MBFE - Day 17 - The Deep Sea

The research groups are pushing ahead with their projects and are excited about collecting their own data and gaining insights into how things work.

In class, we are continuing to work through introductions to the various marine communities. Yesterday we looked at deep sea pelagic communities, while today we studied deep sea benthic environments including deep sea soft bottom communities, hydrothermal vents, and cold methane seep communities.

This was a fun topic since the students know that the Director of OIMB, Dr. Craig Young, whom they have met, specializes in studying deep sea communities.

One of the groups of organisms we covered was the xenophyophores.  These are extremely large single-celled protists that secrete a calcium carbonate skeleton.  These are significant organisms because their presence usually indicates high local biological diversity.  Large specimens usually reach lengths of 20 cm or so.  However, when I was chatting with Dr. Young the other day he showed me a specimen that he collected that is significantly larger than that and may well be the world's largest known specimen of this group.

This is Dr. Young with his prize xenophyophore skeleton.

In other news, Eileen and Rachel M,, the two students on the trip who took marine biology (BIO 314) before the trip, have started a research experience under the direction of the chief scientist at the South Slough National Estuary Research Reserve (SSNERR).  They are doing this in lieu of BIO 314.  They are doing some monitoring work in conjunction with a restoration ecology project that is underway at SSNER.  They are both excited about the possibilities and the experience.

Stay tuned for more updates...