Exciting News! The first DEEPEND Cruise has begun! Scientists boarded the R/V Point Sur, a research vessel, on May 3rd and will be exploring the northern Gulf of Mexico until May 8th. This is the first of many cruises the scientists will take over the next three years.

The scientists and educators of DEEPEND want to describe the ocean ecosystem of the northern Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is located south of the United States of America between Texas and Florida. You can follow the cruises on the DEEPEND website! 

An ecosystem consists of the community of living plants, animals, and microbes as well as the nonliving parts of their environment, such as water, rocks, and soil. A big part of describing the ecosystem is finding out what animals live here. the scientists will use a MOCNESS net system. MOCNESS stands for Multiple Opening/Closing Net Environmental Sensing System. Whew, that's a lot of big words! All that to say, MOCNESS drops five nets into the water at the same time but the nets stop at different depths. This allows the scientists to collect aquatic animals at different depths from the surface all the way down to 1500 meters. How deep is 1500 meters? Well that's almost four Empire State Buildings in New York stacked on top of each other!

The scientists will collect the animals from the nets. Some of these animals will be frozen and taken back to the lab to be examined. For other animals, scientists will just take tissue samples to help identify the species of each animal. Scientists expect to find crustaceans (shrimps and crayfishes), fishes, and cephalopods (squids). Although the scientist are early into their journey, they have already caught a really cool fish, the Johnson's Abyssal Seadevil, Melanocetus johnsonii! The strange words in italics are the scientific name for this animal. Try sounding it out" Mel-an-o-ce-tus john-son-I-I. The last two I's are pronounce "ee-eye." This fish is an anglerfish, similar to the one in the movie Finding Nemo. Anglerfishes are known for hunting using the glowing lure on its forehead to attract prey. Stay tuned, more pictures of neat animals to come!

If you have any questions for the scientists just ask them below! The scientists will try their best to answer all of your questions as soon as they can. You can ask them about the ocean, the animals, what it's like to be at sea, what the crew does all day, or anything else that interests you. The scientists look forward to hearing from you!

The DEEPEND Consortium held it's Kick-off meeting February 23-25th at the Nova Southeastern Oceanographic Center on Dania Beach.  It was an all-hands meeting where science projects were shared, the education/outreach plan was finalized and break out sessions focused on the finer details of collecting organisms and samples at sea.

I thought the meeting was well-organized and full of positive energy as we were able to all come together to share the vision that was created during the grant proposal process.  We have a robust game plan and I have no doubts that the next three years will be full of excitement, great scientific findings, challenges and lots of laughs.

Our first cruise will be coming up in late spring if the plan stays on track.  There will be 2, 1-week ichthyoplankton (fish larvae and juveniles) cruises in June and July with a final cruise this year slotted for late August/early September.  All dates are tentative pending weather and gear availability.

We are moving full steam ahead as we head down into the deep this year! 

FORT LAUDERDALE-DAVIE, Fla. – It has been said that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our own planet’s oceans. That especially applies to the deepest parts of our oceans – depths that are 200 meters or deeper.

Researchers from organizations around the world who specialize in studying and exploring the deepest regions of our oceans have come together to pen a cautionary tale that urges we take a critical look at how we’re treating our seas.

“We need to consider the common heritage of mankind - when do we have the right to take something that will basically never be replaced or take millions of years,” said Tracey Sutton, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center.

Sutton, along with scientists and professors from California to Germany to the United Kingdom have written a paper that is being published by Science magazine that calls for increased stewardship when it comes to our oceans. The paper can be found online at Sciencemag.org 

The paper addresses the many ways the oceans are currently being exploited (i.e. mining, over-fishing, etc.) and says that we have to “make smart decisions now about the future of the deep ocean.” The goal is to reach a “happy balance” that weigh benefits of use against both direct and indirect costs of extraction, including damage to sensitive and yet unknown ecosystems.

“There’s so much more we need to learn about these deep, mysterious places on our planet and our fear is some ecosystems and marine species will be eradicated before we even know they existed,” said Sutton. “The deep ocean is already experiencing impacts from fishing, oil and gas development and waste disposal, and we are trying to get people to pause and see if there are better ways to do things before we negatively impact our seas.”