Slow start

We had a slow start to the day today. Our 03:00 am bongo tow was not terribly successful, and we didn’t collect very many animals of interest (that we are targeting in our studies). That was a disappointment! However, because we didn’t have a lot of organisms that we wanted for our scientific studies, we had a bit of time to focus on other things, like imaging some of the animals we did collect. So today we were able to capture beautiful images of 2 of our target species, Pleuromamma robusta and P. gracilis, that are common copepods in open ocean environments.

These species are important in ocean biogeochemical cycles, because they migrate every day between the surface ocean (at night) and the twilight zone (ca 500 m). While they undergo these migrations, they move carbon and nitrogen from the surface ocean into the ocean’s interior and play a role in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere into the sea. Pleuromamma gracilis is a member of a cryptic species complex, and we are collaborating now with Janet Grieve (NIWA, New Zealand) on systematic revisions of this group, with descriptions of several new species.

In the afternoon, we also caught a Velella velella in our nauplii net. This funny jellyfish-like creature lives on the surface of the ocean, and has a clear sail that sticks up above the sea surface. The animal is then pushed by the wind across the ocean like a real sailor. This beautiful blue color is found in many of the animals that live at the air-sea interface.