|
“Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of what lies underneath it, but deep water is full of scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance. The light that does not touch us, does not get to travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue.”
There is a lot of blue when you are on your way to a place that at least in the mind is ostensibly white. You do a lot of waiting when you are crossing the ocean. Last time I was on the Palmer I remember waiting a lot, and in the process, I had the opportunity to re-read my favorite book, the one that contains the quote above. Now, being back on this amazing vessel with my friends, colleagues, and strangers I am reminded about just how much chatting you do on the bow in front of blue water, how much idle staring at distant blue landforms happens through all the port holes and windows, and how boring doing something so exciting can be. I have always been obsessed with science fiction, and I realize now that there is always a cut between transit from one stellar body or gas giant or star system to the next. In reality, I bet the science team investigating Europa or the smuggler bringing lifesaving drugs to some distant colony also do a lot of looking out through portholes at the vastness of space staring idly waiting for anything interesting besides the same blackness to pass by. At least we get the color blue. I study the evolutionary relationships of organisms within the superphylum (a big grouping) that goes by the name Lophotrochozoa or Spiralia. More specifically I am interested in all the organisms within this group that are small, less than a millimeter. Lophotrochozoa contains large organisms such as the giant squid, massive annelid worms, and some of our favorite marine delicacies like oysters, clams, and mussels. The lesser known Lophotrochozoa, housing small animals the size of half the width of a human hair can live all over the planet, from vacation beach sand in San Diego to muddy bottoms in the Antarctic. It just so happens that the most exciting, unseen, microscopic, sand-dwelling creatures are typically described from a place where you can get an ice-cold margarita and California burrito, and not 300 meters below the surface of the Southern Ocean. Thus, we must take up the mantle and forgo the ice-cold margarita for the ice-cold Antarctic to discover and describe the vast diversity of minute animal life living in its muds, and sands. For now, though, I will have to be content with staring out at blue ocean, underneath blue sky, on an orange boat, going to a white place. Nickellaus Roberts PhD Candidate Kocot Lab University of Alabama
0 Comments
Hi there! My name is Damien Waits and I’m a contractor working with Ken Halanych at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the Southern Ocean on two previous occasions, once aboard the RV Laurence M. Gould and once on the ship we’re on now, the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer. Each trip has had its up and downs, its surprises, and its spectacular moments, and our current cruise is shaping up to be no different. Besides the thrill of adventure and the possibility of seeing new and amazing creatures from the deep, the views and scenery during our voyages are always something to look forward to. As soon as we stepped foot out of the shuttles, we were greeted by the impressive sight of the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer (Picture One). The ship is 308 feet long and capable of breaking 3 feet of ice at 3 knots. It has a total of 7 labs onboard that add up to almost 6,000 square feet of space for science. Once aboard, we could look out and see the hills of New Zealand and the hustle and bustle of the port. Occasionally, you’d also get the rare view of an Electrical Technician (Picture Two). As the Palmer pulled away from the dock, we had the opportunity to take pictures of the coast of New Zealand (Picture Three). Once we get to Antarctica, the photographic moments are almost endless, but we’re not there yet, so I’ll show you one picture from our last cruise (Picture Four). It's easy to overlook, but there is also something very special about the open ocean (Picture Five). After seeing that picture, my better half said, “One of the best things…To look and see nothing but the ocean” and I am of a similar opinion. It might seem like an endless expanse of the same sight, hour after hour, day after day, but if you look hard enough you can sometimes witness something truly magnificent (Video). Damien Waits Contractor University of North Carolina Wilmington Latitude: -045 42.837 Longitude: 165.40.962 How do we spend our time whilst we await the next step in our highly anticipated adventure? Well, everyone has their own ways to past the time and not lose their minds. Hi! My name is Candace Grimes, and I am postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Several of us have hobbies that we have brought on board to work on while in isolation, whether it be paint-by-number, crocheting, reading novels, etc. I for one learned how to knit in the last few months before we headed out for this mission, and between our isolation at home in the states and in the hotel in New Zealand, I am getting a lot better at it! I did not know much about knitting before last summer, but I am so happy that I have started it now. We all become very proud of our products (Images below of a washcloth I knitted and a BEAUTIFUL sea turtle that Nusrat crocheted). Another one of my hobbies is coming up with side projects and they can either be related to my main goals or not, but it is always fun to brainstorm for new ideas. We are very lucky in our positions to thoroughly enjoy what we do, and I am grateful for that every day. Due to COVID protocols, it has been difficult for us to do activities together, but once the masks come off, we are able to organize Smash Brother’s, Mario Kart, Cornhole, and basketball tournaments. There is always something going on and something to do while we anxiously await the arrival of our first samples. A little more about me and what I do though: During my postdoc, I have been working on the genomic adaptions of brittle stars that we find down in Antarctica. There are SO many of them! We are in the process of analyzing new whole genome sequences from a widespread brittle star, Astrotoma agassizii, in the Southern Ocean. Although I have been working on brittle stars in recent years, my heart lies with the worms. Marine annelid worms that is. I spent years studying the tropical to temperate bearded fireworm, Hermodice carunculata, and I have recently been able to investigate deep-sea annelids from the Aleutian Trench. I had no idea the diversity and abundance of worms that we would find in the Antarctic though until the last cruise. Let me tell you, to say that I was pleasantly surprised would be the understatement of the decade. Seeing worms swim, crawl, burrow, and feed from this remote locale is such an incredible experience, and I am grateful for it every day. Thank you for checking out our blog and following along us as we head off to Antarctica! Wormly, Dr. Candace Grimes University of North Carolina Wilmington It feels a bit like deja vu to be back on board the NBP after three years. I both remember which specific doors are notoriously hard to close and have also completely forgotten what the entire 4th level looks like. Regardless, it’s been amazing to see familiar faces again and I am beyond excited to be back! For my first blog post, I wanted to share with you all one of my favorite animals I came across during the last trip and am looking forward to seeing again. They are a group of giant Antarctic isopods called Glyptonotus antarcticus, aka. the cockroaches of the sea. But don’t let the name fool you, they are much more adorable and less terrifying than roaches. And this is from someone who has a horrible phobia of roaches after growing up in Florida. Despite being called “giant” these beautiful critters only get up to 9cm in length as opposed to the Giant Isopod which can get up to 40cm long. However, just like the Giant Isopod and other pill bugs, G. antarcticus will roll into a ball to protect itself from predators. And if that doesn’t work, they can use their four pairs of sharp jaws! G. antarcticus are opportunistic scavengers meaning they do not discriminate in terms of what they have for meals no matter if it’s been freshly dead or not. They feed mostly on carrion and their slow metabolisms help to get them through long stretches of time where food is scarce. My favorite thing about the Giant Antarctic Isopod is that they can swim upside down! While scientists are not sure why they’ve evolved to do that, I like to believe it is just for fun. Even isopods need to keep themselves entertained 500+ meters below the surface of the Southern Ocean. As I am writing this, we are currently heading Northeast off the coast of South Island, NZ to avoid a nasty storm before we try to head back south to our first station. The rocking of the boat has unfortunately already taken out a few of the scientists on board who are slowly but surely recuperating and testing out their sea legs. It’s been good to see more and more faces during each consecutive meal time who were previously missing due to seasickness. But once we get to our first station and the science we’ve all been waiting for really begins, all of this will be worth it to see some of the most fascinating critters the Southern Ocean has to offer…especially my bois (a.k.a G. antarcticus)! Nusrat Noor Auburn University Waiting to pick out spot. That is what we are doing with the weather. As I am sure you have gathered by now from the blog, getting to Antarctica is no small feat. To get there we need to cross the Southern Ocean. Yes, there are 5 oceans on the planet. Although most get taught that there are 4 oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic), the circulation of Antarctic Circumpolar Current makes the waters around the Antarctic quite distinct. The transit to the Antarctic will take some time. We steam about 10 mph, that is nautical miles per hour (a nautical mile is 1.15 miles – or one degree of latitude). It will take us at least 7 days to get to the continent. Anyway, the Southern Ocean is renowned for rough weather, and we have to cross it to get to Antarctica. Several of us on the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer have done this several times, but there are several first timers crossing the Southern Ocean (or even being on a boat in the middle of the ocean). Even for the seasoned veterans, the crossing can be a source of anxiety and trepidation – because you never know what you are going to get. Andy Mahon and I were commenting that we have been very lucky with the last several crossings. Something like our last 4-5 crossings of the Drake Passage, the region between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula, have been met with calm seas. That is unlikely to happen this time. The weather in this region of the planet is fascinating. Storms can come up very quick and be very intense. They can take on very clear cyclonic patterns and easily reach hurricane intensity – we just do not call them hurricanes because of where they occur on the planet. So back to waiting and picking our spot. We had to hang out offshore of New Zealand for a day waiting for a storm to pass before we could head south. If we had left when we originally planned, we would have encountered 25-30ft (8-9 m) seas. That is just not a fun ride, but more importantly safety comes in to play. Ken Halanych University of North Carolina Wilmington  Cyclone. Photo credit: KRIS VAN STEENBERGEN/TWITTER. Today is the day our journey begins. Just typing these six words brings a smile to my face and makes me resist the urge to do a happy (and very uncoordinated) dance in the dry lab on the boat. After arriving in New Zealand on March 1st, being delayed multiple times, moving hotels and staying as isolated from other people as much as physically possible, and being tested for covid seven times (not counting the times we chose to test ourselves out of an abundance of caution or if we had any of the slightest concerns like a headache or allergies) at the CDC in New Zealand, we were finally able to get on the boat, set up our labs and yesterday the Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP) embarked from port! Due to weather concerns, we stayed puttering around Pegasus Bay in New Zealand overnight with the goal of leaving this afternoon. Even though we all knew we were staying around the bay, there was a distinct shift in morale and an air of excitement when we pulled away from the dock. We have all been waiting a very long time for this research expedition. Many of us got the paperwork for the PQ (physically qualified) process in August 2022, and began to make appointments with our doctors and dentists as soon as possible. Then, with the delays to get on the NBP, it was starting to feel like we would never get to Antarctica. Leaving the port and being out on the ocean, seems to have given everyone on the science teams a boost of serotonin and lightened the overall atmosphere on the boat. To top it off, we saw a beautiful rainbow right after leaving port yesterday! We will have seven days of transit until we reach our first sampling site. In the upcoming days, about half of the science team will start to transition our sleep schedules. There are two shifts we can work, the day shift (noon-midnight) and the night shift (midnight-noon). Those of us working the night shift will start trying to wake up earlier and earlier until we are waking up in the evening. For example, I am assigned to the night shift, so I will start trying to wake up around 10:30 PM and go to sleep around 2:30PM the next day. Many of us are also trying to finish some of our work that requires internet while we still have it available. We are one step closer to getting to Antarctica and being able to do our science. Personally, I am ecstatic to being one step closer to getting my hands on the Pycnogonids (sea spiders), as well as seeing and learning more about all the amazing invertebrates that inhabit the benthos. I think I speak for everyone when I say we are all ecstatic to finally be at the beginning of our journey to Antarctica! Jessica Zehnpfennig Central Michigan University And just like that, our last day on land has come and gone. I took a long run and savored being able to run straight for minutes at a time. I drank a lot of milk (not from a box). I took a bath, in water that wasn’t sloshy. We left port today. The difference between being in port and out is huge logistically- a ton of paperwork is done and we're not waiting on a harbor pilot to get us through the channel anymore. It’s also really nice for our brains- we are learning all the "underway" routines that will rule our life for the next few months, like how the internet works. We're just offshore now, waiting for the navy and our captain to feel good about the storm currently in our path. We expect to head south sometime tomorrow and for it to not be smooth. We had our first time zone change this afternoon and I have never felt time crawl towards dinner so slowly. Especially with all our trainings, we're standing and moving a lot and there are stairs everywhere- it's weird to write this to a bunch of strangers, but nobody told me we'd be so hungry! I find myself shifting from a vague excitement to having specific things I can imagine blowing my mind. More is coming, and it should be phenomenal. My job is to experiment with media that can bring you along for the experience too. For real-time updates using a new medium, join the Bik lab’s WhatsApp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/BZwq4D7FF847sUsxTGTgHY After several delays to the start of our expedition, our team was able to board the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer (aka the “NBP”) yesterday! Late last night we boarded the ship, dropped our bags off in our rooms, and immediately began setting up our labs. We are thrilled to be here, and it’s been an exciting (and hectic!) 24 hours. The five National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant-funded teams (“grantees”) shipped supplies to the vessel months in advance from our home institutions and we were additionally provided with supplies and equipment for our research that were here waiting for us when we arrived. This is always somewhat nerve-wracking – what if one of my boxes got lost or something essential to our work got broken in transit? What if I meant to order a case of cryo tubes but accidentally ordered one cryo tube? Fortunately, the USAP folks are incredibly organized and helpful – not only was all of our stuff ready and waiting, but it was already in our labs for us. We worked for a few hours last night to begin to inventory and put away supplies, set up microscopes and other equipment, and secure everything so nothing gets damaged in case we hit rough weather. Today we finished the job and are ready for samples! We’ll have to be patient a little while longer as it will take about seven days to get to our first station and we are taking our time getting started to avoid a pretty gnarly storm that would otherwise make our crossing into Antarctic waters rather ‘exciting.’ It’s great being back on board the ship and being reunited with several amazing folks we worked alongside during the NBP 20-10 cruise and even way back on the NBP 12-10 cruise. I’ve also enjoyed meeting several folks I haven’t sailed with before. Everyone has been incredibly helpful, kind, and on top of things, which has made the hectic process of preparing for intensive field work really enjoyable. I was reunited with some other ‘old friends’ including the Blake trawl frames, epibenthic sled, and the sieving table. These instruments are all essential to our work to sample benthic marine invertebrates. Epibenthic sleds (aka epibenthic sledges or EBSs) are sampling instruments towed behind the ship to collect small animals living in the top centimeter or so of the sediment. They work by disturbing the top layer of the sediment then the sediment and animals living in it are captured in what looks like a fine plankton net mounted inside the frame. Unfortunately, the old epibenthic sled hasn’t performed consistently well for us in the past, but we were excited to meet another ‘new friend’ – a shiny new epibenthic sled, which has lots of bells and whistles including a mount for an underwater camera so we can take video while sampling and a lever that is depressed once the sled reaches the sea floor to open a door in front of the nets, meaning we aren’t sampling plankton all the way down and back up. We can’t wait to christen it! Today we also had a briefing from the Captain and First Mate on life and safety on board and have begun to get into the swing of things with respect to everything from meal times and planning our working schedules. Teams will work from either noon to midnight or midnight to noon. I'm on the midnight to noon schedule but fortunately I'm already semi-nocturnal so that shouldn't be too hard ;) Because we will be heading basically due west at a very high latitude throughout most of the cruise, the ship will cross a *lot* of different time zones during our transit from Christchurch, New Zealand to Capetown, South Africa and our first ship's clock adjustment will already take place tomorrow afternoon. Over the next several weeks, you will get to learn more about our research from a different member of the science party each day as we take turns writing blog posts. You’ll hear more about why we are interested in going all the way to Antarctica to sample tiny animals living in mud at the bottom of the ocean from members of the Kocot lab who are participating in the cruise: Dr. Carmen Cobo (postdoctoral researcher), Dr. Franzi Bergmeier (former postdoctoral researcher), Nick Roberts (Ph.D. candidate), Emily McLaughlin (Ph.D. candidate), Chandler Olson (Ph.D. student), and Will Farris (technician). We’re also working closely with our collaborators on the other science teams to share samples and help each other out to make the most of our valuable time sampling in the Eastern Antarctic. Assuming the satellite internet cooperates, we’ll be sharing about the cruise on social media using the hashtags #IcyInverts, #SweatTheSmallStuff, and #AntarcticWorms. Please stay tuned for updates and discoveries! Dr. Kevin Kocot The University of Alabama Hello from beautiful New Zealand! We are currently days away from embarking the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer and are anxiously awaiting to sail to Eastern Antarctica. Before we set sail, I would like to introduce the work we will accomplish and the four scientists representing Dr. Deric Learman’s and Dr. Drew Steen’s team. On this cruise, we will collect benthic sediments from the continental shelf in Eastern Antarctica using a Mega Corer. Our aim is to use these sediments to bring insight into how microbes are degrading organic matter and what processes are driving complex organic matter degradation. To accomplish this goal, we will be using metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and extracellular enzyme assays. Together these data will be utilized to clarify how microbial communities degrade complex organic matter by painting a picture of how genetic potential (metagenomics) relates to gene function (metatranscriptomics) and expression (extracellular enzyme assays), to understand the fate of organic matter. The Learman lab was able to collect Antarctic benthic sediments on previous research cruises from the Ross Sea, the Western Antarctic Peninsula, and the Weddell Sea. Previous work in the Learman lab determined that microbial diversity is governed by organic matter quantity and quality. We will use metagenomic/transcriptomic data from these previous collected samples to compare to samples collected in Eastern Antarctica. My name is Katie Howland. I am a 2nd year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Deric Learman. I study environmental microbiology at Central Michigan University (CMU). My work focuses on using bioinformatics, shotgun metagenomics, and metatranscriptomics to relate gene potential to function in Antarctic sediments. This work will help elucidate how microbes in benthic sediments degrade complex organic matter, a process with implication to both benthic and pelagic organisms. My role on this cruise is to collect sediments that will further our understanding on how complex organic matter is degraded. Jacob Perez is a 3rd year geology Ph.D. student working with Dr. Drew Steen at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research primarily looks at enzyme-mineral interactions in Arctic permafrost soils using metagenomic techniques and molecular dynamics simulations. By studying the mechanisms behind the sorption of extracellular enzymes to mineral surfaces, he aims to provide insight into geochemical controls on carbon fluxes in the Arctic. He is joining this cruise to help with the geochemical modeling and measure the metabolic fluxes within the marine sediments. Hannah Nygaard is a 1st year M.S. student working with Dr. Deric Learman at CMU. Using sediment samples collected from the previous 2020 research cruise, Hannah is employing shotgun metagenomics to examine what metabolic pathways microbes utilize to make energy as sediment depth increases. Hannah is joining this cruise to aid in all factors of sample collection and processing. Sophie Flaherty is an undergraduate researcher from CMU working with Dr. Deric Learman on this cruise. Sophie will graduate from CMU while we are enroute to port in Cape Town, South Africa. Sophie will be continuing her microbiology research in graduate school. Sophie is joining this cruise to help in all aspects of sample collection and processing. Katie Howland Central Michigan University Hello from New Zealand! I’m Holly Bik, a biologist and professor at the University of Georgia. I’m leading a team of 4 people hauling up mud around Antarctica to study the evolution and ecology of marine nematodes. Nematodes are mostly microscopic and translucent — they look like specks of dust on a glass table. Thousands to millions of nematodes live in every handful of sand, dirt, or mud on Earth. Because so many of them exist everywhere, nematodes move nutrients around and play outsized roles in physically shaping soil-based ecosystems. Knowing more about nematodes helps us understand how ecosystems function (and how humans can impact and manage ecosystems) everywhere. Sharing the joy of science is really important to me, so I used one of my team’s slots to bring a media specialist on the ship. We’ve already been doing some fun events to share this experience and talk to folks about deep-sea biology. We’re sharing brief daily updates via WhatsApp because the ship’s internet will eventually get too slow for other tools to work: https://chat.whatsapp.com/BZwq4D7FF847sUsxTGTgHY There are three questions that my team will be trying to answer using nematode worms as a study organism: 1) What's down there? No US science vessel has been to this part of Antarctica for 22 years! So while we can guess what the deep sea will mostly be like there, it's one big shrug on the details. We care because missing the details means we're missing information about evolution - we can't see the whole puzzle without all the pieces. And Antarctica has been cut off from the other oceans for millions of years, so looking at evolution there tells us all sorts of stuff we can't learn elsewhere. 2) Does deep-sea or shallow-sea win? Antarctica is the only place on Earth where the deep sea emerges into the shallows, because it's just as cold in the shallows as it is down deep. So does place or ancestry matter more for what lives where? This is especially important to know as climate change scrambles where things can live - it may help us predict how things could go (and then help!). 3) What's going on with the bacteria that live on nematodes' skin? Nematodes all over the world seem to have special relationships with bacteria and are sometimes covered in them. Why? Is that relationship different down here in Antarctica, where everything has been isolated from the rest of the world? We don't really know why this might be important, but there are thousands of nematodes in every handful of mud or sand on Earth, so we'd better figure it out! If you want to know more about our research questions, our technical project summary can be accessed here: https://www.usap.gov/sciencesupport/scienceplanningsummaries/2022_2023/results.cfm?formAction=detail&ID=2926 Dr. Holly Bik Associate Professor University of Georgia |