You have now descended nearly 400 meters to reach the seafloor...
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Although this habitat covers nearly two thirds of Earth's surface, the deep sea still remains largely unknown. This is in major part due to the great cost and complexity associated with sampling at these extensive depths. However, our reach into these distant habitats has greatly increased with the deployment of scientific instruments connected to the NEPTUNE Canada cabled observatory. Now, in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Colombia, a team of scientists is working intensively at improving our current knowledge of deep-sea benthic ecosystems.
But why study distant ecosystems sparsely populated by small strange critters? There are two compelling reasons: the benthos is vastly important and it has retained its mystery.
Importance of the Benthos
The deep sea's contributions to the rest of the planet might be more important than we realize...
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For example, some deep-sea animals feed on organic matter that accumulates on the sediments. This organic matter originated as living organisms at the ocean's surface, which, when dead, sink to the bottom. Without animals regularly turning over these deposits (an action called bioturbation), this organic matter would stay buried in sediments for extended periods of time. Hence, deposit-feeding critters (such as sea urchins, sea cucumbers, brittle stars and certain gastropod species) are believed to play an important role in nutrient cycling and regulating sediment composition (Meysman et al. 2006).
Mysteries of the Benthos
As you might have noticed, the previous paragraph was written in rather hypothetical terms. This is mostly due to the fact that we presently know so little about the deep sea...
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This dearth of knowledge drives scientists to study the deep-ocean more thoroughly. As sampling these habitats was previously a complex and expensive proposition, it was not done regularly. Consequently, our current knowledge of the seafloor's baseline state is very limited. Since we do not really know what can be considered "normal" in these habitats, it is very difficult to know when significant changes occur. With the threats to our oceans (e.g. climate change, oxygen depletion, ocean acidification) as well as increased human disturbances (e.g. deep-water trawling, mineral extraction and pollution), it becomes crucial to understand how our actions impact these ecosystems (Koslow, 2007). This is the first step toward ensuring their protection.
About Me:
Katleen Robert
I am a Master's student in the department of biology at the University of Victoria, BC. My research focuses on the use of remotely operated cameras to study deep-sea ecology. I am particularly interested in looking at the abundance and activity rhythms of the denizens of the deep. If you have joined in one of our streaming black and white video session, I am usually the one operating the camera. And we now have met.
About this Blog
With this new blog, I intend to explore seafloor science off Canada's west coast within the larger context of deep-sea ecology studies worldwide. NEPTUNE Canada provides a wealth of real-time data; and this information is freely-available to everyone anywhere in the world. As such, I will introduce some of the questions currently under investigation in the hopes of exchanging ideas with blog readers.
For the most part, we only get a glimpse of the deep-sea from the surface. At the most basic level, we drop nets to haphazardly gather faunal specimens. A much more sophisticated method is through the use of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), which help us conduct quantitative observations.&nbs...
During the May 2010 maintenance cruise, we also took the time to explore the seafloor surrounding the Barkley Canyon instrument platforms using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) ROPOS (Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Science, operated by the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility (CSSF)). Equipped wi...
The NEPTUNE Canada maintenance cruise has just ended and it was most certainly a busy three weeks. My roles on board involved logging (the real-time description of ROPOS dive activities for record keeping), helping with the platform rigging for redeployment as well as handling the samples collected by...
Although simply observing and describing what is occurring in front of the video cameras deployed at Barkley Canyon is already a good step toward understanding this remote environment, the ability to take actual measurements from the imagery would provide a much more thorough picture of this ecosystem. Mea...
In the depths of the ocean, plants cannot grow as they are deprived of sunlight. Under certain special conditions (such as at hydrothermal vents), microbes can make up the base of the food chain and incredible oases of life can develop (Lutz and Kennish, 1993). However, for the rest of the seafloor, most of t...
In September 2009, NEPTUNE Canada installed 3 black and white video cameras on instrument platforms in Barkley Canyon . The first platform is located at the top of the canyon (396 meters deep), the second one is further down on a plat...
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