The Notorious B.I.G., Mase, and Puff Daddy understand. Increase one variable in a system and another variable rises en suite. For the B.I.G. this was money and problems. It’s like the more money we come across. The more problems we see. In the biological realm, increasing the food available increases the number of species. More food, more species.

In the case of B.I.G., Mase, and Puff how more money becomes more problems is clear. The trio “rock” and “sell out in the stores” which leads to more money. Bag a money much longer than yours. This leads to more purchases. Gotta call me on the yacht. The success and belongings are coveted by others who try to bring the trio down in an effort to elevate themselves. Know you’d rather see me die than to see me fly. But scientists are much less clear about how mo’ food leads to mo’ species. Scientists have erected dozens of hypotheses to explain this rather simple pattern.   Enter a deep-sea experiment that I dedicated 10 years of my life to.

Mo’ individuals, mo’ species hypothesis

Wright posed the more individuals hypothesis. The basic ideas is that low food supports smaller populations of species; any species is likely to be represented by just a few individuals. This makes these species more susceptible to being wiped out locally by a catastrophic event like a storm or predator. If in low food environments species are often going locally extinct, exacerbated by their low population numbers, then these environments are likely possess far less species overall. Wright’s hypothesis is ultimately a no food, mo’ problems, no species hypothesis.

Nothing-special hypothesis

Tilman, in one of the most influential papers in ecology, proposed the resource-ratio hypothesis. To simplify his elegant idea, few species are biologically equipped to deal with any resource at low availability. Mo’ food, mo’ species that can occur. Tilman actually proposed that species in resource-limited areas were just subsets of those living in high-resource areas. This is because any species can benefit with a little mo’ food, but conversely not every species can live with a little less. Tillman took these ideas a step further and actually predicted that at very high food availability the number of species should decrease because another resource would become limiting, i.e. high food habitats are not some beautiful utopia where everything, e.g. habitat space or other nutrients, is abundant.

The diva species/unique and special snowflake hypothesis

Of course this is not the real name of the hypothesis (none of the headings are). Several ecologists have converged on the idea that mo’ food allows for more specialized species. These diva species are very particular in their food type requirements. At low overall food availability, these specific food types are rare and cannot support a diva species. To restate, mo’ food allows species to be specialized. No food and species need to be generalists and take what they can get.

Mo’ food, mo’ prey hypothesis

Another ideas is that mo’ food allows for mo’ prey. This in turns supports mo’ types of predators, thereby increasing diversity. A more sophisticated variant of this is that mo’ complex food webs, containing mo’ species, can occur at higher food availabilities.

Mo’ food, mo’ giants and miniatures

This is a hypothesis of my own creation. Basically, there is “right” size for a given animal to be. This optimal size reflects a balancing of constraints. For example, too big and a species requires too much food. Too small and species does not have enough fat reserves to weather starvation. This suggests that areas with little food would only possess species of this intermediate and optimal size. Mo’ food and these caloric constraints are released and and species can get away with not being an optimal size. Thus both large- and small-sized species are allowed increasing diversity

Tourist hypothesis

Chase proposed another hypothesis that is fundamental to the mo’ food, mo’ species pattern; this pattern can only exist when low and high food habitats are isolated. If migration by adults or larvae can occur from high food to low food, diversity will be artificially elevated in low-food habitats. These tourist species from high-food areas cannot sustain themselves in low-food areas without consistent visits of individuals from these high food areas. Cut the flow of tourists and the diversity of low-food habitats diminishes.

Wood fall, the experiment

Scientists have published lots of creative studies testing aspects of these ideas. However, studies are rare that experimentally alter the food supply to a habitat and observe what happens. It’s not obvious how nor is it easy to increase the amount food at a coral reef or tropical rain forest. Mesocosm experiments, in which scientists creates an artificial system like a miniature ocean in a beaker or aquarium, provide exciting opportunities. My friend and colleague, Allen Hurlburt, conducted once such experiment in which he manipulated the amount of banana in containers.  Fruit flies collected in the rainforest where then allowed to colonize. It remains a beautiful and elegant experiment demonstrating the importance of food in controlling diversity. Allen’s study served as the inspiration for the wood-fall experiment.

Wood falls are the perfect experimental system to test mo’ food, mo’ species hypotheses. Each of the dead pieces of wood on the deep-sea floor represent little food islands. The background and typical deep-sea, muddy bottom is a food desert. The species occurring on wood falls are ultimately dependent on only the wood for nutrition. By ultimately controlling the size of the wood fall, we can control the amount of food the community of species receives.

In 2005, Jim Barry and I chunked 32 Acacia log into the deep ocean off the Central California coast. In actuality, we placed them with an ROV at spot over 3 kilometers deep.

Then we waited.

Five years later we collected half of the wood falls. Two years after that we returned for the other half.

Ten years after initially deploying the wood falls, the main paper from this work is now available as preprint. The nearly decade this experiment took to realize actually results in part reflected the length of the experiment.  However, even once collected a considerable amount of effort was need.  In the last three years, I spent countless hours meticulously sorting all the animals, nearly 13,000 individuals, from the wood falls. Taxonomists, all coauthors on the paper, spent many hours identifying these to species. With the analyses taken over a year plus the writing of the manuscript…well it adds up.

Wood fall, the results

Thankfully, with increased wood-fall size, i.e. increased food, the number of species actually increased. Strikingly, no individual hypothesis was the smoking gun for this increase in diversity.

Rather the mo’ food, mo’ species relationship reflects a combination of routes. In accordance with the mo’ individuals, mo’ species hypothesis, the total number of individuals increased with wood fall size, and was concordant with rises in the number of species. As predicted by the nothing-special hypothesis, the species on smaller wood falls, i.e. food poor, were just subsets of those species occurring on larger wood falls, i.e. mo’ food.   Increasing wood-fall size also lead to increased rare species, supporting the diva species/unique and special snowflake hypothesis. Increased larval connections between small and large wood falls also seemed to ameliorate the mo’ food, mo’ species relationship in conjunction with the tourist hypothesis.

I am just finishing examining body sizes of all the wood-fall species, but interestingly my pet hypothesis about miniatures and giants does not seem to hold. The pattern is far more interesting. Thanks to the many who supported my crowdfund project (I still love that video), David Honig and I are beginning to construct the food web through stable isotope analyses.

Notorious B.I.G., Mase, and Puff Daddy lamented the rise of problems with more money. However, to all three of these artists the reasons why this occurred were pretty straightforward. Haters gonna hate. People gonna covet your yacht. The biological world is much more complex. As simple as mo’ food, mo’ species is, the reasons why this elegant pattern exists represents a variety of interacting processes, only some we are beginning to understand.

McClain, C., Barry, J., Eernisse, D., Horton, T., Judge, J., Kakui, K., Mah, C., & Warén, A. (2015). Multiple Processes Generate Productivity-Diversity Relationships in Experimental Wood-Fall Communities Ecology DOI: 10.1890/15-1669.1

The post More Food, More Species first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I asked, “What were the events that lead to you to dive the Marianas Trench?”

“I found myself there for all the wrong reasons,” Walsh responded quickly.

Don Walsh probably always possessed the explorer gene.  But it was genes plus environment that produced this man.  Walsh grew up in the large port of San Francisco Bay inundated with the salty air, large ships, small boats, dark waters, a busy port, and the momentous Fleet Week. These potentially hinted that something beyond San Francisco existed, something more to explore, and the commonness of people traveling to new places. “It seemed natural that I join the Navy.”

Oddly Walsh’s Naval career started off on a torpedo bomber facing backward. “I really wanted to be in the pilot seat facing forward.”  The best way toward this was obtaining a college degree and particularly through the Naval Academy.  When I asked how he succeeded in gaining entrance into the prestigious Naval Academy, Walsh replied “Luck.”  Upon completion, all graduates of the academy are required to serve as watch officers aboard a surface ship for two years. After serving aboard both the USS Wisconsin and the Albany, Walsh had hoped to specialize in aviation and return to the cockpit.  However, poor eye sight prevented this path. Thus began a career as a submariner.

Eventually he was asked to join the submarine command staff in San Diego. The position was temporary. As other submarines and their officers cycled through the port, they would also cycle through Walsh’s position.  Each officer serving in this post was to return back to a field command aboard a submarine after six weeks.  This did not happen.  “I did my job too well and was kept in the post.”

Eventually in 1958, the Office of Naval Research purchased the Bathyscaphe Trieste from the French Navy. Given the proximity to deep water, the U.S. Navy decided the Trieste should join the fleet at San Diego.  Walsh was contacted to learn about this submersible and eventually brief the commander.

Two pilots were needed to operate Trieste.  The closest the U.S Navy could offer were the intermediate ranking officers of submarines.  Walsh was given the order to send out a message to these officers in the Pacific Fleet asking for volunteers to train and eventually pilot the Trieste.  Only one of twelve potentials volunteered to pilot this metal sphere to deepest parts of the oceans. Eager to leave his San Diego desk and return to the sea, Walsh volunteered for the other position.

The other volunteering officer outranked Walsh.  As coincidence or fate would have, however, the senior officer fell ill, and Walsh became the ranking Naval officer on the Trieste project.  Just three months after joining the project in March 1959, Don Walsh dove to 4,000 feet, ten times deeper than the during his previous posts aboard submarines.  One year later off Guam, the delay needed as the Trieste was originally only designed to dive to 20,000 feet, Walsh would go more than 100 times deeper.

Walsh and I never discussed the actual dive on the Challenger Deep as so many others before have covered this ground with him. Instead I choose to finish our discussion in another way. When I asked Don Walsh what question he wished somebody would ask him, he responded,

“Why is this all important?  Why must we visit the deepest spots of our oceans?”

Walsh started his answer by relaying what a commanding officer said to him when he showed him a photograph of fish taken in the Challenger Deep, “Most expensive goddam picture of fish ever taken!”

Walsh, a pragmatic man and a rare trait in explorer but perhaps common of retired naval officers, finally answered “We have seen the origins of plates at mid-oceanic ridges, it only makes sense we would see their demise at the bottom of trenches.” And for a brief second the explorer gene was stronger than the gene for pragmatism, “Also because it’s there and we can.”

Jacque Cousteau once said to his son Jean-Michel that his life was “a lot of little things that came together just right.”  Cousteau’s and Walsh’s life both exemplify the opportunity of the unplanned and the ability and drive to pursue and recognize it. Our paths in life are often not a straight trajectory from here and now at point A to the future point B, even if we know exactly what we B to be. We wander a tangled path with a series of unexpected events . As an undergraduate I was deeply disappointed when a professor did not choose me to dive in St. Croix conducting reef fish counts.  Another professor, my alternate choice, did invite me to work in their research group.  That professor eventually became my Ph.D. advisor and instilled passion and knowledge in me for the deep sea, which led to an eventual submersible dive of my own, a marine blog, and recently a discussion and car ride with the legend and man who is Captain Don Walsh.

All we can do is recognize opportunity in the unexpected, long to explore the origin and the conclusion, and sometimes take the risk because it’s there and we can.

The post Most expensive goddam picture of fish ever taken! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over a week ago, Thaler tagged in my a Tweet.

O’ how I coveted my neighbor’s Life magazine.  In case you cannot tell that is February 15, 1960 issue featuring Picard, Walsh, and the Trieste on the cover.  The two men in the Trieste reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth’s oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench.  This Life issue was published just weeks after this record dive (January 23, 1960).

I am in awe that Thaler parted with such a momento and gifted it to me.

The post An Unexpected Surprise in My Mail first appeared on Deep Sea News.

To kick off WOD celebrations, we were super fortunate at Georgia Aquarium to get a short-notice visit from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger submersible this week, on it’s way to its new home at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  If you remember, all of us at DeepSN wrote about the amazing achievements of Cameron’s team back in 2012 when they safely returned to the bottom of the Marianas Trench south of Guam for the first time since 1960 and only the second time ever (Piccard and Walsh being the first, in bathyscaphe Trieste). Read those posts here and here and here and here and here and here.   Several of the DC team were present at the festivities, as were some folks from WHOI including Dr. David Gallo and long time DSV Alvin pilot Anthony Tarantino.  It was awesome to have the sub there in the flesh, so to speak, and there was much rejoicing.

The first thing you notice about the sub is that it’s not as big as you might expect.  It’s sleek, uncluttered, and very very GREEN.  They’ve got a great rig for transporting it around and showing it off, including the training sphere (the real sphere is inside the faring at the right hand end of the image above, in between the blue post and the tyres you can see that protect the base.

The sphere itself is MINISCULE.  It’s hard for me to relate just how tiny it is, but here’s me holding my 18 month old daughter in front of it.  Just think, James Cameron is over 6 feet tall and had to be locked into that thing for over 7 hours, with 7 miles of water over his head.  It was not only an amazing engineering endeavour, but also an incredible human endurance feat.  While in the sphere, the only view out was between his knees and through the tiny port you can see in the door (about the size of a baseball)

One of the more interesting aspects of the subs design are the battery arrays, both in their type and arrangement.  Most subs use lead acid batteries, but to get the energy density and compactness they needed, the DC team used Lithium ion.  They’re arrayed in cells on the outside of the middle pod, separated by syntactic foam firewalls and are plumbed together with lots of tubing.  Tarantino told me that they had to it that way in case any one cell should melt or catch fire.  When I look at the arrays all I can think of is “wow, there’s a lot of little bits there that could break under that sort of pressure”; but obviously they designed it properly because it worked.

It was a great thrill to be able to examine the sub closely and to talk to those who were there on the day that the dive was made (although Cameron himself couldn’t be present).  There was an excited atmosphere among the staff and the guests alike as people peppered the DC team with questions about deepsea exploration.  I had an absolute ball and consider myself pretty lucky, since it stopped only in Dallas, Atlanta and DC on its way to Woods Hole.  In it’s new home, WHOI engineers will work alongside the DC team on technology transfer and training and then ultimately the sub should become part of the WHOI operations fleet.  That shouldn’t be too hard because the sub deploys with a standard deck crane and some cargo straps (!), and does’nt need fancy A-frames like many submersibles – another benefit of its lightweight design. With any luck the US deep submergence fleet will then double from 1 (Alvin) to 2!

Read more about the Deepsea Challenger and it’s mission here:

The post For World Oceans Day: the Deepsea Challenger first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Future that We Want to See

We are at a time for renewed commitment to ocean exploration and science. As stated by the Joint Ocean Commission, “Ocean programs continue to be chronically underfunded, highlighting the need for a dedicated ocean investment fund.” Captain Don Walsh, one of three men to visit the deepest part of the ocean, recently stated it best: “What we need is an Ocean NASA.”
We borrow and modify John F. Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice University on the decision to go to the moon:

In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world’s leading ocean-faring nation…We set sail because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.

There is much to be gained from creating NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). Every dollar we commit to science returns $2.21 in goods and services. Meeting the scientific, technological, logistical, and administrative demands of scientific exploration creates jobs and requires substantial personnel beyond just scientists and engineers. The materials purchased for this cause support even further employment. As with NASA, meeting these scientific and engineering challenges will disseminate ideas, knowledge, applications, and technology to rest of society. This knowledge gained from basic research will form the backbone for applied research and economic gain later. And much like NASA has, OSEA will inspire the next generation of scientist and engineers, instilling in the young a renewed appreciation for the oceans of which we are all stewards: our oceans. It will provide a positive focus for society in a time where hope is often lacking and faith in science is low. OSEA will be the positive message that renews interest in our oceans and their conservation.

What Does an OSEA look like? At the core OSEA would need a mission dedicated to basic research and exploration of the >;90% of the world’s oceans that remain unexplored. High risk with the potential for high impact would be the norm. Pioneering knows no other way to achieve those truly novel and impactful gains.

To achieve these goals, OSEA would need substantial infrastructure and fleet including international and regional class research vessels, a submersible, remotely operated vehicles, and autonomous underwater vehicles. Funding would need to be secure on decadal cycles to insure both the longevity and permanence of this mission but allow for oversight to ensure OSEA was meeting its mission and financial responsibilities. An ocean exploration center would be staffed with a vibrant community of researchers, engineers, and administrators, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and visiting experts with a strong interacting and supportive community working toward uncovering the mysteries of the oceans. Research would be funded internally from a broad OSEA budget, not externally, freeing scientists and engineers to actually do science and engineering as opposed to the only current option, which is writing grants to other agencies with a less than 10% chance of funding.

OSEA would also be a resource both for the research community and the public by being dedicated to open science, i.e. making scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an inquiring society, amateur or professional. Publications, data, software, and engineering would be freely available and open to all. All internal processes would be transparent.

The mission of OSEA in the spirit of open science would be equally dedicated to public outreach. For too long have science and society been disconnected. OSEA would involve the public as the ultimate funders of our work. A novel and cutting edge education and outreach group would develop a strategic plan to involve children and adults in the mission. There would be multiple opportunities for anyone to be involved including the public. Citizen scientists would be essential components, allowing adults to take a residence and contribute to OSEA and become life long ambassadors long after their residence.

Although parts of OSEA are realized in other government and private organizations, they do not meet the full mission nor can such a distributed structure be expected to meet the challenges of this pivotal moment. For example, NOAA fills a much-needed role but its mission is largely applied. NOAA’s mission statement is “Science, Service, and Stewardship. To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, To share that knowledge and information with others, and To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resource”. Contrast that to NASA’s simple mission, “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

In an agency with a chiefly applied mission, those programs that are purely exploratory must eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration often focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than those species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also highlights how less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private funding that can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a private foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an OSEA or provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize either NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense contributions to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for OSEA.

As John F. Kennedy stated, “We must be bold.” It is time for a great national effort of the United States of America, time for us to renew our commitment to uncovering the mysteries of the blue planet we live on. We need a NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). to explore and research the greatest depths of oceans with a community of scientists, engineers, and citizens.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.3 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Past
85% of Americans express concerns about stagnant research funding and 77% feel we are losing our edge in science. So how did we get here?  Part of the answer lies in how ocean science and exploration fit into the US federal science funding scene.  Ocean science is funded by numerous agencies, with few having ocean science and exploration as a clear directive. Contrast to this to how the US traditionally dealt with exploration of space. NASA was recognised early on as the vehicle by which the US would establish and maintain international space supremacy, but the oceans have always had to compete with other missions.

We  faced a weak economy and in tough economic times we rightly looked for areas to adjust our budgets. Budget cuts lead to tough either/or situations: do we fund A or B?  Pragmatically we choose what appeared to be most practical and yield most benefit. Often this meant we prioritized applied science because it was perceived to benefit our lives sooner and more directly and, quite frankly, was easier to justify politically the expenditures involved.

In addition to historical issues of infrastructure and current economic woes, we lacked an understanding of the importance of basic research and ocean exploration to science, society, and often to applied research.  As example, NOAA shifted funding away from NURP and basic science and exploration but greatly increased funding to research on applied climate change research.  Increased funding for climate change research is a necessity as we face this very real and immediate threat to our environment and economy.  Yet, did this choice, and others like it, need to come at the reduction of our country’s capability to conduct basic ocean exploration and science and which climate change work relies upon?

Just a few short decades ago, the U.S. was a pioneer of deep water exploration.  We are the country that in 1960 funded and sent two men to the deepest part of the world’s ocean in the Trieste.  Five years later, we developed, built, and pioneered a new class of submersible capable of reaching some of the most remote parts of the oceans to nimbly explore and conduct deep-water science.  Our country’s continued commitment to the DSV Alvin is a bright spot in our history and has served as model for other countries’ submersible programs.  The Alvin allowed us to be the first to discover hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, explore the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and countless other scientific firsts.  Our rich history with space exploration is dotted with firsts and it revolutionized our views of the world and universe around us; so has our rich history of ocean exploration.  But where NASA produced a steady stream of occupied space research vehicles, Alvin remains the only deep-capable research submersible in the service in the United States.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.2 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over a decade ago, one of us (CM) made his first submersible dive off of Rum Cay in the Bahamas.  At the surface the temperature was a warm 91˚F and at the bottom 2,300 feet down the temperature was near freezing.  Despite my large size, I don’t remember feeling cramped inside the soda can-sized sub at any moment. The entire time I pressed my face against a 6-inch porthole, my cheek against the cool glass, and focused my eyes on the few feet of illuminated sea floor around me and the miles of black beyond.  Here in the great depths of oceans I got my first look at the giant isopod, a roly-poly the size of a large shoe. This beast and the surrounding abyss instantly captured my imagination, launching me on a journey of ocean science and exploration to unravel the riddles of life in the deep.

A thousand miles away, off the coast of Yucatan Mexico, the other of us (AD) experienced equal wonder at the discovery of the largest aggregation ever recorded of the largest of fish in the world, the whale shark.  These spotted behemoths gather annually in the hundreds off the coast of Cancun, one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, and yet this spectacular biological was unknown to science until 2006.  Swimming among them, I reverted to a childish state of wonder, marveling at their size, power and grace, and boggling that they have probably been feeding in these waters since dinosaurs, not tourists, inhabited the Yucatan.

Whether giant fish or giant crustaceans, are opportunities to uncover the ocean’s mysteries are quickly dwindling.

The Ghost of Ocean Science Present
Our nation faces a pivotal moment in exploration of the oceans.  The most remote regions of the deep oceans should be more accessible now than ever due to engineering and technological advances.  What limits our exploration of the oceans is not imagination or technology but funding.  We as a society started to make a choice: to deprioritize ocean exploration and science.

In general, science in the U.S. is poorly funded; while the total number of dollars spent here is large, we only rank 6th in world in the proportion of gross domestic product invested into research.  The outlook for ocean science is even bleaker. In many cases, funding of marine science and exploration, especially for the deep sea, are at historical lows.  In others, funding remains stagnant, despite rising costs of equipment and personnel.

The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, a committee comprised of leading ocean scientists, policy makers, and former U.S. secretaries and congressmen, gave the grade of D- to funding of ocean science in the U.S.  Recently the Obama Administration proposed to cut the National Undersea Research Program (NURP) within NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a move supported by the Senate.  In NOAA’s own words, “NOAA determined that NURP was a lower-priority function within its portfolio of research activities.”  Yet, NURP is one of the main suppliers of funding and equipment for ocean exploration, including both submersibles at the Hawaiian Underwater Research Laboratory and the underwater habitat Aquarius. This cut has come despite an overall request for a 3.1% increase in funding for NOAA. Cutting NURP saves a meager $4,000,000 or 1/10 of NOAA’s budget and 1,675 times less than we spend on the Afghan war in just one month.

One of the main reasons NOAA argues for cutting funding of NURP is “that other avenues of Federal funding for such activities might be pursued.”  However, “other avenues” are fading as well.  Some funding for ocean exploration is still available through NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Program.  However, the Office of Ocean Exploration, the division that contains NURP, took the second biggest cut of all programs (-16.5%) and is down 33% since 2009.  Likewise, U.S. Naval funding for basic research has also diminished.

The other main source of funding for deep-sea science in the U.S. is the National Science Foundation which primarily supports biological research through the Biological Oceanography Program.  Funding for science within this program remains stagnant, funding larger but fewer grants.  This trend most likely reflects the ever increasing costs of personnel,  equipment, and consumables which only larger projects can support.  Indeed, compared to rising fuel costs, a necessity for oceanographic vessels, NSF funds do not stretch as far as even a decade ago.

Shrinking funds and high fuel costs have also taken their toll on The University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) which operates the U.S. public research fleet.  Over the last decade, only 80% of available ship days were supported through funding.  Over the last two years the gap has increasingly widened, and over the last ten years operations costs increased steadily at 5% annually.  With an estimated shortfall of $12 million, the only solution is to reduce the U.S. research fleet size. Currently this is expected to be a total of 6 vessels that are near retirement, but there is no plan of replacing these lost ships.

The situation in the U.S. contrasts greatly with other countries.  The budget for the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) continues to increase, although much less so in recent years.  The 2007 operating budget for the smaller JAMSTEC was $527 million, over $100 million dollars more than the 2013 proposed NOAA budget.  Likewise, China is increasing funding to ocean science over the next five years and has recently succeeded in building a new deep-sea research and exploration submersible, the Jiaolong.  The only deep submersible still operating in the US is the DSV Alvin, originally built in 1968.

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

The post We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.1 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I asked, “What were the events that lead to you to dive the Marianas Trench?”

Don Walsh one of two men to first visit the deepest point of the world’s ocean and one of only three to succeed at this responded quickly.

“I found myself there for all the wrong reasons.”

Don Walsh probably always possessed the explorer gene.  But it was genes plus environment that produced Walsh.  Walsh grew up in the large port of San Francisco Bay inundated with the salty air, large ships, small boats, dark waters, a busy port, and the momentous Fleet Week. These potentially hinted that something beyond San Francisco existed, something more to explore, and the commonness of people traveling to new places. “It seemed natural that I join the Navy.”

Oddly Walsh’s Naval career started off on a torpedo bomber facing backward. “I really wanted to be in the pilot seat facing forward.”  The best way toward this was obtaining a college degree and particularly through the Naval Academy.  When I asked how he succeeded in gaining entrance into the prestigious Naval Academy, Walsh replied “Luck.”  Upon completion, all graduates of the academy are required to serve as watch officers aboard a surface ship for two years.  After serving aboard both the USS Wisconsin and the Albany, Walsh had hoped to specialize in aviation and return to the cockpit.  However, poor eye sight prevented this path. Thus began a career as a submariner.

Eventually he was asked to join the submarine command staff in San Diego. The position was temporary. As other submarines and their officers cycled through the port, they would also cycle through Walsh’s position.  Each officer serving in this post was to return back to a field command aboard a submarine after six weeks.  This did not happen.  “I did my job too well and was kept in the post.”

Eventually in 1958, the Office of Naval Research purchased the Bathyscaphe Trieste from the French Navy. Given the proximity to deep water, the U.S. Navy decided the Trieste should join the fleet at San Diego.  Walsh was contacted to learn about this submersible and eventually brief the commander.

Two pilots were needed to operate Trieste.  The closest the U.S Navy could offer were the intermediate ranking officers of submarines.  Walsh was given the order to send out a message to these officers in the Pacific Fleet asking for volunteers to train and eventually pilot the Trieste.  Only one of twelve potentials volunteered to pilot this metal sphere to deepest parts of the oceans. Eager to leave his San Diego desk and return to the sea, Walsh volunteered for the other position.

The other volunteering officer outranked Walsh.  As coincidence or fate would have, however, the senior officer fell ill, and Walsh became the ranking Naval officer on the Trieste project.  Just three months after joining the project in March 1959, Don Walsh dove to 4,000 feet, ten times deeper than the during his previous posts aboard submarines.  One year later off Guam, the delay needed as the Trieste was originally only designed to dive to 20,000 feet, Walsh would go more than 100 times deeper.

Walsh and I never discussed the actual dive on the Challenger Deep as so many others before have covered this ground with him. Instead I choose to finish our discussion in another way. When I asked Don Walsh what question he wished somebody would ask him, he responded,

“Why is this all important?  Why must we visit the deepest spots of our oceans?”

Walsh started his answer by relaying what a commanding officer said to him when he showed him a photograph of fish taken in the Challenger Deep, “Most expensive goddam picture of fish ever taken!”

Walsh, a pragmatic man and a rare trait in explorer but perhaps common of retired naval officers, finally answered “We have seen the origins of plates at mid-oceanic ridges, it only makes sense we would see their demise at the bottom of trenches.” And for a brief second the explorer gene was stronger than the gene for pragmatism, “Also because it’s there and we can.”

Jacque Cousteau once said to his son Jean-Michel that his life was “a lot of little things that came together just right.”  Cousteau’s and Walsh’s life both exemplify the opportunity of the unplanned and the ability and drive to pursue and recognize it. Our paths in life are often not a strait trajectory from here and now at point A to the future point B, even if we know exactly what we B to be.  Kevin’s personal story and others as part of the I Am Science project are beautiful reminders of the tangled path we wander and the series of unexpected events we encounter. As an undergraduate I was deeply disappointed when a professor did not choose me to dive in St. Croix conducting reef fish counts.  Another professor, my alternate choice, did invite me to work in their research group.  That professor eventually became my Ph.D. advisor and instilled passion and knowledge in me for the deep sea, which led to an eventual submersible dive of my own, a marine blog, and recently a discussion and car ride with the legend and man who is Captain Don Walsh.

All we can do is recognize opportunity in the unexpected, long to explore the origin and the conclusion, and sometimes take the risk because it’s there and we can.

The post I Am Science with the First Man to Dive Challenger Deep first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Since James Cameron’s record-breaking dive on March 26^th the media and the marine blogosphere has been heady with the news of a new milestone in deep-sea exploration.  And certainly, it has all the makings of a great story. Billionaire filmmaker who has made big-budget movies about the Abyss builds sub and goes down himself amidst great personal danger and challenge!! Drama! Story! Adventure!

Much of Cameron’s “adventure” has been positively received and deservedly so, but

I think a lot of well-intentioned folks have given Mr. Cameron and this whole expedition a bit of a pass and so, I thought I would present a counterpoint and some skeptical questions to Cameron’s efforts and what they might mean for deep-sea science.

1. Conflict of Interest? 

       Probably the biggest issue that I think we should be looking at was/is that this expedition was funded primarily by private money, including the watch-maker Rolex and Cameron himself.

A lot of people are accustomed to reading about/watching deep-sea biology that is in some way shape or form, funded by public money and so we have a different set of expectations. The National Science Foundation, NOAA, NMFS, or what-have you. Many of these publicly funded agencies are funded by tax dollars and as such, are intended for everyone’s benefit. Publications should be accessible to anyone who wants them. Materials and data collected are ultimately mandated for open and public consumption owing to the fact that they are underwritten by public tax dollars. Now, its true, the expedition has “academic partnerships” with National Geographic and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, but how much balance is there between the profit vs. non-profit interests?

Which priorities does the mission obey?  Are specimens, video and other data collected by the sub going to be available to the greater scientific community?

My concern here is that private concerns really have no obligation to hand over data or artifcacts collected under their auspice.  And so far, we have seen very little video made available to the public.

Apparently, we have no other samples from the bottom other than a 50 milliliter “half core” of mud. And yes, that has apparently been taken for further study. Great! But ultimately, that’s still a clump full of mud.  What happens on subsequent dives (assuming that the hydraulics get fixed) when/if they end up finding further specimens-shells, rocks and/or minerals, more video or other data that might live up to the fantastic promise and potential of deep-sea research but isn’t available to the public because of “proprietary interests”???  Presumably Rolex and/or Cameron have first say? Does it go to a museum? Or to a personal collection? Does it get made into a TV show before a scientific paper?  Will science benefit from anything collected on his prior dives to the New Britain Trench? (or have we already gotten data?)

How much dive time will go towards scientific versus other priorities? Whether commercial or otherwise?  What implications are there for data collection?   Maybe the DeepSea Challenge has all of these-but I couldn’t find mention of them on their available resources.

I have never heard of or seen specimens or information from Cameron’s scientific dives find their way into published scientific papers. Will materials from this dive begin to find their way into formal scientific repositories? Time will tell.

2. Publicity-Good or Bad?  What has been the public impact?

Probably the most “hot button” part of this whole endeavor is the fact that a millionaire celebrity filmmaker is the primary force behind a significant scientific adventure. Its been suggested that this event is a great promotion for deep-sea science and exploration that could even lead to the reinvigoration of the US’ ailing manned submersible program and lead to a new age of exploration and marine research!

Well, so far, I haven’t seen this. No direct endorsements from Cameron, Rolex or even National Geographic to save NURP (other than Cameron’s statement that funding “stinks”).  I haven’t seen any shift in public opinion regarding the severe de-funding that will brutally affect the National Undersea Research Program. I’ve heard of no reconsideration by Congress or the leadership of NOAA of deep-sea research since the dive has taken place.

There’s clearly a LOT of media attention to see a big stunt like this underway, but what tangible actions have we seen by these adventurers to aid marine science?  Have we seen donations of money or resources to permit further research?  Donations to marine research?  To fund students, post-docs or better yet an endowment to hire an aspiring new marine biologist at university??

There is a word out there: INFOTAINMENT. The term describes entertainment with an educational base, it may or may not have real science behind it-but who cares? Its entertaining and probably interesting but not really scientific or not even really educational. Is that what this has become?  Something that has been “washed” with scientific legitimacy but is ultimately there only to rack up viewers for advertising and attention for the celebrity?

 3.  Cost?

I’m kind of surprised that this one hasn’t been brought up before.  I can think of no better example of the disparity between the rich 1% and the poor 99% than deep-sea science performed by government agencies versus the corporate funded Deepsea Challenger Expedition.

A short and simple look at compared costs gives us some idea of the estimated costs. According to the recent announcement for NURP cuts, their budget will be sunk by 4 to 5 million dollars.  This represents submersible operations from a 30+ year program, covering 2 subs, the ship, an undersea laboratory as well as personnel and so forth.

In contrast, the cost of the Deepsea Challenger expedition ITSELF seems likely to cost MORE than 5 million USD.  A similar submersible from this 2009 BBC article indicated that its cost was about 1.5 million dollars.  Consider further that the Deepsea Challenger has more bells and whistles (hi-def cameras etc.) plus modifications for diving to 10,000 m depths, plus ship time, fuel, engineers, ships crew, insurance, and other considerations, such as test deployments and so forth.  Its not unreasonable to say that the cost of this expedition alone was probably more than the cost of one year of NURP’s budget.

Criticism, especially anonymous criticism, is easy on the Internet. And I’m not particularly angry with anyone..least of all James Cameron. I DO want to see how his efforts will result in an expansion of our knowledge and I would love to see this dive become a catalyst for greater deep-sea research. But scientists are often exploited and underappreciated. And scientific resources are few and precious.

I think that if this expedition is to mean something MORE than a publicity stunt and if Cameron and the people involved are truly dedicated, than more can and should be done. Most scientists work their asses off trying to get a few years of funding.  Researchers try very hard to make sure that their time and energy are spent in a way that best serves those grants and scientific endeavor. Expeditions like this can be a fun diversion-but ultimately they have to be weighed against how much data/education/training/specimens/etc. came out of them.

People talk about this expedition as a great “milestone” as if no one had ever done any deep-sea exploration after the Trieste’s first hadal dive in 1960.  But remember that deep-sea research in the last 30 years has been fairly active with multiple and regular visits to depths >1000 m with less frequent but dependable visits to ~3000 m. Alvin gets to 3000 m (ed. note: Alvin is rated to 4500m, after its upgrade will be able to dive 6500m) and Pisces V can get to 2000 m and they’ve been doing it for decades. Alvin has been used as a vehicle for data collection of nearly 2000 papers (i.e. contributions to science and society).

There’s no denying that 10,000 m is deeper than we’ve ever gone but I don’t think we should allow ourselves to forget that there was a foundation for that “milestone” that shouldn’t be ignored.

To modify a statement from the economist Elizabeth Warren

There is nobody who got to the bottom of the ocean on their own-Nobody.

You built a submarine that got down there?  Good for you. But I want to be clear. You followed a route down there based on research and science the rest of us built up. Scientists and students who have given openly and freely of their time and money made this possible and give this dive scientific credibility.  You didn’t have to take a complete random, uneducated guess as to what would be down there because people went down there and saw a LOT of the deep-sea before you. This was work the rest of us did.

You built this sub, and funded this expedition into something terrific. God bless –keep all the glory.  But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

The post Shouldn’t We Be More Skeptical of the DeepChallenger Dive? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In the 1989 James Cameron sci-fi movie The Abyss, there’s a scene when Ed Harris’ character dons a special environmental suit that allows him to breathe an oxygen-laden liquid.  Thus protected from the risks of crushing deep-sea pressures (no air = no voids to collapse), he drops from a deep submerged research facility into the inky depths of an abyssal canyon to find and disarm a lost weapon.  During the descent, robbed of speech by the liquid he’s breathing, he’s forced to communicate with his colleagues on the base using text messages tapped out on a forearm console.  What ensues is one of the more tense scenes in sci-fi history as Harris suffers first the effects of pressure, then tackles the errant weapon, and eventually stumbles upon a remarkable submarine alien race in the movie’s climax, all communicated piecemeal to his colleagues on the base in choppy text speech.  Rarely have little green letters appearing on black screen carried so much drama.  Have some new friends down here. Guess they’ve been here awhile…

The whole scene has an eerily prophetic feel in light of exciting news that James Cameron has, himself, made a historic descent in a new submersible beyond the abyssal depths, to the hadal reaches of the deepest part of the world’s oceans: the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, south of Guam in the west Pacific.  This event marks the first occasion that a manned vehicle has been to Challenger Deep since the first and only time it ever happened when, in 1960, Don Wash and Jacques Piccard descended in the bathyscaphe Trieste.  That storied 1960 mission occurred during the heyday of modern US exploration when, fueled by the intense international competition and brinksmanship of the Cold War, Americans could and did tackle any challenge: space, speed, altitude and depth.  In the wake of the Trieste effort, the submersible Alvin was built 4 years later and became the flagship deep sea vehicle for the US and arguably the world, for the next 40 years, even though it has never had the capability of returning to Challenger Deep.

Times change.  The motivations for exploration are different these days and we think it’s fair to say diminished somewhat.  Space folks are experiencing much the same effect, most recently epitomized by the cancellation of the space shuttle project without a viable replacement vehicle for near-earth operations.  Yes, marine science, engineering technology and the motivation for exploratory missions have all changed in the interceding 52 years since Trieste and Deep Challenger.  One constant is that Alvin is still with us; indeed, Alvin is the only human occupied vehicle (HOV) left for deep-sea research in the US.  Think about that for a second: the only vessel that can take humans to the deep sea in America is 48 years old.  The same age as this:Of course we’re being hyperbolic; Alvin is no way a rusted hooptie.  It has been completely renovated and refitted several times and is still a very advanced research tool.  Our point is more that the original design is pretty long in the tooth and you have to wonder if starting from scratch using current design principles we might be able to devise a better tool.  The same has of course been said many times for the space shuttle.

Not that deep sea research has waned for lack of manned research tools; far from it.  Advances in remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology have seen a veritable explosion of deep sea research and some remarkable discoveries that are still occurring at a rapid rate today.  The discoveries of these remote controlled robot explorers have included the hydrothermal vent communities, the exploration of mid ocean ridges, the census of marine life and discovery of deep reefs, brine pools, cold seeps and other extraordinary habitats that prove that the deep sea is anything but a cold lifeless desert.  HOV’s have been used for some of these missions too, but ROV’s certainly seem to be the tool of choice these days.  Why is that? The answer is basically pragmatism.  There are incredible challenges to sending people into the abyssal depths and beyond.  The pressures can exceed a thousand atmospheres, which has been described as equivalent to inverting the Eifel Tower and resting its point on your big toe.  That kind of pressure means that a titanium sphere is about the only object that can maintain a 1 atmosphere internal environment.  By contrast, no passenger means no need for air spaces at all, so ROV’s can be built more cheaply and easily, and without the need for complex life support systems that can ensure the safety of the vehicles occupant(s).  An ROV can allow for longer bottom times not constrained by tired pilots or scientists with small bladders.  ROV’s allow for a whole array of scientists to participate in the dive, all sitting in the same control center in the mother ship watching HD monitors.  Opposed to the 1-2 that can fit into a submersible.  The rise of the ROV is therefore rational, sensible, effective and … boring.

Boring? BORING??  Yes, boring.  We say that because we think it’s largely those in the business of researching the deep sea who can look past the removal of the human element and derive deep satisfaction from ROV operations, by focusing instead on the substantive returns on the topic of their research.  Often times they are able to do this out of the luxury of having at least tasted the 1^st hand HOV experience themselves.  They know what it looks like out the porthole, so can better relate to what shows on the video feed coming back from an ROV.  Other times it’s a purely rationalist thing: scientists know that they’re going to get more bang for their research buck from an ROV, so that’s where they invest their efforts, research funds and emotional energy.

It’s a reasonable question to ask then: What is the value of the HOV in modern deep sea research? We have to give a slightly disappointing answer here, which is that we don’t really know.  If one applies that purely pragmatic approach, then ROV’s will probably win every time.  That’s a pity, because to do so is to overlook the inspirational and aspirational elements of the HOV approach.  One does not have to have been to a hydrothermal vent in Alvin to appreciate HOV’s anymore than one has to have been to the moon on Apollo 11 to appreciate Armstrong and Aldrin.  Our position is this: the idea of humans traveling to extreme environments, challenging and overcoming technical and engineering obstacles to do things not yet done, that’s the stuff that’s going to inspire kids to a career in science, not an economically rationalist analysis of research ROI that favors a robotic approach.

As we sat on our respective couches tonight hanging on to every tweet from Cameron and crew (‘cos hell knows, the mainstream media didn’t cover it much, but that’s another post for another day), we felt that we were participants.  When Cameron launched, we launched with him.  As he descended, we waited patiently for each update on his depth and progress (thanks @PaulGAllen!).  When, near the end, 30 minutes went by without any word, we were filled with anxiety and consternation.  And finally, when that silence broke with the statement that Cameron had reached the bottom, we sighed with relief and cheered for his success!  We celebrated because we understand that this represents a profound moment in our history.  From thousands of kilometers away, we participated.  We are reminded of our friends cheering for teams in the current NCAA tournament.  Why not just let robot play?  Why do we need humans?  Because human involvement allows us all to participate.

All of which brings us back to James Cameron (@jimcameron).  Here we have a wealthy individual who has had phenomenal success in another sphere of human endeavor and has then chosen to spend some of his wealth to do something done only once before, and do it a new way for the first time in half a century.  It’s not like he just decided to do this yesterday; Cameron has been doing deep sea dives for years and has over 70 under his belt, which is more than many scientists.  He is often quoted as saying that he makes blockbuster movies to support his real passion for deep-sea exploration.  How do we get aboard that gravy train?! You need only look at the aforementioned scene from The Abyss, or perhaps at the rainforest flora of Avatar’s megadiverse planet of Pandora (all of which look remarkably like benthic invertebrates of various flavors), to see that the ocean and the life within it have influenced him deeply.

We are not afraid to say that we are inspired by his commitment and his willingness to put his money and effort where his mouth is, by pushing the envelope of human exploration.  And yes, even we, with our charismatic marine biology research, aspire to his achievements, too: We would love to be in that little sphere and to peer out that fist-sized porthole and see things never seen by anyone before.

The question that remains unanswered is: “Is it science”?  We would argue emphatically YES.  Cameron’s team did equip their sub with a manipulator arm and suction sampler and they plan to return with specimens from the Challenger Deep, which Trieste could not, although a few ROV’s have done so in the interceding period.  Of course, we hope that this will only be the first of many dives, that Alvin has a new stable mate and the world has a new full-depth-capable research submersible.   The team also had many technological challenges to overcome in the construction of the Deep Challenger submersible, so it’s science from an engineering perspective too.  Doubtless they will gather abundant amounts of video data that can be used to answer scientific questions, just as it can be used to make compelling National Geographic shows.  And the whole endeavor is exploratory in nature, and ocean exploration is and always has been the realm of science.  Observation is, after all, the first step of the scientific method!

Why, then, might some people dismiss the Deep Challenger mission as a rich guy’s boondoggle?   It’s partly the person doing it.   Cameron is not a scientist by training and will likely not turn the results of this expedition into, say, peer-reviewed papers, so perhaps it’s considered pseudo-scientific, but we think this is a dour view that does little justice to the motivations of Deep Challenger and the societal values of this and all explorations.  Even if you put aside any and all pretense to science in this mission (which would be unfair), then simply by virtue of the attention that Cameron’s success will bring to deep-sea research, the mission will have been an unmitigated success.  Indeed, one only need look at the media excitement over the perceived “race to the bottom” (in which Cameron, Richard Branson and Sylvia Earle were supposedly competing to be the first back to Challenger Deep) to see the power of HOV exploration to raise the profile of deep sea research.  In this “race to the bottom” story, however manufactured, we see the media reaching for the kind of compelling conflict that motivated the space race in the 60’s, drama that ultimately shaped the nation’s perceptions of science and engineering for two generations.  Doesn’t that tell you something about the extraordinary potential value of exploratory science?

There’s a great opportunity offset here, too: every column inch spent talking about the wonders and challenges of deep sea exploration is one less inch spent on the latest overpaid celebrity without any real accomplishments or why this pair of pants is must-get for 2012.  Plug in a new name or a new designer and it is the same regurgitated news from last year.  By contrast, every deep dive reveals something new and exciting in the oceans.  Why then is the entire annual ocean exploration budget just a fraction of our national science budget (which is in turn an undersized slice of the federal budget)?  And why has NOAA just zeroed out the budget for the National Undersea Research Program?  Cameron has described this development as “piss-poor” and we definitely agree.

For all these reasons we think it’s time for marine biologists to proudly step into the spotlight offered by the fantastic achievements of the Deep Challenger team.  We need to seize this opportunity to show the public that there is still so much yet to learn in the deep, and that exploration, far from being remote and esoteric, is possible and still inspiring, right here, right now, on this planet.  We should admire the adventurous spirit of James Cameron and to embrace him as a new and legitimate celebrity advocate with tremendous capacity to advance the cause of the marine sciences.  Who knows, by so doing, we might well be able to secure a better funding future for other deep sea research programs and thereby advance science, however you want to define it.  In short, when Cameron succeeds, we all succeed.

The post James Cameron’s Deep Sea Challenge: a scientific milestone or rich guy’s junket? first appeared on Deep Sea News.