>>KAKANI KATIJA: So full disclosure—I’m not actually a marine scientist.
I’m actually trained as an aerospace engineer.
And for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.
So, if you can’t recognize me in this photo, I’m suspended in microgravity waiting for
this very handsome mustachioed gentleman to whirl me around on the Vomit Comet.
And for several years now, I have stopped looking for life in outer planets, and have
started instead to focus on the life that we have much closer to home in the oceans.
And what you’ll notice is that this footage is not actually a star field.
This is what 400 meters deep in Monterey Bay might look like.
And so what you’ll also notice is, unlike our search for life in outer planets, the
ocean is just teeming with life, and there’s a lot that we don’t know about that life.
And so members of my lab at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute does a combination
of approaches that involved innovative observation platforms, which is largely robotics-based,
as well as state of the art instrumentation, particularly imaging tools.
And then finally, utilizing access to novel study systems with ocean-going research vessels.
And what we do is, we combine all of these things to study organisms or animals in their
natural environment in the deep sea.
But the reason why we do this is that ultimately, we’ll want to apply these lessons learned
to bio-inspired design, which is the concept of developing new tools and technology based
on what we learn from deep sea animals.
And a lot like how we humankind have been inspired by birds to fly, there might be something
that we might be inspired to do by organisms in the deep sea that we know almost nothing about.
And so I work in the mid-water of the ocean, and animals are weird and wacky, like this one,
the angler fish.
And it has a bioluminescent lure.
And this is a Cystisoma, and these animals are being studied because of their transparent
tissues as well as their complex visual systems, for a variety of different science and engineering
applications.
This is actually a Siphonophore, and some Siphonophores can get longer than a blue whale.
And they undergo these long distance vertical migrations, and we’re not sure how they do it.
And then finally, this is the Humboldt squid.
And these animals are voracious predators, and their soft bodies and dual modes of propulsion
are actually forcing us to rethink how we develop underwater vehicles as we study and
want to continue studying the deep sea.
So how do we do that?
All of this footage was collected because of the infrastructure investments we made
at our institution.
Like an ocean-going research vessel, as well as large-scale robots, and in this case, a
remotely operated vehicle.
In addition to that, my team also develops new imaging devices, including a laser
imaging instrument called DeepPIV.
And we’ve used that on a variety of different organisms that enables a completely new way
of viewing or observing these animals.
And one of these animals are the giant larvaceans, which you see here.
So, you’ll notice that the animal is what’s wagging or pumping its tail, and that structure
around the animal is a mucus house.
It’s made of a mucus that the animal secretes, and serves as a filtration structure to separate
particles and food from the animal and the water around it.
And these animals can be about 10 centimeters in length, and their houses can be up to a
meter in size.
And the way we go about doing these kinds of experiments is, we go to sea on a research
vessel, and that includes the science team, the ROV pilots, as well as obviously the ship’s crew.
And we, the science team and the ROV pilot, sit in a very fancy control room that looks
a lot like a movie theater.
And in order to do these kinds of measurements, an ROV pilot is maneuvering a remotely operated
vehicle to an animal of interest, and the ship’s crew and the ROV pilots communicate
constantly to ensure that they’re dealing with a different environment and the ROV isn’t
being pulled off the target of interest.
And once we see an animal that we’re interested in studying, the ROV pilot positions the vehicle
such that our laser light on our instrument, which is a millimeter thick—so a millimeter
thick laser sheet on an animal that’s approximately two centimeters wide, at a depth anywhere
from 50 to 400 meters.
So, it’s incredibly difficult.
So, what I want to show you then is a result of some of this work.
This is raw footage from an ROV at MBARI.
What you’ll notice- and think about this as kind of an X-ray image.
You can see inside the house of the larvacean as well as the larvacean.
And as the animal starts beating its tail, you’ll notice that the house, that outer
structure there, is inflating.
And you can also see particles that are moving in and around the animal and through the house.
And so we’ve actually been able to use these measurements to measure directly the filtration
rates that these animals are able to process water.
And in some cases, up to 80 liters per hour.
And the implications of that is, in Monterey Bay, at least in their principle depth range,
from 200 to 400 meters, they could fully process that principle depth range within two weeks.
Which is incredibly important when you’re thinking about how these organisms are interacting
with their environment.
But also, we can use the DeepPIV instrument in a scanning fashion.
So a lot like an MRI, where you might have a stack of images to represent different planes
along a body or a brain, we can do the same thing with a DeepPIV instrument where now,
instead, you’re seeing a scan of the larvacean house, as well as the larvacean.
And so using that image stack, what we can do and see for the first time, is not only
the external structures of the house, but also what it looks it like inside.
So, you’re getting a particle eye view of what’s inside these houses.
And notice all of these chambers, these finger-like chambers, where every single one of those
chambers wind up going to the mouth of the animal.
So, they’re incredibly beautiful, incredibly complex structures, and we really don’t
know much.
Not only about the structure—we’re just starting to scratch the surface of it—but
also its function.
And so what we’re hoping is, with this work and continued effort, some day we might have
a new class or innovated filtration system that can filter particles on a submicron scale.
And so with that, I want to end on a positive note.
I think what’s really exciting right now is there are so many great new technologies
and tools that are going to be focused on studying midwater, which is the final frontier
on our planet.
And with exploration, we’re going to be learning things that will then inspire us
to do a variety of different things, things we don’t even know anything about, and potentially
create innovations that will forever change our world.
Thank you.