how HBOI scientists isolate novel natural products from sponges, soft corals, and other invertebrates.

• We made two dives to the East Hump Marine Protected Area.
• We observed numbers of two of the species that the MPA was designated to protect: snowy grouper and blueline tilefish.
• Groups of two or three bizarre-looking longnose snipefish hovered, nose down, just behind lace coral fans or sponges.
• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

The East Hump Marine Protected Area

Andrew David, Research Fishery Biologist, National Marine Fisheries Service, Panama City, Florida

Andy David, Research Fishery Biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Panama City, Florida, is our fish expert on Leg 2.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council and NOAA created a series of eight deep-water MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) along the southeastern coast of the United States to help with the recovery of seven species of the snapper-grouper complex: Warsaw grouper, yellowedge grouper, snowy grouper, misty grouper, speckled hind, golden tilefish, and blueline tilefish.  The East Hump MPA is the one we visited today.  Located near the popular fishing spot called the “Islamorada Hump”, 13 nautical miles southeast of Long Key, FL, this MPA lies in waters ranging from 636 to 971 feet deep, with the tops of the “humps” in 509 to 541 feet.  It spans five by ten nautical miles with bounding coordinates at 24°36.5’N, 80°45.5’W (NW corner), 24°32’N, 80°36’W (NE corner), 24°32.5’N, 80°48’W (SW corner), and 24°27.5’N, 80°38.5’W (SE corner).  The area is closed to bottom fishing, which includes hook and line, trawling, and other bottom-tending gear.  The humps are pinnacle-like formations that consist primarily of hardened layers of sandy carbonate sediments and support a diverse array of marine animals, including deep-water corals.

A high priority for Leg 2 is exploration of sites that have been designated as Marine Protected Areas, including the Humps MPA off the Keys, with the goal of recovery of important fish commercial fish species. (Credit: SAFMC)

The other MPAs in the system are the St. Lucie Hump MPA off Florida’s east central coast; the Northern Florida MPA off Jacksonville; the Georgia MPA off Savannah; the Charleston Deep Reef (an artificial reef); Northern South Carolina and Edisto MPAs off South Carolina; and the Snowy Wreck MPA off North Carolina.

On 24 September 2011, the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster supported two ROV dives with the K2 ROV (owned and operated by the University of Connecticut).  The scientists aboard the ship represented CIOERT – Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute-Florida Atlantic University, Nova Southeastern University, the University of Miami, and NOAA Fisheries.  These dives surveyed areas in the central western and eastern sections of the East Hump MPA.  Between midnight and 6:00 AM, the survey technicians on the Nancy Foster mapped these areas with the ship’s acoustic sensors and produced the information used by Chief Scientist John Reed (CIOERT, HBOI) to select the final dive sites and the transects the ROV would follow the next day.

These two dives revealed several deep coral reefs with extremely abundant coral and sponge assemblages as well as some of the economically valuable fish species the MPA was established to protect (snowy grouper and blueline tilefish).  The most abundant corals were three species of stylasterid lace corals and gorgonian octocorals.  Several large trees of black coral were seen as well; this species is extremely slow growing and corals of this size are hundreds of years old.  Sponges were also very abundant and several were collected to assess their genetic relationships, taxonomy, and potential biomedical application.  Along with the grouper and tilefish, many species of smaller fish were seen: roughtongue bass, red barbier, yellowfin bass, longnose snipefish, apricot bass, codlets, and boarfish.  Boarfish are relatively common throughout deep reefs on the east coast of the United States, but large schools of over 100 individuals are rarely seen.  The scientists on Nancy Foster were excited to see them in such abundance; no one could remember seeing so many of these boarfish in one place anywhere else.

Want to know more about FLoSEE?

See: http://flosee2.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/sep-18-day-7/ for a blog written by Chris Gardner, National Marine Fisheries Service Lab in Panama City, about our fish observations on Leg 1 of our 2011 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration Expedition (FLoSEE II).

• The single afternoon’s K2 dive, after our departure from Key West on the second leg of the expedition, crossed the slope of a series of pavements, ledges, and walls.  High relief areas were dominated by abundant colonies of several species of lace corals.
• Large black coral trees up to 2 meters across were more common on gently sloping limestone pavements.
• Large fishes included snowy grouper and big roughy; smaller species included yellowfin bass and deepbody boarfish.
• Abandoned coils of steel fishing leader were common on rugged topography.
• We also crossed a large area dominated by small dead bamboo corals (Isididae) crawling with pale orange marginellid snails.
• For daily expedition images, visit CIOERT Flickr collection at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cioert/.

An Introduction to the Pourtalès Terrace

Charles G. Messing, Professor, Nova Southeastern University

We departed Key West at about 10:00 Friday morning and steamed toward our first planned dive site, about 24 kilometers south of the western Florida Keys at a depth of 250 meters.  This placed us near the western end of the Pourtalès Terrace, a narrow, gently curved, limestone triangle that parallels the Florida Keys for 213 kilometers, from southern Key Largo to just west of the Marquesas Keys.  The Terrace covers almost 3,500 square kilometers and reaches 32 kilometers across its greatest width; the tip of the triangle is actually closer to Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas than to the Florida Keys.  The Terrace platform slopes gently down from a depth of ~200 m to 450 m; from there, the Pourtalès Escarpment slopes steeply to the deep floor of the southern Strait.

Louis François de Pourtalès (1824-1880) first mapped Pourtales Terrace off the Key in 1867.

Louis Francois de Pourtalès discovered the Terrace in 1867 during a survey aboard the U.S. Coast Survey steamer Bibb for a telegraph cable between Key West and Havana, Cuba.  Back then, depths were measured by lowering a weight on the end of a rope, recording the length run out when the line slackened as the weight hit the seafloor (try to be precise about that from a rolling ship!), and hauling up the rope and weight again by hand.  The Terrace was later named in his honor.

The Terrace is limestone that has been eroded into a wide variety of features over the last several million years.  Sinkholes as much as 260 meters deep lie along the southwest margin, while the eastern Terrace features mounds and ridges up to 91 meters high, including several popular fishing sites (e.g., The Islamorada Hump).  The powerful Florida Current prevents much in the way of sediment from accumulating as more than a thin veneer.

One of the first habitats we found after the ROV reached the seafloor was a low, eroded, limestone platform about 3 meters across that stood about half a meter high above a sloping rocky pavement.  The platform, looking like a discarded legless table, was almost covered with a garden of delicate pink, orange and white lace coral fans accompanied by pale sea anemones.  Despite their name, lace corals (family Stylasteridae) are not close relatives of the stony corals that build reefs.  Their polyps are much simpler, with a unique stony prong in the middle of each tiny cup, and they are actually more closely related to the Portuguese man-o-war and simple freshwater Hydra than to typical reef-building corals.  Like sea fans in shallower water, lace coral grow at right angles to prevailing bottom currents, so you can map the pattern of flow around a boulder or along a ledge by examining the orientation of these colonies.  At other locations, we found fields of pink-mouthed anemones (Sagartiidae), and some enormous black coral (Antipatharian) trees up to 2 meters across that may have started growing before the Mayan civilization reached its peak.

Pink stylasterid lace corals on a low phosphoritic limestone ledge at a depth of ~200 m on the Pourtalès Terrace. A yellowfin bass, Anthias nicholsi, rests in a depression in the foreground. (Photo Credit: CIOERT)

The most abundant fishes were small, often brightly-colored members of the Serranidae, the grouper family.  Most were yellowfin bass, Anthias nicholsi, which have a characteristic purplish tail border and broad yellow and red cheek stripes.  Several larger members of the family, snowy groupers, Epinephelus niveatus, up to almost a meter in length, escorted the ROV among the black corals.  Long coils of steel fishing leader snarled along the bottom attested to how sought-after these fishes are.  Other fishes included foot-long dour-looking big roughies, Gephyroberyx darwinii, and diamond-shaped deepbody boarfishes, Antigonia capros.

We also crossed a broad, low-relief limestone slope dominated by bamboo corals, which belong to the family Isididae.  Unlike their gorgonian relatives, bamboo coral polyps construct a supportive axis of solid white calcium carbonate cylinders connected by short black hardened protein segments.  However, every one of these bamboo corals was dead; the slender terminal branches were gone (we found their pieces in the sediment), leaving only the more robust basal branches and “trunk,” and every one appeared to have at least one, and often several, small pale orange marginellid snails crawling around on it.  Although many snails do feed on a variety of coral polyps, it seems unlikely that these marginellids are the culprits in this case.  Each colony also had numerous little scalpelliform gooseneck barnacles growing on it, which means that the bamboo corals had already been dead for some time.  However, we did collect some of the snails and will try to determine whether they have any of the characteristic bamboo coral microscopic skeletal sclerites in their guts, which would be prima facie evidence of their predatory nature.

Want to know more?

See: http://cioert.org/flosee/blog/florida-middle-grounds/ for a blog written by Andy Shepard, CIORT-UNCW, about the Florida Middle Grounds, one of the interesting areas we studied during our 2010 Florida Shelf Edge Exploration (FLoSEE).