Far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, three quarters of a mile deep, lies the peak of an underwater mountain.  Rising 1.4 miles off the abyssal plains, Davidson Seamount, nearly 26 miles long and 8 miles wide, is one of the largest known seamounts in U.S. waters. Davidson contains an abundance of life including massive groves of large bubblegum corals and reefs of glass sponges.  Life is so abundant at the seamount, we proposed nearly a decade ago that Davidson Seamount with its dense aggregations of invertebrates may serve as source of many species to nearby canyons and rocky outcrops off the California coast.  Davidson may be a perfect habitat for many species allowing their populations to explode.  This Davidson Seamount cradle then may serve as source of migrating individuals into other less perfect habitats nearby.  This idea of Davidson as a biodiversity source was instrumental in getting Davidson added to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (MBNMS) in 2009.

A recent expedition by NOAA, MBNMS, and Nautilus, returned to Davidson Seamount.  And is typical of Davidson delivered with a spectacular display of life.   Over 1,000 individuals of the small sized octopus Muusoctopus robustus were caught on video hugging the rocks in a brooding position.  It is unclear why these octopuses are using the seamount as a nursery.  Higher currents around seamounts may bring more oxygenated waters.  The dense aggregations of other animals may provide abundant prey.  The crevasse, cracks, and rocky rubble of this old volcano may provide shelter from predators.

The post An Octopus Nursery Discovered on a Deep Underwater Mountain first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Strong northeasterly winds have been blowing the coast of Southern California since the beginning of last week. For this time of year this is sort of unusual, as the strongest northwesterly winds usually occur from May to July. But it is these fierce winds that cause deep water to be pushed upslope across the continental shelf in a process known as upwelling. Along-coast winds transfer momentum to the sea surface, pushing water which turns and flows offshore due to the influence of the Coriolis force caused by our wonderfully rotating planet. Deep water then flows up and across the continental slope to replace the surface waters that are pushed offshore, causing upwelling! Upwelling is usually a good thing, as it brings up nutrients from the deep to feed all the starving sea beasties at the surface. Upwelling is so important that often major fisheries are located around regions where upwelling occurs, such as off the coast of Chile.

A more likely scenario is that Oarfish were “tricked” by the upwelling currents to head closer to shore and shallower water when they normally wouldn’t. The bathymetry around Oceanside and Catalina island is complicated and there are many deep canyons that Oarfish could conceivably inhabit. When upwelling pushed the deep water that Oarfish typically like to hang out in up and onto the slope, they might have just tagged along, following environmental cues like temperature, salinity or even food abundance. Why they aren’t tricked onshore during the typical upwelling season is beyond me, but it might have something to do with their population distribution. Oarfish just might not be near the coast during the spring upwelling season.

As I said before, I’m not an Oarfish expert. But the victims seemed to be healthy (one lady oarfish may have been ready to spawn!), so it seems pretty likely that something caused them to want to swim towards shore at which point they weren’t able to overcome the local coastal currents and ended up gasping on the beach. Whatever the cause (and it could be that upwelling is not that cause) last weeks unlucky Oarfish just seemed to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time

ADDENDUM: 

In response to the comments below, I wrote this post to suggest a real physical phenomenon for the oarfish stranding as opposed to the plethora of wild speculation that has been invading the internet. I probably didn’t put in enough “maybes” and “possiblies” to convey that properly. Further investigations may prove that upwelling may not be the cause, because that’s the way science rolls. To me it seems that wide-spread naturally occurring process is more likely to have contributed to the beachings than sonar, earthquakes or fracking fluids (if these were true, I would expect more than just two fish of the same species on the beach).  I’ve even seen a suggestion that internal waves caused the oarfish to end up on the beach! For the record, I am very dubious about this claim. But regardless, upwelling is a valid and testable hypothesis and I think it would be remiss to not even consider it. Disagree? Comment section is below.

The post mOARFISH, moar problems? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post California Coastal Climate Change Research first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Its a bit of a circular title, but I think it is honest. Marine scientists are constantly shouting at walls of reporters and news consumers that everything is fucked (pardon my french, but its not untrue). And well, it sort of is. But how do we explain without being too overly alarmist? I get concerned when I read comments on news pieces and popular science articles or blog that follow along the lines of this one I saw on this Sign On San Diego article: Marine scientists focus on sardines, squid and other forage fish.

“These “scientists ” earn a living on fear .. they must keep fear going to continue to be paid ..  as long as there is fear, there willl be groups to further fund the research into this fear ..  and it is all a money game .. corruption, plain and simple ..”

The article discusses a push in California legislature to make “… state fishery managers account for the needs of marine predators when determining how much forage fish can be caught.” It is unclear how this will be done but the language of these regulations are typically along the lines of best available science. I could focus on the science – of which I do not know in great detail, though I’ve always supported an ecosystem approach to management – but I think this offers a chance to discuss some of the communications issues that impede conservation.

Most of the time we shrug off ridiculously negative online comments. Just someone gone trolling, someone has an agenda or general internet asshatery. But comments are the window into the soul of the populace (to some extent). Online, people can assume any persona they wish. Just go onto any popular youtube video and scroll down the comment list. It can be a dark, scary place.

Comments on conservation articles can be just as daunting. You typically get the extremes: overly supportive or bitter and vile. It takes a special kind of person to comment on online material. For positive commenters, you may want to throw your “like” in the ring or participate in constructive conversation. Most people don’t comment, and that is fine. Many (including myself) enjoy passively consuming news and opinion of a variety of types. From our Spring DSN Reader Survey, most of you do not comment here on DSN, but still enjoy our content and visit us often. The reasons were typically 1) didn’t feel qualified to comment (though over half of respondents carried graduate degrees), 2) generally never comment on blogs, and 3) feels like they never have anything else to add.

Negative commenters though, oh boy! They are someone special. I want to draw the line in the sand right off the boat that correcting typos, grammar and the like is not negative commenting, neither necessarily is contrarianism or skepticism of a post’s content. All of these are, or can be, constructive criticisms. We certainly welcome that! Negative commenting is spiteful, intentionally hurtful, not constructive and generally all around a bad, pointless idea. Nonetheless, all too common – more so on news sites or mainstream media than on blogs. One of the reasons I think this might be is that blogs, even small blogs, tend to generate or be integrated into communities where bad behavior is less tolerated. Bloggers can set their own rules for engagement however they want and may change everything on a whim if they so choose to. There is no higher power to answer to. Whereas mainstream media has, arguably, few built in filters – made trickier with all the social media commenting plugins – and the volume of comments makes it unpractical to police an article well. There are, of course, exceptions.

But comments are very insightful because someone took the time and felt the need to say something. We can use the negativity and turn it around and ask ourselves how can we dampen this type of response? In science communication, we need a little more of what I like to call preemptive communication. This means that we need to predict what is going to be offend or be wrong with what we are going to say in the future. Surely, a very hard, if not impossible, task. To circumvent this paradox, one needs to merely study the errors of previous communication efforts (including your own). Easier said than done I know! But think about it. You see a douchey negative comment online, what is your response? 1) Glance over or ignore it, 2) read it and chuckle and their ignorance, 3) read it and facepalm at their stupidity, 4) read it and respond with logic, 5) read it and respond with negativity, or 6) do you even bother reading comments at all?

I believe comments have intrinsic value to those of us honing our communications skills – which really should be all of us in the sciences. The National Science Foundation (NSF), a major source of government research funding in the U.S., goes as far as to require grantees to discuss how they will make their research – and more generally, science – broadly accessible. These “broader impacts” are sometimes glossed over, but the devil will come for his toll as the public support for basic research fades along with government funding. The situation is getting more dire such that NSF recently has proposed that grantees now justify how their broader impact statements will fit within the framework of national socioeconomic goals. As Daniel Sarewitz is quoted, “Assessments of the wider value of research are unpopular. Proposed changes will only produce more hype and hypocrisy.”

Furthermore, the national socioeconomic goals skirt around protecting the environment. So conservation science communicators are already facing an uphill battle. Messaging needs to anticipate an anti-science or ambivalent-science reception. Wading through oppositional talking points, dissecting dissension from vitriol, and circling around to preemptively attack these views is an unpleasant yet necessary task. Negative commenters live for the “gotcha” moment. The less we can give them, the more effectively we can keep on task. Of course, you can argue they will always find something to gripe at or just throw out their arms and claim conservationists have a hidden agenda and just make stuff up. That will never go away unfortunately. But maintaining a positive message, anticipating criticisms and keeping your head cool ca’t surely hurt.

I don’t know if these ideas are useful, but I do know we need to think outside of the box when it comes to communicating the needs for conservation. What I often see is dismissal based on misunderstanding, misinterpretation or outright agenda. We can’t take the high road and speak above people, dismissing them back. Its not useful and our common goals should include reaching out to new audiences. Something is working, if you poll people, anecdotally they support conservation and clean environment, but it doesn’t appear to be maintained through to any meaningful activism. Part of the goal of conservation communication is to convert, but a large part is also to push the fence sitters over the edge into action of some kind. Using negative comments as a lens into improving our communication efforts may just be one more thing we can do give some of those pushes, but at least to anticipate criticisms that may put off some of the passerby’s.

The post Preemptive Conservation Communication Through the Lens of Negative Comments first appeared on Deep Sea News.

About 5 days ago, a huge school of sardines found their way into King Harbor in Redondo Beach, CA (near Los Angeles), used up all the oxygen, and died of suffocation. While the harbor tries to vacuum and scoop up the vast number of dead rotting fish (want to volunteer?), scientists are trying to figure out what happened in the first place.

New data from Dr. David Caron’s lab at University of Southern California found that the gut contents of the dead sardines contained high levels of domoic acid, a powerful neurotoxin produced by the diatom (microscopic plant) Pseudo-nitzschia. Sardines feed by filtering plankton out of the water with their gills, so unlike other fish they are able to ingest toxic algae directly. Dr. Caron’s lab did not detect domoic acid inside King Harbor itself, but the fish might have eaten the toxic algae offshore, become disoriented, swum into the harbor, used up all the oxygen (a million fish use a LOT of oxygen), and died.

Dr Caron wrote a very helpful explanation of what his lab is doing, what they’ve found, and what they’re working on. Here’s an excerpt regarding the role of domoic acid in the fish deaths.  I’ve posted the complete statement after the break.

Despite the lack of toxic algal species in the water at King Harbor during this event, analyses of the gut contents of fish collected on March 8th have tested strongly positive for domoic acid.  Domoic acid is a powerful neurotoxin produced by a specific type of microalgae.  The algae are strained from the water by plankton-eating fish such as sardines and anchovy, and the toxin is often found concentrated in the stomach contents of these fish during a toxic algal bloom.  Domoic acid can cause a variety of neurological disorders, and death, of animals consuming fish contaminated with the neurotoxin.  Research also indicates that domoic acid poisoning can cause abnormal swimming behavior in some fish.  It is possible that high levels of domoic acid in the sardines in King Harbor may have exacerbated physiological stress of the fish brought on by oxygen depletion of the water, or may have been a contributing explanation for them congregating in the harbor at very high abundances, but this has not been confirmed.

We believe that the fish ingested the toxin offshore (before entering the harbor) because domoic acid was not detected in the water within King Harbor on the day of the event.  Additionally, during our 5-year study we have not observed significant concentrations of domoic acid in King Harbor.  We have confirmed that plankton collected from the coastal ocean approximately 20 km southwest of Redondo Beach on March 9 had very high concentrations of domoic acid in the plankton. That finding support the idea that the fish ingested the toxin in coastal waters before entering the harbor.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2011, King Harbor in the City of Redondo Beach experienced a massive fish kill (estimates are in the millions of fish killed), apparently mostly Pacific sardine.  This event has received national and global attention.  My research group at the University of Southern California has been actively working and monitoring King Harbor as a site of recurrent algal blooms since a massive fish kill occurred there in 2005.  The exact cause of the 2005 event was never clearly determined, but it coincided with a large microalgal bloom.  Thus, the buildup of algae and perhaps toxins produced by harmful algal species, were implicated as playing a role in the fish mortality.

In response to the 2005 mortality event, we established a monitoring program there in 2006 to characterize the algal species at the site, and subsequently a suite of instruments to measure water quality in 2007, and we have maintained those instruments and characterized the microalgae in the water through the present time.  These instruments, and additional measurements made at the time of the event on March 8^th and immediately following the mortality event, are summarized below:

Our sensor packages in the water recorded pertinent environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll fluorescence which is a proxy for microalgal biomass) prior to and during the event.  These instruments indicated a precipitous drop in dissolved oxygen coincident with the mortality event.  Based on the information collected by the sensor packages, we conclude that depletion of dissolved oxygen was unquestionably the immediate cause of the mortality event.

Profiles of dissolved oxygen made in and around King Harbor on March 8 indicated exceptionally low dissolved oxygen concentrations within the harbor, with increasing concentrations of oxygen in the outer harbor region.  Severely depleted levels of dissolved oxygen persist today (March 10) in parts of the harbor in the wake of the mortality event.

It is not clear at this time whether the oxygen depletion in King Harbor on the 8th occurred solely due to respiration by the very large population of sardines that entered the harbor days prior to the mortality event.  It is possible that an influx of coastal water with a low concentration of oxygen may have occurred, contributing to the low oxygen conditions.  We are continuing to examine this possibility.

Our continuously-recording instruments measured relatively low chlorophyll concentrations leading up to, during, and immediately following the event (<2 ug/l).  Therefore, we have ruled out the possibility of a massive buildup of algal biomass as a factor contributing to the mortality event (high algal biomass was a presumed contributor to the 2005 mortality event).

In addition, analysis of water samples collected on the day of the event in King Harbor indicated very low microalgal biomass in general, and the virtual absence of potentially harmful or toxic algal species in the water.

Despite the lack of toxic algal species in the water at King Harbor during this event, analyses of the gut contents of fish collected on March 8th have tested strongly positive for domoic acid.  Domoic acid is a powerful neurotoxin produced by a specific type of microalgae.  The algae are strained from the water by plankton-eating fish such as sardines and anchovy, and the toxin is often found concentrated in the stomach contents of these fish during a toxic algal bloom.  Domoic acid can cause a variety of neurological disorders, and death, of animals consuming fish contaminated with the neurotoxin.  Research also indicates that domoic acid poisoning can cause abnormal swimming behavior in some fish.  It is possible that high levels of domoic acid in the sardines in King Harbor may have exacerbated physiological stress of the fish brought on by oxygen depletion of the water, or may have been a contributing explanation for them congregating in the harbor at very high abundances, but this has not been confirmed.

We believe that the fish ingested the toxin offshore (before entering the harbor) because domoic acid was not detected in the water within King Harbor on the day of the event.  Additionally, during our 5-year study we have not observed significant concentrations of domoic acid in King Harbor.  We have confirmed that plankton collected from the coastal ocean approximately 20 km southwest of Redondo Beach on March 9 had very high concentrations of domoic acid in the plankton. That finding support the idea that the fish ingested the toxin in coastal waters before entering the harbor.

This is the present status of our knowledge on this event.  My lab is continuing to analyze for other algal toxins in the fish collected at the time of the mortality event.  We are also continuing to monitor the chemical conditions (especially dissolved oxygen) and biological conditions (algal abundance) within the harbor in order to characterize the recovery of the harbor, and/or any response of the microalgal community to the release of nutrients by the decomposing fish.

We are continuing to characterize the toxic bloom now taking place in the adjacent coastal ocean, and we are acquiring oceanographic information that will help determine if a pulse of low-oxygen water from the coastal ocean may have entered King Harbor and contributed to the fish mortality event.

David Caron, Professor, USC

Astrid Schnetzer, Asst. Research Professor

Beth Stauffer, Ph.D. candidate

Erica Seubert, Ph.D. candidate

Alyssa Gellene, research technician

The post Dead sardines in California had eaten toxic algae first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The preliminary results go something like the picture above. To be clear, it is important to do controlled, well-designed experiments to understand how trawling affects benthic communities and to disentangle confounding factors. I think this is what the Nature Conservancy and its collaborators are doing. But, it is also important to emphasize the preliminary nature of the study. You see, this study is underway and has not been published nor subjected to peer review for that matter. Readers have no way to evaluate the study design, methodology or interpretation of the data. The only materials and methods, and results, are found in the short New Scientist article:

“The team wanted to know how often trawlers can rake over a section of muddy sea floor before habitats can no longer recover. Records held by the National Marine Fisheries Service show parts of the continental shelf can be trawled between zero and 10 times a year. So last year, to mimic low-intensity trawling, four plots were hit twice. This October, they were each trawled five times, mimicking a high-intensity trawl. The Beagle took pictures immediately after each event, as well as six and 12 months after the first trawl.

Early signs indicate that marine life survived, even thrived, after last year’s trawls. Since then, the Beagle has spotted sharks, flatfish and thick schools of squid that dove, kamikaze-style, into its red laser lights. Donna Kline, a fish ecologist at California State University in Monterey Bay, thinks that far from destroying a habitat, the trawl may have created a new one by etching grooves into the flat bottom.”

Extrapolation

When results are given out to the media that have not undergone peer review, there is an ever-increasing chance that they will be taken out of context. Of course, this happens all the time to published, peer-reviewed results. The situation is made worse though when the community cannot take into account a wide variety of what the public might think are mere details, but the philosophical underpinnings of which are greatly important to accepting any data that come out the experiment. One site, a business blog at stuff.co.nz, immediately latched onto the findings from the New Scientist article with the provocative headline: “Bottom Trawling Is Good”. While unfounded and having a high probability of being flat out wrong, it makes for a good discussion point.

The study in question examines one bay in California, that was previously trawled, but not in the last 10 years. Do the results extrapolate out to a generality of muddy deep-sea bottoms? The mounting evidence from a variety of areas around the world say no (see Google Scholar for over 21,000 references to “Bottom trawling effects”), but this study is supposed to be controlled, whereas previous studies were not designed to specifically test how trawling affects seafloor communities. In other words, the data that exists right now is circumstantial, but very well done given the circumstances. Trawled areas are compared to non-trawled areas and diversity and community metrics are calculated. This type of science is common, and valid, but remains as documentation of patterns, not necessarily as an explicit, controlled test of a hypothesis. Again, to reiterate we do not know anything about the study and it is only half-way its 5 year duration.

Not a Fairy Tale Ending

What the press will do with a story like this is run away with it because creates tension, challenges previously held ideas, and has the ironic backing of a conservation organization. There are lots of details annoyingly missing from the New Scientist article. They hint that Nature Conservancy is seeking to create a sustainable fisheries model using this research. Well, it would sure be nice to hear more about that and might give context to the OMG TEH TRAWLING IS AWSUM!!1! LULZ!!! claim. They saw that “marine life survived, even thrived”, there is more to the deep-sea than fish and sharks. I have a hard time seeing how precious, long-lived corals and sponges – 2 extensive habitat-forming species – can survive a trawl by definition. While trawling creates a new habitat, i.e. a wasteland, this doesn’t mean habitat heterogeneity will result in more species. One species’ new niche was another’s previously optimal habitat.

What this story does affirm is that extraordinary, and contradictory, claims require great evidence. Published a study midway with inconclusive results in the popular press is irresponsible on the part of the researchers and may end up hurting their causes. Stakeholders may accept these results at current value and choose to let these preliminary findings guide their decisions about trawling. Fishing lobbies may latch onto the Trawling Is Good mantra and make things even worse for the industry for those juicy, seductive short-term gains.

Furthermore, it diminishes the intelligence of the readership. People aren’t stupid. Its one thing I’ve learned interacting with non-scientists (usually at the pub) is that common sense is still alive and well in the general population. Just read the comments to the business blog’s piece. The audience struck back furiously and quickly. Its great to challenge our mores in science, we are all trained as skeptics, but it requires a certain depth and evidence to be successful. Like any good fairy tale, there is a lesson to be learned, irresponsible reporting only goes as far as you can toss a 5000 year old piece of rare deep-sea coral.

The post From the Editor’s Desk: Benefits of Bottom Trawling and Other Assorted Fairy Tales first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Two more white sharks were sighted on Sunday right here on La Jolla Shores in San Diego, combining with last week’s San Onofre sighting to give San Diego County a little “Summer of the Sharks” feeling. According to the 10 News article,

A kayaker spotted a shark Sunday morning in La Jolla Shores that he described as bigger than his kayak. Later that afternoon, three lifeguards confirmed another sighting, just 50 yards from shore near Tower 30.

La Jolla Shores is my backyard, and I was snorkeling around there that very day. While I’m not going to lie and say that a 15′ white shark doesn’t give me a little quiver in my belly, the analytical part of my brain isn’t worried. Scripps graduate student researcher Andy Nosal summed it up nicely:

Andy Nosal, a researcher with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, said there is an average of four to six fatal shark attacks worldwide annually. Nosal reminds beachgoers that just because sharks are not clearly visible does not mean they are not there. He said people should not be panicked because of recent sightings.

Southern California’s marine topography is similar to the land’s topography – rugged and split by narrow, deep canyons. There are probably always white sharks hanging out in those canyons. (Check out these amazing fly-through seafloor maps for a shark’s-eye view of underwater La Jolla Canyon.) Seeing a few sharks doesn’t mean that attacks are imminent – though I will continue to do my best not to look like a seal.

The post Should you worry about white sharks in SoCal? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

We’ve still got a few giant black nettle jellies floating around, but the big news this week has featured something much toothier. White sharks are relatively common off the southern California coast, but since chances of getting munched are vanishingly rare, I don’t worry about them while swimming & diving. Still, I must say that seeing a huge predator emerge out of the familiar Pacific murk on this video makes my stomach clench. This was filmed off San Onofre, about 50 miles north of San Diego.

Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.

The post SoCal sea a-swim with scum and sharks first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Of course, the sad thing is that this scenario is likely to occur in deep water along the majority of coastlines. Hat tip to @scubadivergirls.

The post Underwater Junkyard Off California first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Video is here is the embed above doesn’t work.

The post “Ya Gotta Respect the Ocean, Its Just One of Those Things…” first appeared on Deep Sea News.