![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Logbook | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Guaymas
Basin Another great day at sea! It was a day of firsts for the
entire midwater science crew. We were exploring the water column above the
hydrothermal vents in Guaymas Basin. We slowly worked the ROV
Tiburon down stopping to identify animals as we came across
them. Seeing rather bizarre stomatapod (mantis shrimp) larvae at 200 meters was exciting because they are so unusual. On our way down we passed through a layer thick with the small, lobate Thallasocalyce and another with abundant Phialidium medusae. "Spiders" were less abundant than other dives here but still more abundant than we generally see in |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monterey Bay. We collected several Munnopsis that will
be used: to illustrate the new species description, for molecular
phylogenetic work, and for gut content analysis. That should ensure I
don't make it to bed before at least midnight. You may have noticed my bias and figured out that I work on
"spiders," otherwise known as munnopsid isopods, and am loving
the chances to observe and study the group in an area where they are so
plentiful. We have never seen them this abundant in Monterey Bay. Because
of the increased abundance, the chances of observing interesting behaviors
and using it to determine how they fit into the midwater community are
greatly increased here. I am in my second year of working on my doctoral
dissertation through University of California, Berkeley and MBARI on the
natural history of munnopsid isopods. But now, back to our day… As we got closer to the sea floor and the vents, we saw the nutrient-rich smoke plumes typical above the hot vents. We are particularly interested in the animals that are found in these plumes. Will there be different animals here than found in non-vent areas, or will there be higher, lower, or similar numbers of animals found above the vents?
As soon as the ROV was on deck, the ship's crew helped us set
out the trawl net. Despite my best efforts searching through the trawl
bucket, there were no spiders in either of the trawls we completed—they
were too shallow. Luckily, that is not what we were looking for. Instead, Bruce
Robison and Jeff
Drazen are comparing the fish diversity and abundance to identical
trawls carried out in this area 30 years ago by Bruce. The trawls also
turned up numerous interesting pteropod and squid species, which Brad
Seibel is using to measure respiration rates on. I better head to my bunk because we are in the water again at
6:30 a.m., and I don't want to miss anything. The really amazing thing
about midwater work with the ROV is that you just never know when
something new or unusual is going to turn up, so you never want to look
away from the screen. It makes for long, but very interesting days,
especially when you are exploring a little-studied area like this. |