It's me, Sam!
And I'm here in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
to check out a species with boulder-like formations,
antler-like branches,
and all kinds of colors!
They sound like plants, right?
Well, actually, they're animals.
Corals are an endangered species
in desperate need of our help.
So let's dive down to learn more about them
and an amazing underwater research lab
that works to protect and preserve our oceans
and its marine wildlife.
(upbeat music)
♪ ♪
SAM: The ocean is full of life in an amazing array of shapes and colors.
And at the bottom of the ocean floor is one of
the greatest natural wonders of our world: corals!
Coral are one of the tiniest living organisms in the ocean.
They can live alone, but many do something really amazing.
They attach themselves to rocks at the bottom of the ocean,
divide into thousands of clones,
and form beautiful colonies called "coral reefs."
The Great Barrier Reef off the cost of Australia
is the largest coral reef in the world.
But today, we're headed to Conch Reef to dive with
Aileen Soto and her team from FIU.
We're diving down to check out Aquarius,
the only undersea lab in the world,
to learn about the research they are doing
to protect and preserve coral reefs.
Here we go!
Aquarius is massive!
Its chamber weighs about 80 tons and is 43 feet long.
This vessel is like its own ecosystem.
The view ports and the base plates on the seabed
are all covered with coral formations.
This underwater lab is a habitat for marine wildlife and scientists.
I've never seen anything like it!
Let's go up to learn more about the research that happens in Aquarius.
Aileen, that was such a cool dive!
Can you tell me again what you do?
So basically my job is to connect
the missions that we're doing at Aquarius
to kids all over the world.
So we actually have wi-fi underwater.
-Wow. -And we can live-link with a group anywhere
in the world anywhere, any time,
and basically bring the coral reef of the Florida Keys to the kids.
Wow, that's incredible.
Is there research going on right now?
Absolutely. So right now, Aquarius is owned
and operated by Florida International University.
NASA utilizes it through
NASA's Extreme Environment Missions Operations Program,
or the NEMO program, so they're also utilizing it pretty much every year
to train for long duration space flights
and for life in the international space station.
SAM: Astronauts learn a technique called "saturation diving,"
where they're trained to breathe underwater
to reduce the risk of decompression sickness
in extreme environments like outer space!
Are there any cool missions coming up?
So we actually do have missions coming up.
AILEEN: And all of them are looking at basically the role
that predators play in coral reef ecosystems,
and looking at the ecology of fear,
and how predator presence affects the behavior
and distribution of the prey species.
SAM: Okay. AILEEN: So that we can better understand
the population dynamics within the coral reef ecosystem.
How neat! Thank you so much for showing me this.
-It's my pleasure. SAM: It was great, hearing about
all the missions, educational programs,
and unique ocean science that Aquarius offers.
Corals are such fascinating creatures.
I can't wait to see more.
Now that we've seen them in the day, it's time to check them out at night.
I've been a scuba diver for seven years, and this is my first coral night dive.
I'm so excited!
Let's meet Dr. Miller from NOAA,
who specializes in corals,
so she can tell us what we might see down there.
She and her team of researchers have been diving
in this area for the past three nights,
observing how corals reproduce,
also known as spawning.
-Got it. -Oh, we got her.
Hi.
-(laughs) Are you Sam? -Yeah.
-I'm Margaret. -Nice to meet you.
So, Dr. Miller, it's so nice to meet you!
What is your job?
-I work for NOAA as a coral researcher. -Very cool.
MARGARET: Corals function to provide that structure in the ocean.
It provides habitat for all the different organisms that you see on the coral reef.
I heard that you've been out here for a couple of nights already.
It's always a little bit of an adventure,
because you don't know exactly when the corals are gonna spawn.
MARGARET: So we always are out here diving actually six nights during August,
just to make sure that we don't miss it.
So, Dr. Miller, what kind of corals are elkhorn and staghorn?
MARGARET: So the elkhorn coral that we're gonna see tonight
and staghorn coral are two of the species that are listed
under the Endangered Species Act.
SAM: What kind of threats are they facing right now?
MARGARET: Particularly for elkhorn and staghorn coral,
but all of the corals on our reef here,
they're very sensitive to warm temperatures.
Corals actually have a very narrow tolerance.
MARGARET: So when the temperature of the ocean gets
only a couple degrees higher than it should be,
the corals actually get very sick and die very quickly.
And that's through a process called coral bleaching.
So corals kind of look like plants, right?
-They do. -But they're actually animals?
They are. Corals are pretty special.
That's one of the things I think is really cool about corals,
because they are animals, but they act like plants.
So corals actually, just like plants, get most of their energy from the sunlight.
Because they have these tiny plant cells living inside them,
that photosynthesize as plants do,
and the coral's able to benefit from that.
So when we're going out on a dive, watching for coral spawning,
what we're gonna be doing is kind of swimming around
and just examining all the elkhorn corals in the area.
Well, I can't wait to get down there and see if we find anything.
-Let's keep our fingers crossed. -Yes.
SAM: I've been waiting for this dive all day.
So excited!
Let's go!
It's really dark down here. Good thing I have this flashlight!
Let me stay close to Dr. Miller and the NOAA team.
There's some elkhorn coral!
And lots of it.
That's a marker used to note its locations.
You would think they were just rocks.
I can't believe they are animals.
There's not too much activity tonight.
Wait! There's a crab! Hi, little guy.
There he goes, back to bed.
It's been an amazing and long day of diving.
It's time to head back up and call it a day.
(heavy breathing) I'm okay.
-That was really cool. -Thank you.
That was really cool.
SAM: After a few hours of sleep,
we're meeting up with Dr. Miller and her team
to see what they found.
Hi, Dr. Miller! Thanks for having me back.
Hey, Sam, welcome to our makeshift field lab
and coral baby nursery.
It looks like you have millions of babies here.
There are probably millions and millions.
I would not want to have to count them,
for sure, at this stage.
But we can estimate from the volume that they're in approximately how many we have.
Cool, so what are you guys gonna do with them after they're developed?
So some of the things that we'll be doing are basic experiments to just understand
and describe how coral babies behave and what they need to be successful.
Our other goal is really to use what we learned to be able
to help more of these coral babies survive and use them for restoration of the reef,
to actually get more corals growing back on the reef.
I had such a blast diving with Dr. Miller and getting to see her lab.
SAM: She and her team are doing such great work for the future of coral reefs.
Healthy coral reefs equal healthy oceans and a healthy planet.
Also seeing Aquarius with Aileen and the FIU team
and learning about all the amazing research being done by diving in the ocean.
Corals are super smart.
Not only are they animals, but they have plant-like cells
that photosynthesize from the sun to help them grow.
And they spawn after the full moon in August.
Corals are a lot more complex than we thought.
So let's be sure to take care of our oceans.
See you next time What Sam Sees.