NOAA's Aquarius: an undersea home for scientists, divers and even astronauts

Where would you like to spend a faraway vacation? A remote chateau in France? A cozy cabin in the high Sierras? Well, here's one that is on my wish list: over 60 feet below the surface of the waves, off the coast of Florida, nestled in the Aquarius undersea research station.

Currently, the only permanent undersea habitat and research facility, Aquarius is owned and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the University of North Carolina Wilmington. It has been home to a wide array of scientists and researchers since it was first deployed in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary in 1993.

One of the advantages of an undersea habitat is the ability to extend the amount of bottom time (time spent diving and conducting research outside). If you were to dive from the surface to 60 feet, you would have only about one hour of dive time before you would find yourself having to deal with decompression (waiting to discharge accumulated nitrogen) as you surfaced. However, by staying below in a pressurized facility, a scientist could spend a full working day outside, for up to 10 days or more. At the conclusion of the mission there would then be an extended period of time spent decompressing before stepping on dry land, but the ability to spend days at a time underwater is extremely valuable for many types of scientific ocean studies.

Additionally, a facility like Aquarius is ideal for testing how men and women can function in confined environments like they would encounter in deep space missions. NASA just concluded its latest deep space training exercise, NEEMO 15, which stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation. With NASA's future deep space missions, like ones being considered to the moons of Mars, Mars itself, and even to an asteroid (calling Bruce Willis), it is important to know how astronauts can function effectively and independently, with little or no contact with mother Earth. Medical emergencies, software and hardware repairs, and of course, long-term isolation - all need to be considered and studied.

From reef growth to acidification to developing new techniques in biodiversity studies - or even preparing astronauts for future space missions - Aquarius is a vitally important ocean research center. NOAA understands the value of public awareness and has established and interesting website for Aquarius, containing background information on missions and other accomplishments, videos, pictures, and even a live feed camera for when it's catering to visitors.

So, champagne and strawberries in a New York hotel suite? Fresh tempura in a Tokyo high-rise? A warm fire and a soft couch in Yosemite? All very nice, but give me a cup of hot chocolate, a bunk, a porthole, and a set of diver gear at the ready and I'll be just fine, thank you.

Read about Aquarius at NOAA's Aquarius website.
Read about NEEMO 15 and its work with Aquarius in the Huffington Post.

Earth Lashes Out At the Sea: terrestrial fungi can strike ocean reefs

Here's an interesting post from the Southern Fried Science blog - a blog consisting of a trio of dedicated grad students from the U.S. Carolinas. Described in this post is a type of fungus that raised havoc in the coral reefs of the Florida Keys in the late 90's. Acting like a brush fire that thins out a forest, this fungus spawned diseases that cleared out mature coral sea fans, allowing young coral with greater disease resistance to take hold.

This would seem like a natural cyclical disaster that nature could handle - much like the forest fires started by lightning. But this was a terrestrial fungus brought in by wind-borne dust from faraway continents and could also be brought in by ships or more frequent storms due to man-made climate change. So, while nature has an incredible ability to, in time, balance out the the impacts of natural disasters; mankind can accelerate those factors beyond what nature's ecosystems can handle.

Alien Invaders: coral pathogens

By Southern Fried Scientist, on July 20th, 2010

It was a story that could very easily have been written as science fiction. Gorgonian (sea fan) corals of the Florida coast were turning black and dying. The infectious culprit was something no one working on the reefs had encountered before. It was totally alien. The black rot spread across the Caribbean, decimating coral populations. By the time the contagion had been deduced, more than 50% of total sea fan tissue had been eradicated in the Florida Keys. It was one of the worst coral epidemics in recent history.

The culprit was indeed an alien, though certainly not extra-terrestrial. In fact, it was very terrestrial. Aspergillus sydowii, a globally distributed saprophytic soil fungus was the nightmare creature. Aspergillus causes a variety of diseases in humans and birds, but had not previously been recognized as a marine pathogen.

The coral epidemic lasted six years, beginning in 1997. Not surprisingly, it targeted larger, mature corals, severely reducing their biomass and impairing reproduction. Because of this predilection, the total population of gorgonia remained stable, thanks to the influx of juvenile corals from other sources. Eventually, the disease epidemic subsided, due largely to increased host resistance, but also due to the decline in large corals.

How Aspergillus was introduced into the ocean is no surprise. Fungi are prolific in their spore production and dispersal. For every cubic meter of air, there are more than 10,000 fungal spores. That’s a lot of opportunity to take hold. But there is a concept called the mycostatic effect in marine mycology. Simply put, most fungal spores do not germinate in the sea. The osmotic pressure of saltwater prevents most fungal spores from functioning. So, though prolific in numbers in the sea, fungi are not often seen as having a large ecologic contribution.

At least, that’s the conventional wisdom.

Recently other reports of fungal infection in the ocean have appeared. In the Fiji Basin anther black yeast, those this one uncharacterized, has infected mussels at a deep sea hydrothermal vent. These mussels grow black and eventually die. More then 60% of the mussels at one site were infected. How the disease spreads, and how it was transmitted to the deep sea remains a mystery.

Fungi were one of the first to colonize land, and I have a bit of a history of that event here. Only the most basal fungal forms are known to thrive in aqueous environments. So how do these more derived forms return to the sea?

The final chapter (or first chapter? I’m still getting a handle on this whole narative thing) is one that is a common thread in modern ecology. Fungal spores identical to those of the infectious Aspergillus were isolated in the Virgin Islands from layers laid down by dust storm events. These dust storm events originated on the African Coast and carried spores across the Atlantic to settle in the Caribbean. An organism of little notice (though very significant ecology) becomes a pathogen when introduced into a new environment.

We live in a global ecosystem. What happens to one place, no matter how seemingly remote, happens to us all.

~Southern Fried Scientist

From Southern Fried Science.com.