How Low Can You Go?

 

Some of the ocean’s creatures are under a lot of pressure. No, not because of pollution, or rising temperatures. Well, actually, of course those things too, but we’re talking about a different kind of pressure here: hydrostatic pressure.

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean we’ve found so far. At the very bottom of this area, the pressure is up to 1100 atmospheres (the pressure at sea level is just one atmosphere). What kind of creature could possibly live at these depths, under that kind of pressure?

In addition to crustaceans, sea cucumbers, jellyfish, and tiny one-celled organisms, in 2017 scientists discovered the Mariana snailfish. It’s only about two inches long, and doesn’t even have scales, but it thrives in one of the most inhospitable ecosystems on Earth, swimming at depths up to 26,600 feet below the ocean’s surface.

But exactly how does it survive under such tremendous pressure? Most fish have swim bladders to help them stay buoyant, but at those depths, a swim bladder would be crushed like an empty soda can in a trash compactor!

Instead, the snailfish has a kind of gelatinous tissue under the skin and around the spine that not only helps with buoyancy, but scientists believe it also helps them swim by reducing drag. In order to test this theory, those same scientists scientists developed a robotic snailfish model to analyze how well this gelatinous tissue helped. The robot snailfish with the specialized tissue did swim faster than those without it.

In addition, deep sea creatures such as snail fish have a type of molecule called a piezolyte, which helps stabilize proteins against high hydrostatic pressure. Piezolytes also give creatures that have them a distinctly “fishy” smell. Many shallow-water fishes also have piezolytes, but not as much as those found at deeper levels.

But why live at those depths in the first place? As it turns out, at those depths, the snailfish can find plenty of the invertebrates they eat, with no other predators to compete with them. Sometimes, living under pressure can have big rewards.

 

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Curriculum Reference Links

  •  Nature of Science / Understanding About Science / 1:  Students should be able to appreciate how scientists work and how scientific ideas are modified over time

 



Young Scientist Spotlight:
HANNAH HERBST

10 Fun Facts: The Hab

1. Aquarius is the the world’s only permanent undersea research station.

2. Most missions last about two or three weeks.

3. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, beat his grandfather’s record month-long underwater expedition by spending 31 days on the Aquarius Reef Base in 2014.

4. The lab is used by NASA, the US Navy, and researchers and educators from around the globe for training and research.

5. The internet connection is better in the Hab than at many places above the water.

6. You have to swim underneath the facility in order to enter it.

7. Crew members are called aquanauts (NOT aquaNUTS!)

8. In 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat’s generators caught fire.

9. Aquarius was featured in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon in 2012.

10. The Hab was originally built in Texas.

10 Fun Facts: Coral

1. Reefs usually grow up on the east shore of land masses.

2. Parts of a coral reef can be harvested to make medications to treat cancers and other illnesses.

3. A coral reef isn’t a single organism; it’s actually a community of life that lives and thrives in one location.

4. Only about one percent of the world’s oceans contain coral reefs. That’s about the size of France.

5. Coral reefs are the largest biological structures on earth.

6. Corals are related to jellyfish and anemones.

7. There are over 2,500 species of corals. About 1,000 are the hard corals that build coral reefs.

8. Reefs grow where there are stronger wave patterns and currents to deliver food and nutrients.

9. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10 Fun Facts: Invasive Species

1. To be considered invasive, a species must adapt to a new area easily. It must reproduce quickly. It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

2. Some invasive species are introduced accidentally, but others are brought deliberately.

3. Ship ballast water transports between 3,000 and 7,000 foreign species daily around the globe.

4. The total loss to the world economy as a result of invasive non-native species has been estimated at 5% of annual production

5. Invasive species have contributed to 40% of the animal extinctions that have occurred in the last 400 years.

6. Rodents are some of the worst invasive species.

7. There are an estimated 50,000 wild ring-necked parakeets in parks across London and southeast England.

8. Black and Norway rats annually consume stored grains and destroy other property valued over $19 billion.

9. Northern Pacific seastars reproduce very quickly. In one area where they were introduced, their population reached an estimated 12 million seastars in just two years.

10. Starlings were introduced to New York in the late 1800s, as part of an attempt to bring animals that were mentioned in Shakespeare‘s work to America.

Alert: Cuteness Overload!

Cutest animal in the ocean? Keep your Sea Otter. Forget the Dumbo Octopus. Axolotl? Close, but no cigar.

The winner of the Cutest Sea Animal prize is the Leaf Sheep Slug.

Yes, a slug. This tiny (5mm) animal, found near the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan, looks like a cartoon sheep covered in bright green leaves with pinkish purple tips.

Bonus: it’s one of the only animals that can perform photosynthesis, thanks to all the algae it eats.

Beat that.

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