WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome
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to the annual Seaside Chat Speaker Series.
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We're glad to have you here
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for the last presentation of the 2023 season.
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This speaker series focuses on topics associated
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with Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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and the Gulf of Mexico, and we're also part
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of the National Marine Sanctuary Webinar Series
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and the NOAA Science Seminar Series.
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During the presentation, all attendees will be
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in listen only mode.
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You are welcome to type questions for the presenter
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into the questions box at the bottom of the control panel
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on the right hand side of your screen.
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You may also let us know about any technical difficulties
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you are experiencing,
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and we will monitor both incoming questions
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and technical questions.
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Respond to them as soon as we can.
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In addition, we encourage you to close
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all other programs you may have open
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during this webinar or close
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any non webinar tabs on your computer.
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This will allow for the webinar to flow
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in more easily for you at your end.
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We are recording this session
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and we'll post the recording
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to the National Marine Sanctuary
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and Flower Garden banks National Marine Sanctuary Websites
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within a few weeks after the presentation.
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We'll notify registered participants
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via email when these recordings are available.
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And for those of you who are interested, we have a document
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of links to additional resources on today's topic.
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You'll find this in the handout pane of the control panel.
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Simply click on the item to download it.
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Hello everyone.
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My name is Kelly Drinnen
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and I'm the Education Outreach Coordinator
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for Flower Garden Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
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I'll be facilitating today's webinar from Dickinson, Texas.
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Also with me today is Kelly O'Connell, one
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of our research specialists who will be helping me
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with backend administration of the webinar.
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In 1972, the United States ushered
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in a new era of conservation
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by creating the National Marine Sanctuary system.
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Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
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of 15 National Marine Sanctuaries
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and two Marine National Monuments conserving an area
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of more than 620,000 square miles, about the size of Alaska.
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These marine protected areas are kind
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of like national parks, but underwater.
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The National Marine Sanctuaries Act gives NOAA the authority
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to designate special areas of the marine environment
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as National Marine Sanctuaries.
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It also mandates
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that the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
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conduct research, monitoring, resource protection,
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education, outreach and management of America's
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underwater treasures to preserve them
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for future generations.
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In addition to being places for recreation
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and research, National Marine Sanctuaries are
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also living classrooms where people can see, touch,
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and learn about the nation's great lakes
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and ocean treasures.
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This webinar series is just one part of
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that national education and outreach effort.
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The Seaside Chat series is hosted
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by Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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the only National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
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This sanctuary consists of 17 banks,
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or small underwater mountains, that are home to some
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of the healthiest coral reefs in the world,
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amazing algal and sponge habitats,
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and deep reef habitats featuring an abundance
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of black coral and gorgonians.
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We invite you to learn, learn more about us
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by visiting the sanctuary website at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
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Today's presentation focuses on exploration
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in the deepest parts of the sanctuary.
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Like all marine animals, corals leave
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behind genetic traces in their environment.
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Scientists refer to these genetic traces
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as environmental DNA or eDNA.
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Similar to forensics, Marine biologists can sequence
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this eDNA to determine what animals have passed
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through an area or even nearby and not easily seen.
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Today we'll learn how Luke McCartin sequences eDNA
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to better understand the corals that live
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in the deepest waters
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of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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even the ones we can't see.
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Luke is originally from Massachusetts and in one way
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or another, he has been studying the ocean
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for his entire life.
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He's an avid recreational angler and some
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of his fondest childhood memories are of chasing schools
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of bluefish with his dad in his grandfather's Boston Whaler.
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He received his undergraduate degree
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from the University of Vermont and then returned
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to Massachusetts to work in oceanography at Woods Hole.
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Now as a PhD student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
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Luke been studying the corals
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in the deepest parts of the sanctuary.
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He has spent months at sea and has been fortunate
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to participate in research expeditions
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to explore the abundant corals that thrive in the deep Gulf.
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Welcome, Luke.
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Hi, Kelly. Thanks so much.
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Hi, good to have you.
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All right, here comes the control over to you.
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Great.
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Looks good.
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All right.
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All right, so thank you again Kelly for having me.
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I'm really happy to be here.
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I also wanna thank you all for joining in.
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I know I have some friends and family here,
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so thank you all for showing up.
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You're not on your starting slide.
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Oh.
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There we go.
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Am I back on the starting slide?
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Yes.
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Okay. I see what's going on.
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Okay, so again, thanks Kelly so much.
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My name is Luke McCartin, I'm a PhD student.
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I'm currently at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania,
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and I'm a member of Dr. Santiago Herrera's Lab.
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And in the Herrera Lab we study deep sea corals
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and specifically I work on environmental DNA sequencing
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like Kelly mentioned.
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And so today I'm gonna talk with you about that
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and the title of my talk is
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Coral Forensics in the Deep Flower Garden Banks.
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All right,
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so I just wanna give you a little bit more information
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about myself and tell you kind of how I got here.
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So as Kelly mentioned, I'm originally
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from coastal Massachusetts, so I grew up on Cape Cod
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and lived there year round, kind of surrounded
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by the water in all directions.
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And like Kelly said, some
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of my favorite childhood memories were going out
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and actually exploring the coastal ecosystems around me.
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And so this photo here is a photo
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of my father, my younger sister
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and I on my grandfather's Boston Whaler.
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And while I didn't necessarily know going
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through kind of my career path that I was going
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to be a marine biologist, I have always been surrounded
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by the ocean and in one way
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or another, I think it's the perfect fitting for me.
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So like Kelly mentioned, I worked in Woods Hole
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in Massachusetts and studied deep sea biology.
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And this was right after I finished my undergraduate degree
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at the University of Vermont.
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And I guess now I've been, I've working
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as a deep sea biologist for quite a while.
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So it's been about five years.
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And in that time I've gotten
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to explore some really awesome places.
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I've been around the world and I've also gotten
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to explore the Gulf Coast,
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which has been a really great experience.
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Spent some time of course in the Gulf of Mexico at sea,
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but also in some other destinations
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like Gulfport, even spent a few days
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in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
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And I've really gotten to enjoy that part of my research.
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So I moved to Pennsylvania to actually pursue my PhD,
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and as soon as I moved to Pennsylvania, I started working
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in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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So I think just a month after I started my PhD, I was asked
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by my advisor to go on a research cruise.
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And here we spent four
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or five days actually collecting samples
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to sequence environmental DNA.
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And then about a year and a half ago now, I went out
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for a second cruise in the Gulf of Mexico
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and we spent almost 20 days going around
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and looking at the deep water habitats that exist
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in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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taking really fantastic pictures of corals
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and collecting more eDNA samples.
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And most, most, if not all of the pictures
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that I'm gonna show you today were all taken
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during this cruise and are
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from the National Marine Sanctuary.
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So today I hope to answer a few questions for you
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and teach you not only about my research,
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but also about deep coral habitats in general.
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So the first question I hope
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to answer is, what do deep coral habitats look like?
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So you might have some familiarity
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with coral reefs, you might have learned about coral reefs
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in the news or been to a coral reef yourself
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and gone snorkeling.
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But I imagine that few of you
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actually know about deep sea corals
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and what they might look like in the habitats
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that they create.
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The next thing I'd like to talk about
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is how we actually study these deep corals.
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So deep corals, for the purposes
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of this talk, are those corals
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that exist below the depths of recreational scuba diving.
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So there are some techniques that can be used
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to actually get to the deep ocean
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to study corals as a diver.
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So there are techniques called technical diving
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that involve using different mixed gases.
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But today I'm gonna focus on what I do
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and what our lab does, which is
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to actually use both submersibles as well
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as robotic vehicles to study these deep corals.
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And then lastly, I'm gonna talk about my research.
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And my research involves actually trying
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to identify corals, not just by looking at them in video,
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but also by sequencing the genetic traces
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that they might leave behind in their environment.
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And so let's get started.
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So let's talk about what deep sea coral habitats
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actually look like.
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So this photo here is a photo
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that I actually took myself off the coast of Hawaii.
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So this is in a place called
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Kaneohe Bay, which is really fantastic.
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I admittedly don't have
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that much experience actually snorkeling.
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This was kind of only my second
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or third opportunity actually snorkeling on a coral reef.
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Growing up in Massachusetts, it's pretty cold for most
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of the year and I don't have many friends
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that were actually into snorkeling,
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so it's just something I didn't necessarily do,
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although I was always on the water, mostly fishing.
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And so what you can see here is
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that off the coast of Hawaii there are these really awesome
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coral reef habitats like there are
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in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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And what really struck me as I went through
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and snorkeled here and took a look
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around is how the coral grows.
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So this was just during a swim I took with a mask
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and a snorkel off of one of the public beaches,
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and all of a sudden I ran into these fields of corals.
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And now this coral is called rice coral
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and it's a stony coral.
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And as you can see, it creates this reef habitat.
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You might be able to make it out,
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but there's a butterfly fish in the middle here.
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And so this reef habitat kind of expands upon the bottom
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and creates habitat for different fish as well
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as invertebrate species.
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So things like crabs and shrimps and other animals.
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And the reason why corals
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in the shallow water would grow this way is
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because they're trying to soak up
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as much sunlight as possible.
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So shallow coral reefs, for the most part rely on sunlight.
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The coral here, as you can see, is this brown gold color
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and it's that color
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because these corals have photosynthetic algae
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that actually live within their tissues.
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And so these algae can actually take in the sunlight
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from the surface and convert that to energy
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that the coral uses.
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And so that's why you see these habitats that grow like this
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and spread out in this expansive way.
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Now I'm gonna show you some images from the Gulf of Mexico.
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And so both of these images were taken
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at a place called Green Canyon, which is south of the Texas
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and Louisiana coasts, and at a depth of
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around 1700 feet deep.
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So this is a pretty deep place.
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And the first thing you'll notice is
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that here it's perpetually dark.
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So in the deep ocean at these depths, there's no light
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that would penetrate down to these corals.
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The only light that you're seeing in this image
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is actually light we are actually introducing
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into the environment using the submersible.
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And so what I want you to notice is
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that these corals look very different
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than the stony reef corals that I showed you
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in the previous slide.
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So these corals actually grow in this fan shape here,
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and you can see some more in the background.
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These are called soft corals.
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And then another type of coral that grows in this fan shape
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in the deep sea are called black corals
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and they're called black corals
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because of the color of their skeleton mainly.
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And both of these types of corals are growing
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in a way that resembles a tree.
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And there's a really nice word for that that we use
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and that's called arborescent.
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So they look like trees. And they're doing this
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because they don't have sunlight in the photosynthetic algae
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to rely on to actually create energy here.
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What they're doing is they're trying
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to prop themselves up into the current so
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that that current brings them food.
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And they might be feeding on things
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like plankton that are swept by them.
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They might also be catching small prey
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like small shrimp and other crustaceans.
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And so these habitats look quite different,
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but they're just as fantastic, I think.
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One thing I want you to remember though is
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that in the deep ocean, stony corals also build reefs.
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So this is something that's pretty, pretty fantastic
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is that these habitats can in a way look
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like shallow water habitats in some places.
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This is also a picture taken at Green Canyon,
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and what you're seeing here is you're seeing
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a stony coral reef that's been formed by the growth
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00:12:49.725 --> 00:12:51.297
of a coral called Lophelia.
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And this coral in the deep ocean forms
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these really large reefs that grow up on themselves
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and create habitat.
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00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:59.370
And here we have some interesting deep sea organisms
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that have called this habitat home.
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So you have things like squat lobsters, you can kind
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00:13:04.421 --> 00:13:08.513
of think of these as somewhere between a crab and a lobster.
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Other animals like this really cool shrimp here
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that has this interesting white and red color pattern.
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00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:15.750
And then lots of anemones.
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And when I was actually looking through the video
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at this site, I only saw these anemones living
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on this stony hard coral structure.
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You also see this big fish here.
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And what I want you to take away from this is
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that just like in the shallow water,
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in some places, these stony corals actually create habitat
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for other animals.
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And now the last type of coral ecosystem that I'd like
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to introduce you to is called a mesophotic coral ecosystem.
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And this is the type of ecosystem that comprises most
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of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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I think this picture is just fantastic.
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00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:51.033
I'm so glad that we were able to capture this
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00:13:51.033 --> 00:13:53.250
because we actually turned the lights
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00:13:53.250 --> 00:13:55.110
off when we took this picture.
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00:13:55.110 --> 00:13:57.960
One thing we tend to do when we are exploring the deep ocean
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00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:01.047
is we want to be able to see around so we don't get lost
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00:14:01.047 --> 00:14:03.210
or bump into things, but every once
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00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.430
in a while when we're sitting still, it's fine
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00:14:05.430 --> 00:14:07.447
to turn off the lights and you can really take
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00:14:07.447 --> 00:14:10.260
in what the animals that live there are actually seeing.
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00:14:10.260 --> 00:14:11.722
And so what you're seeing
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00:14:11.722 --> 00:14:14.010
in this image is a huge black coral fan.
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00:14:14.010 --> 00:14:16.020
This is called Plumapathes.
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00:14:16.020 --> 00:14:18.060
I'm gonna use some scientific names today, not
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00:14:18.060 --> 00:14:20.400
because you necessarily need to remember them, but only
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00:14:20.400 --> 00:14:22.230
because they're quite nice.
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00:14:22.230 --> 00:14:24.960
And so this Plumapathes coral is called Plumapathes
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00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.870
because it grows like a plume or like a feather.
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00:14:27.870 --> 00:14:30.480
And this coral is fantastic, it's really large.
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00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:33.060
There's also some creole fish over here as well
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00:14:33.060 --> 00:14:35.570
as grouper that are swimming by.
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00:14:35.570 --> 00:14:36.862
And this coral lives
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00:14:36.862 --> 00:14:39.420
in an environment where there is some light
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00:14:39.420 --> 00:14:40.590
but not that much.
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00:14:40.590 --> 00:14:42.600
And so this picture was actually taken
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00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:44.820
at Bright Bank, which is part
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00:14:44.820 --> 00:14:47.310
of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
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00:14:47.310 --> 00:14:49.350
at a depth of around 200 feet.
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00:14:49.350 --> 00:14:52.290
And so here there's some light that penetrates
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00:14:52.290 --> 00:14:54.570
towards these coral ecosystems,
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00:14:54.570 --> 00:14:57.390
but it's still mostly dimly lit or dark.
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00:14:57.390 --> 00:15:00.780
And so what's really interesting about the mesophotic ocean,
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00:15:00.780 --> 00:15:02.370
and so that is the area
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00:15:02.370 --> 00:15:04.290
of a coral reef where there is some light,
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00:15:04.290 --> 00:15:08.160
but it's dimly lit, it means middle light in a sense, is
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00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:10.830
that you can see a really fantastic number
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00:15:10.830 --> 00:15:13.620
of different coral types in these habitats.
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00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:16.590
There are some corals that are adapted to shallower depths
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00:15:16.590 --> 00:15:19.290
and other corals that are adapted to deeper depths.
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00:15:19.290 --> 00:15:21.660
And in my experience, we see them all converge
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00:15:21.660 --> 00:15:22.500
in the mesophotic.
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00:15:22.500 --> 00:15:25.080
And you really see these fantastic coral fans
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00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:26.655
that all live together.
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00:15:30.150 --> 00:15:33.150
And so the takeaway from my first point here is
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00:15:33.150 --> 00:15:35.970
that deep coral habitats can in a way look like those
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00:15:35.970 --> 00:15:37.860
in shallow water so they can form reefs,
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00:15:37.860 --> 00:15:39.270
but they can also look quite different
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00:15:39.270 --> 00:15:40.950
and be composed of coral fans.
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00:15:40.950 --> 00:15:43.950
And the mesophotic ocean has a lot of coral species.
393
00:15:43.950 --> 00:15:46.050
And now going ahead, what I want to talk about is
394
00:15:46.050 --> 00:15:49.397
how we can actually study these deep corals.
395
00:15:49.397 --> 00:15:50.573
So if you were unaware,
396
00:15:50.573 --> 00:15:53.360
the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
397
00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:55.200
was very recently expanded.
398
00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:57.510
So the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
399
00:15:57.510 --> 00:16:00.810
started as just three banks, west Flower Garden,
400
00:16:00.810 --> 00:16:02.880
Stetson Bank, and East Flower Garden.
401
00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:05.910
And then in 2021 it was expanded to include a number
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00:16:05.910 --> 00:16:08.010
of other banks that are all shown on this map here
403
00:16:08.010 --> 00:16:09.480
in our highlighted in white.
404
00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:11.332
Bright Bank, where the coral is
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00:16:11.332 --> 00:16:14.465
from that I just showed you, is right here in the middle.
406
00:16:14.465 --> 00:16:16.020
And so with the expansion of
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00:16:16.020 --> 00:16:18.120
the Flower Garden banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:20.310
now we have all of these important coral habitats
409
00:16:20.310 --> 00:16:22.364
that are protected from bottom damaging activities,
410
00:16:22.364 --> 00:16:23.610
as we call them.
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00:16:23.610 --> 00:16:26.282
And so that means here only recreational hook
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00:16:26.282 --> 00:16:28.021
and line fishing is allowed.
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00:16:31.210 --> 00:16:33.660
And what I wanna point out from this figure is
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00:16:33.660 --> 00:16:35.700
that while we know quite a bit about some
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00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:38.700
of these coral reef banks, we don't know all
416
00:16:38.700 --> 00:16:40.410
that much about some of them.
417
00:16:40.410 --> 00:16:45.180
So, this figure here shows the number of different corals
418
00:16:45.180 --> 00:16:48.090
that are found in these different places based on data
419
00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:50.400
from NOAA's Deep Sea Coral data portal.
420
00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:52.500
And the search that I did includes those corals
421
00:16:52.500 --> 00:16:55.470
that live at mesophotic or deeper depths.
422
00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:59.250
And so as you can see, some of these banks
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00:16:59.250 --> 00:17:02.310
or habitats, we know a lot of coral species from them
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00:17:02.310 --> 00:17:03.870
and others, we know very little.
425
00:17:03.870 --> 00:17:05.760
And the total number of observations
426
00:17:05.760 --> 00:17:09.150
in this database is given at the top of each of these bars.
427
00:17:09.150 --> 00:17:10.800
I've colored the bars based on whether
428
00:17:10.800 --> 00:17:12.330
or not they were part of the original
429
00:17:12.330 --> 00:17:15.113
Flower Garden banks National Marine Sanctuary or whether
430
00:17:15.113 --> 00:17:17.550
or not they were just recently incorporated
431
00:17:17.550 --> 00:17:18.870
into the sanctuary.
432
00:17:18.870 --> 00:17:20.730
And those that are in blue have been a part
433
00:17:20.730 --> 00:17:23.613
of the sanctuary since its beginning.
434
00:17:23.613 --> 00:17:26.130
And as you can see, well we know quite a bit about some
435
00:17:26.130 --> 00:17:28.470
of the banks that were just recently protected,
436
00:17:28.470 --> 00:17:30.630
such as Geyer Bank here, where we know there's
437
00:17:30.630 --> 00:17:32.430
at least over 20 different coral types
438
00:17:32.430 --> 00:17:34.500
and we have some observations from there.
439
00:17:34.500 --> 00:17:36.660
Some of these other banks, at least
440
00:17:36.660 --> 00:17:39.852
in this deep sea coral database, are relatively unknown.
441
00:17:39.852 --> 00:17:42.450
So the place I've been showing you, Bright Bank,
442
00:17:42.450 --> 00:17:44.220
in this database, at least, all we know is
443
00:17:44.220 --> 00:17:46.170
that there are a few different types of corals
444
00:17:46.170 --> 00:17:48.720
and there's only a few observations too.
445
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:51.540
And so what we try and do as deep sea explorers, I guess,
446
00:17:51.540 --> 00:17:53.490
and what I try and do in my research is to try
447
00:17:53.490 --> 00:17:56.490
and characterize the diversity of different corals
448
00:17:56.490 --> 00:17:59.813
that live in this place and the habitats that they support.
449
00:17:59.813 --> 00:18:03.148
And so next I'm gonna talk about how we actually do that.
450
00:18:03.148 --> 00:18:05.700
And so I mentioned earlier that you can dive
451
00:18:05.700 --> 00:18:08.490
to these depths if you have the right training,
452
00:18:08.490 --> 00:18:10.800
but the ways that we do it in the lab largely rely
453
00:18:10.800 --> 00:18:14.040
on different technologies including submersibles as well
454
00:18:14.040 --> 00:18:17.655
as remotely operated vehicles, which I'll touch on.
455
00:18:17.655 --> 00:18:19.260
So here I'm just gonna talk
456
00:18:19.260 --> 00:18:21.030
to you about one deep sea submersible
457
00:18:21.030 --> 00:18:24.150
that's really close to my heart because I actually got
458
00:18:24.150 --> 00:18:25.920
to dive in it just a month ago.
459
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.220
And this is the deep sea submersible Alvin. If you happened
460
00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:32.310
to tune in for Tom Bright's talk last week, Tom talked about
461
00:18:32.310 --> 00:18:35.940
his experiences diving in a deep ocean submersible
462
00:18:35.940 --> 00:18:38.310
to actually explore the Flower Garden Banks.
463
00:18:38.310 --> 00:18:40.800
And so in these deep sea submersibles, like Alvin
464
00:18:40.800 --> 00:18:42.180
or like the one that Tom dove in,
465
00:18:42.180 --> 00:18:44.610
essentially what happens is you have a couple
466
00:18:44.610 --> 00:18:47.130
of scientists, and maybe another person who's
467
00:18:47.130 --> 00:18:50.730
actually piloting the sub, who go down and look around
468
00:18:50.730 --> 00:18:53.250
and collect samples for the entire scientific group
469
00:18:53.250 --> 00:18:55.440
that's conducting the expedition.
470
00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:57.480
And so I was really fortunate to be able to go
471
00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.390
on a cruise where we used Alvin just a month ago
472
00:19:00.390 --> 00:19:02.940
and I got a chance to actually dive down
473
00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:05.190
and see corals for the first time.
474
00:19:05.190 --> 00:19:06.930
It was a little nerve wracking at the start,
475
00:19:06.930 --> 00:19:09.300
I'm not gonna lie, we were going pretty deep down
476
00:19:09.300 --> 00:19:10.980
to about a mile and a half.
477
00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:13.260
But as I got comfortable, it was just fantastic.
478
00:19:13.260 --> 00:19:15.570
And so I was really fortunate to be a part
479
00:19:15.570 --> 00:19:18.600
of the dive where I actually got to see a deep sea coral.
480
00:19:18.600 --> 00:19:21.390
And so this is what is called a bamboo coral.
481
00:19:21.390 --> 00:19:23.590
And I saw this coral at 2,500 meters,
482
00:19:23.590 --> 00:19:26.550
which is about a mile and a half deep.
483
00:19:26.550 --> 00:19:29.520
This is probably the worst picture, quality-wise,
484
00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:33.197
that I'll actually show you for the duration of the talk,
485
00:19:33.197 --> 00:19:35.967
but I took it myself out of the window of the sub,
486
00:19:35.967 --> 00:19:37.427
so I really wanna share it
487
00:19:37.427 --> 00:19:39.742
with everyone who cares to listen.
488
00:19:39.742 --> 00:19:41.400
And so after I saw this coral
489
00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:43.440
and we conducted all the other things that we needed
490
00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:44.556
to do when we were
491
00:19:44.556 --> 00:19:46.830
on the sea floor, I did make it up safely.
492
00:19:46.830 --> 00:19:48.810
So here I am getting out of the sub.
493
00:19:48.810 --> 00:19:51.120
And so I just want to kind of talk about my own experience
494
00:19:51.120 --> 00:19:52.410
and talk about how this is something
495
00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:54.420
that happens in deep sea exploration.
496
00:19:54.420 --> 00:19:55.980
But I think it's pretty rare.
497
00:19:55.980 --> 00:19:59.460
Not too many cruises or research expeditions actually go out
498
00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:00.720
and use submersibles.
499
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:02.400
And I'm just fortunate to have gotten the chance
500
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:04.470
to see these things firsthand.
501
00:20:04.470 --> 00:20:07.740
What we normally do is we don't see things firsthand.
502
00:20:07.740 --> 00:20:11.070
We actually put a robotic vehicle over the side of the ship
503
00:20:11.070 --> 00:20:12.210
and take a look around
504
00:20:12.210 --> 00:20:15.300
and then watch the video feed back at the surface.
505
00:20:15.300 --> 00:20:17.490
And we do this using a vehicle called
506
00:20:17.490 --> 00:20:20.070
a remotely operated vehicle.
507
00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:22.140
And the one you're seeing here is called
508
00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:23.610
the Global Explorer.
509
00:20:23.610 --> 00:20:26.490
The pictures I showed you previously from deeper depths
510
00:20:26.490 --> 00:20:29.220
as well as the Flower Garden Banks Marine Sanctuary were
511
00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:32.357
all taken using the Global Explorer a couple of years ago.
512
00:20:32.357 --> 00:20:34.800
And how these work is they're actually connected
513
00:20:34.800 --> 00:20:37.050
to the ship and you can see this here.
514
00:20:37.050 --> 00:20:39.630
So what we have here is called a tether,
515
00:20:39.630 --> 00:20:42.120
and that tether connects to the ship
516
00:20:42.120 --> 00:20:45.210
and actually transmits the information down to the ship.
517
00:20:45.210 --> 00:20:47.520
So electricity, power and all the sorts of things
518
00:20:47.520 --> 00:20:51.150
that the ROV or the remotely operated vehicle needs to move
519
00:20:51.150 --> 00:20:54.350
around, take pictures and collect samples.
520
00:20:54.350 --> 00:20:56.520
So all the while, while it's connected
521
00:20:56.520 --> 00:20:59.010
to the ship, we are actually controlling it
522
00:20:59.010 --> 00:21:00.360
from the surface.
523
00:21:00.360 --> 00:21:04.077
And so this is what it looks like during a an ROV dive.
524
00:21:04.077 --> 00:21:07.229
And so in the ROV control room, there's always a lot
525
00:21:07.229 --> 00:21:09.300
of screens to see what's going on.
526
00:21:09.300 --> 00:21:11.490
And while we are mostly concerned with some
527
00:21:11.490 --> 00:21:12.780
of these screens here to actually look
528
00:21:12.780 --> 00:21:15.390
at the animals, a lot of the other screens are there
529
00:21:15.390 --> 00:21:18.630
because it helps the pilots, who are actually flying
530
00:21:18.630 --> 00:21:21.060
the ROV around, navigate.
531
00:21:21.060 --> 00:21:22.560
And so what's really neat,
532
00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:24.060
and I thought quite serendipitous, is
533
00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:26.910
that I had actually snapped a picture on my cell phone,
534
00:21:26.910 --> 00:21:28.920
inside the ROV control room, when we saw
535
00:21:28.920 --> 00:21:30.210
that really fantastic coral
536
00:21:30.210 --> 00:21:32.790
that I've been showing you, the Plumapathes coral.
537
00:21:32.790 --> 00:21:34.950
And so this kind of gets you an idea of what it looks like.
538
00:21:34.950 --> 00:21:37.200
It's really dark in there, but we have all these views
539
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:39.660
of the corals we can move around and take pictures
540
00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:40.770
of everything.
541
00:21:40.770 --> 00:21:43.530
On the far left is my advisor Santiago Herrera,
542
00:21:43.530 --> 00:21:46.740
and he's there kind of leading the dive as I take notes
543
00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:50.550
and then flying the ROV is Jim and Jim is flying it
544
00:21:50.550 --> 00:21:52.740
around, making sure we don't bump into anything
545
00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:54.420
and actually helping us do our science,
546
00:21:54.420 --> 00:21:57.300
and see corals that we might not be seeing ourselves.
547
00:21:57.300 --> 00:22:00.000
And so what's really interesting about using ROVs,
548
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:02.220
and I think really fantastic, which is a little different
549
00:22:02.220 --> 00:22:03.810
than using a submarine, is
550
00:22:03.810 --> 00:22:05.850
that everyone is kind of involved.
551
00:22:05.850 --> 00:22:07.920
So while we were conducting these dives,
552
00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:10.650
we were not only looking at it ourselves in the control room
553
00:22:10.650 --> 00:22:14.400
and moving around, we were also live streaming the feed
554
00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:15.810
down to the rest of the ship.
555
00:22:15.810 --> 00:22:17.940
So you could be potentially eating your lunch
556
00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:19.620
and watching deep sea exploration going
557
00:22:19.620 --> 00:22:22.260
on, which is really fun and makes everyone feel
558
00:22:22.260 --> 00:22:23.971
a part of the expedition.
559
00:22:26.912 --> 00:22:29.880
Okay, now I'm gonna get into the last part of my talk
560
00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:32.100
and the most of my talk, which is gonna be talking
561
00:22:32.100 --> 00:22:33.930
about how we can actually identify corals
562
00:22:33.930 --> 00:22:35.583
from their genetic traces.
563
00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:39.750
So this image here is another image taken
564
00:22:39.750 --> 00:22:42.660
in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
565
00:22:42.660 --> 00:22:44.910
And what I want you to take away from this picture is
566
00:22:44.910 --> 00:22:46.860
that there are a lot of corals here.
567
00:22:46.860 --> 00:22:48.240
This is a zoomed in photo.
568
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:50.340
So most of these corals are quite small
569
00:22:50.340 --> 00:22:53.663
and there's multiple different types of corals here.
570
00:22:53.663 --> 00:22:56.250
And what I'm gonna do for your entertainment is kind
571
00:22:56.250 --> 00:22:59.520
of quiz myself on how well I can identify these species just
572
00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:01.048
from the picture alone.
573
00:23:01.048 --> 00:23:03.685
Let's see how I do. So the first coral I would go
574
00:23:03.685 --> 00:23:05.312
for when I was actually looking
575
00:23:05.312 --> 00:23:08.010
at this picture would be this one in the middle.
576
00:23:08.010 --> 00:23:10.650
And this is called Antipathes atlantica,
577
00:23:10.650 --> 00:23:12.990
and this is a coral that is a black coral.
578
00:23:12.990 --> 00:23:14.520
So it's closely related
579
00:23:14.520 --> 00:23:16.920
to the Plumapathes I showed you earlier,
580
00:23:16.920 --> 00:23:18.372
and it's pretty distinct.
581
00:23:18.372 --> 00:23:21.270
So when I see this one, although it might be pretty small,
582
00:23:21.270 --> 00:23:22.973
there's a good chance that I'll be able
583
00:23:22.973 --> 00:23:24.510
to identify it pretty readily.
584
00:23:24.510 --> 00:23:26.550
It comes in a couple of different shades.
585
00:23:26.550 --> 00:23:29.130
So you can see there's kind of a lighter gray color here,
586
00:23:29.130 --> 00:23:32.743
and then a darker one, but overall it's not too bad.
587
00:23:32.743 --> 00:23:35.160
The next one I would go for if I was trying
588
00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:37.890
to identify these corals is this one on the right,
589
00:23:37.890 --> 00:23:39.840
and this is called Ellisella.
590
00:23:39.840 --> 00:23:41.790
This is more closely related actually
591
00:23:41.790 --> 00:23:44.130
to the soft coral fan I showed you earlier,
592
00:23:44.130 --> 00:23:46.980
or the gorgonian corals that Kelly mentioned,
593
00:23:46.980 --> 00:23:48.900
but it grows in a single stick-like
594
00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:51.330
fashion with some curve to it.
595
00:23:51.330 --> 00:23:53.550
And the little coral polyps kind of extend off
596
00:23:53.550 --> 00:23:56.400
of the sides as you can see in the picture.
597
00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:57.630
That one I'm pretty good at.
598
00:23:57.630 --> 00:23:59.730
There's a few different species that look similar,
599
00:23:59.730 --> 00:24:03.037
but at least I know what type it is in a pretty good way.
600
00:24:03.037 --> 00:24:05.794
And so I can be confident telling you that that's Ellisella.
601
00:24:05.794 --> 00:24:07.538
The next one I'm going to look
602
00:24:07.538 --> 00:24:09.540
at is this one over here on the left.
603
00:24:09.540 --> 00:24:11.850
Now this is another type of black coral,
604
00:24:11.850 --> 00:24:14.970
and I think it might be Tanacetipathes, except
605
00:24:14.970 --> 00:24:17.880
that Tanacetipathes, in my experience tends
606
00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:20.828
to branch differently and not form as many plumes
607
00:24:20.828 --> 00:24:22.615
like the Plumapathes.
608
00:24:22.615 --> 00:24:24.810
Now, I don't think this is Plumapathes,
609
00:24:24.810 --> 00:24:28.142
although it's possible it might be a very small Plumapathes.
610
00:24:28.142 --> 00:24:31.230
And I don't think it's another species called Elatopathes
611
00:24:31.230 --> 00:24:33.098
because Elatopathes, I'm used
612
00:24:33.098 --> 00:24:35.610
to seeing quite a bit more deep than this.
613
00:24:35.610 --> 00:24:37.770
So what I would do with this picture, is I would take it
614
00:24:37.770 --> 00:24:39.540
and I would send it to our collaborators.
615
00:24:39.540 --> 00:24:42.480
So these might be folks who their expertise is really
616
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:43.958
in identifying corals
617
00:24:43.958 --> 00:24:46.470
and they can identify corals sometimes just
618
00:24:46.470 --> 00:24:48.628
from pictures alone based off of all
619
00:24:48.628 --> 00:24:51.074
of the corals they've actually held in their hands in places
620
00:24:51.074 --> 00:24:53.652
like museums around the world.
621
00:24:53.652 --> 00:24:56.226
The next coral I'm gonna look at is this one here.
622
00:24:56.226 --> 00:24:58.680
This one you might not have seen, it's quite small,
623
00:24:58.680 --> 00:25:01.530
but there are many of them if you look very closely.
624
00:25:01.530 --> 00:25:04.530
And this coral is a small red branch branching coral
625
00:25:04.530 --> 00:25:06.727
that I think is Scleracis.
626
00:25:06.727 --> 00:25:09.042
Now, Scleracis though, can be pretty tough
627
00:25:09.042 --> 00:25:11.372
to tell from some other small red corals.
628
00:25:11.372 --> 00:25:13.590
Sometimes color isn't the best way
629
00:25:13.590 --> 00:25:15.580
to tell coral species apart.
630
00:25:15.580 --> 00:25:18.487
And I wouldn't really know unless I actually took a sample
631
00:25:18.487 --> 00:25:20.423
of this coral and we brought it up on the deck
632
00:25:20.423 --> 00:25:22.080
and took a look.
633
00:25:22.080 --> 00:25:24.194
And then the last one here is some
634
00:25:24.194 --> 00:25:25.890
unidentified soft coral fan.
635
00:25:25.890 --> 00:25:28.740
So just in my experience alone, I'm not super familiar
636
00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:31.257
with this coral, so I would definitely be taking
637
00:25:31.257 --> 00:25:34.290
this screenshot here and sending it to someone else
638
00:25:34.290 --> 00:25:37.290
who has the expertise to tell me what I might be looking at.
639
00:25:37.290 --> 00:25:39.870
Now the problem with that is it's not always possible
640
00:25:39.870 --> 00:25:42.900
to identify corals just from pictures alone.
641
00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:45.900
So these corals have been described by scientists
642
00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:48.357
in museums, for decades and millennia,
643
00:25:48.357 --> 00:25:50.768
who have actually had them in their hand
644
00:25:50.768 --> 00:25:52.380
and taken a look at them.
645
00:25:52.380 --> 00:25:54.660
And so sometimes what you need to do is you need
646
00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:56.643
to take an actual sample of the coral
647
00:25:56.643 --> 00:25:59.460
and either give it to a museum or sequence its genetics.
648
00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:02.032
And so now what I'm gonna talk to you about is how,
649
00:26:02.032 --> 00:26:04.478
in addition to actually looking at pictures
650
00:26:04.478 --> 00:26:07.080
and video, I am trying to identify corals not
651
00:26:07.080 --> 00:26:09.308
by taking a sample, but actually by taking a sample
652
00:26:09.308 --> 00:26:12.312
of the water that they live in or the coral forensics
653
00:26:12.312 --> 00:26:13.923
that I alluded to earlier.
654
00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:19.440
And so this process is called collecting environmental DNA
655
00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:23.490
or sequencing environmental DNA to identify species.
656
00:26:23.490 --> 00:26:25.290
So this illustration here was done
657
00:26:25.290 --> 00:26:28.110
by another lab member, my friend Nicole.
658
00:26:28.110 --> 00:26:30.510
And Nicole is kind of drawn two corals for us.
659
00:26:30.510 --> 00:26:33.330
So the first one is this red, fluffy coral.
660
00:26:33.330 --> 00:26:35.826
Sometimes we call it a mushroom coral.
661
00:26:35.826 --> 00:26:38.167
And this other one, not necessarily drawn
662
00:26:38.167 --> 00:26:40.836
to scale though, is a much larger bamboo fan.
663
00:26:40.836 --> 00:26:43.050
I kind of sized these just so you could make
664
00:26:43.050 --> 00:26:44.700
out the differences between the two.
665
00:26:44.700 --> 00:26:46.110
In reality, this one's pretty small
666
00:26:46.110 --> 00:26:48.030
and this one's actually rather large.
667
00:26:48.030 --> 00:26:49.710
Now these corals are living in the deep sea
668
00:26:49.710 --> 00:26:51.090
and they're very happy.
669
00:26:51.090 --> 00:26:53.190
They might be feeding on passing plankton
670
00:26:53.190 --> 00:26:54.960
like I talked about earlier.
671
00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:57.690
They might be just kind of making a living,
672
00:26:57.690 --> 00:26:59.130
maybe even reproducing,
673
00:26:59.130 --> 00:27:02.280
so releasing gametes, like eggs, into the environment.
674
00:27:02.280 --> 00:27:04.110
And as they do this and live
675
00:27:04.110 --> 00:27:06.360
in the ocean, they're gonna be releasing traces
676
00:27:06.360 --> 00:27:08.493
of genetic material into the environment.
677
00:27:09.395 --> 00:27:12.390
And so what this looks like is that if you have this pink
678
00:27:12.390 --> 00:27:14.640
or red coral here, it might be releasing
679
00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:18.402
its unique genetic DNA into the environment.
680
00:27:18.402 --> 00:27:20.280
And then this white coral fan is
681
00:27:20.280 --> 00:27:24.238
also releasing its unique DNA into the environment too.
682
00:27:24.238 --> 00:27:27.030
And in these habitats, which in the open ocean are
683
00:27:27.030 --> 00:27:29.370
really dynamic and constantly changing,
684
00:27:29.370 --> 00:27:30.810
the ocean currents are coming in
685
00:27:30.810 --> 00:27:32.310
and they're sweeping up this DNA
686
00:27:32.310 --> 00:27:34.170
that the corals might be releasing.
687
00:27:34.170 --> 00:27:37.050
Some of that DNA might be transported some distance,
688
00:27:37.050 --> 00:27:39.729
and some of that DNA might also be recirculated
689
00:27:39.729 --> 00:27:41.760
into the water above these corals.
690
00:27:41.760 --> 00:27:46.110
And so what I can do, as a geneticist, is I can go in
691
00:27:46.110 --> 00:27:48.030
and try and take a sample of this water
692
00:27:48.030 --> 00:27:50.040
and actually sequence the DNA
693
00:27:50.040 --> 00:27:51.360
that might be in the environment
694
00:27:51.360 --> 00:27:54.207
around these corals, to identify them.
695
00:27:54.207 --> 00:27:56.640
And when we do this, what we'd find out is
696
00:27:56.640 --> 00:27:59.130
that the DNA from these different coral species
697
00:27:59.130 --> 00:28:01.350
likely looks very different.
698
00:28:01.350 --> 00:28:03.240
So if you're not familiar with DNA,
699
00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:05.910
or it's been a little while since you took a biology class
700
00:28:05.910 --> 00:28:07.320
where you talked about it,
701
00:28:07.320 --> 00:28:11.160
DNA can be kind of summarized into a four letter code.
702
00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:15.390
And that four letter code consists of A, C, G, and T.
703
00:28:15.390 --> 00:28:18.210
And those are different molecules that make up the DNA.
704
00:28:18.210 --> 00:28:19.742
And so each animal on earth,
705
00:28:19.742 --> 00:28:23.460
or each plant, has its own unique sequence of ACGs
706
00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:26.793
and Ts that can help identify that animal.
707
00:28:26.793 --> 00:28:29.763
And so on the top here is this pink bushy coral.
708
00:28:29.763 --> 00:28:32.728
And as you can see, the sequence that I've assigned
709
00:28:32.728 --> 00:28:36.660
to this coral, just for the sake of the talk, is AAC
710
00:28:36.660 --> 00:28:39.060
and then a space which I'll explain in a second,
711
00:28:39.060 --> 00:28:41.370
and then TTTGA.
712
00:28:41.370 --> 00:28:45.148
Now this other coral, the white coral fan, we might be able
713
00:28:45.148 --> 00:28:47.040
to sequence its DNA too.
714
00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:49.920
And using some computer algorithms and programs,
715
00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.470
we can kind of line the two sequences up
716
00:28:52.470 --> 00:28:53.880
between the two species.
717
00:28:53.880 --> 00:28:55.080
And what you'll notice is that
718
00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:57.960
at this position, the sequence for this coral is different.
719
00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:00.810
So instead of the sequence being a AAC space
720
00:29:00.810 --> 00:29:05.607
and then TTTGA, the white coral fan sequence is AGCATTTGA.
721
00:29:07.040 --> 00:29:10.200
And so what I can do is if I can actually grab a sample
722
00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:12.930
of the water here and sequence the DNA within
723
00:29:12.930 --> 00:29:16.080
that sample, that will help me identify these species.
724
00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:17.730
And that will be particularly helpful
725
00:29:17.730 --> 00:29:18.990
for identifying species
726
00:29:18.990 --> 00:29:22.443
that we can't distinguish easily just from pictures alone.
727
00:29:24.983 --> 00:29:27.150
So now the question becomes, well,
728
00:29:27.150 --> 00:29:31.058
how do we actually capture that environmental DNA?
729
00:29:31.058 --> 00:29:33.930
And while the laboratory work that I won't get too
730
00:29:33.930 --> 00:29:36.900
into can be quite complicated, it's rather routine
731
00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:38.640
if you're a molecular biologist
732
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:41.010
and collecting water is essentially collecting water.
733
00:29:41.010 --> 00:29:44.450
But we get to use some pretty fancy tools to do it.
734
00:29:44.450 --> 00:29:46.837
So the first way we can collect water
735
00:29:46.837 --> 00:29:50.910
in the deep ocean is we can use what's called a CTD rosette.
736
00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:54.000
And this rosette is called a CTD, usually,
737
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:55.860
because it usually also has a sensor
738
00:29:55.860 --> 00:29:58.890
that measures conductivity, temperature, and depth.
739
00:29:58.890 --> 00:30:01.770
And all of these bottles here we call Niskin bottles,
740
00:30:01.770 --> 00:30:03.450
but they're essentially just water bottles
741
00:30:03.450 --> 00:30:06.480
that can capture water wherever the CTD is.
742
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:08.520
And so how this actually works in practice is
743
00:30:08.520 --> 00:30:10.800
that it's connected to the ship in a winch
744
00:30:10.800 --> 00:30:12.900
on the ship via a cable.
745
00:30:12.900 --> 00:30:16.290
We lower the CTD over the side of the ship and we bring it
746
00:30:16.290 --> 00:30:18.510
down to the depth that we want to sample at.
747
00:30:18.510 --> 00:30:20.430
We get a live stream of the condition,
748
00:30:20.430 --> 00:30:22.380
so we'll know the conductivity and the temperature
749
00:30:22.380 --> 00:30:25.710
and the depth live when we have the CTD over the side,
750
00:30:25.710 --> 00:30:28.164
and we can tell maybe bottles 1, 2, and 3
751
00:30:28.164 --> 00:30:29.973
to close at any particular depth.
752
00:30:29.973 --> 00:30:32.310
And what they're doing is they're actually capturing
753
00:30:32.310 --> 00:30:35.640
the water that is found there because they go down open
754
00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:38.160
and they snap shut with both of these caps on the bottom
755
00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:41.030
and the top enclosing the water that's there.
756
00:30:41.030 --> 00:30:44.130
And so what I can do then is I can pull this CTD rosette
757
00:30:44.130 --> 00:30:47.100
back up onto the ship. I can go ahead and take the water
758
00:30:47.100 --> 00:30:49.800
outta the bottom here, and I can actually go ahead back
759
00:30:49.800 --> 00:30:53.100
to the lab after the expedition is over and sequence the DNA
760
00:30:53.100 --> 00:30:55.650
that might have been captured in that water sample.
761
00:30:56.985 --> 00:31:00.007
The next way I've used these bottles is actually using
762
00:31:00.007 --> 00:31:02.610
an ROV or the remotely operated vehicle.
763
00:31:02.610 --> 00:31:04.800
And so this is a picture of the Global Explorer,
764
00:31:04.800 --> 00:31:07.440
the ROV I showed you earlier, and there are a number
765
00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:09.270
of different water sampling bottles up
766
00:31:09.270 --> 00:31:11.937
and down the sides here. So we have six here.
767
00:31:11.937 --> 00:31:14.520
And what we can do when we attach these bottles
768
00:31:14.520 --> 00:31:17.100
to an ROV is we can actually fly around
769
00:31:17.100 --> 00:31:19.032
and take video of the ecosystems
770
00:31:19.032 --> 00:31:21.033
and decide when exactly we want
771
00:31:21.033 --> 00:31:24.040
to capture water samples for eDNA.
772
00:31:24.040 --> 00:31:26.805
So maybe I'm in a place like the image I just showed you
773
00:31:26.805 --> 00:31:28.860
and there's a lot of coral species around
774
00:31:28.860 --> 00:31:30.447
and I wanna know more about them.
775
00:31:30.447 --> 00:31:33.027
I wanna be able to more confidently identify them.
776
00:31:33.027 --> 00:31:34.980
And one of the ways in which I can do that is
777
00:31:34.980 --> 00:31:37.080
to collect their DNA from the water.
778
00:31:37.080 --> 00:31:39.720
So what I can do is I can tell the ROV pilot,
779
00:31:39.720 --> 00:31:43.470
"Hey, could you please close bottles 1, 2, and 3,"
780
00:31:43.470 --> 00:31:45.810
and those bottles can be closed by the ROV.
781
00:31:45.810 --> 00:31:48.068
And then when the ROV comes up at the end
782
00:31:48.068 --> 00:31:50.538
of the dive, I can actually go ahead and take samples
783
00:31:50.538 --> 00:31:52.440
and sequence environmental DNA.
784
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:54.270
And then later on in the dive, maybe we're
785
00:31:54.270 --> 00:31:56.220
in a different place and I see five
786
00:31:56.220 --> 00:31:57.630
or six other coral species
787
00:31:57.630 --> 00:31:59.460
that I haven't been observing yet.
788
00:31:59.460 --> 00:32:02.092
I can say, "This is a great place to get some more DNA.
789
00:32:02.092 --> 00:32:04.500
So let's close some bottles," and we'll close
790
00:32:04.500 --> 00:32:05.635
bottles 4, 5, and 6.
791
00:32:05.635 --> 00:32:07.020
And again, once the ROV comes up,
792
00:32:07.020 --> 00:32:09.630
then I have six nice samples taken at depth.
793
00:32:09.630 --> 00:32:11.880
I also have a picture of the corals that were there.
794
00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:15.360
And so in this way I can get more information about
795
00:32:15.360 --> 00:32:17.190
the corals that are living there based off the
796
00:32:17.190 --> 00:32:19.902
genetic material they've shed into the water.
797
00:32:19.902 --> 00:32:22.497
And now I'm gonna talk to you about how this actually works
798
00:32:22.497 --> 00:32:24.750
and some data that I've collected
799
00:32:24.750 --> 00:32:26.393
as I develop these methods.
800
00:32:26.393 --> 00:32:28.593
And to do that, I'm gonna take you to two places
801
00:32:28.593 --> 00:32:31.560
in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
802
00:32:31.560 --> 00:32:33.240
The first is Stetson Bank.
803
00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:37.350
So Stetson Bank is in the top northwest here of this map.
804
00:32:37.350 --> 00:32:40.740
And this is a bank that is on the continental shelf.
805
00:32:40.740 --> 00:32:43.110
So the continental shelf is this part of the ocean
806
00:32:43.110 --> 00:32:45.060
that's colored a little lighter here,
807
00:32:45.060 --> 00:32:46.350
and that's a little bit shallower.
808
00:32:46.350 --> 00:32:48.390
And then you can see there's a really steep slope
809
00:32:48.390 --> 00:32:50.400
as it gets deeper.
810
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:51.233
In some parts
811
00:32:51.233 --> 00:32:53.700
of the world, this continental shelf only extends
812
00:32:53.700 --> 00:32:56.970
for a short distance and then it drops off really deeply.
813
00:32:56.970 --> 00:32:58.500
In the Gulf of Mexico, there's a pretty
814
00:32:58.500 --> 00:33:00.120
extensive continental shelf
815
00:33:00.120 --> 00:33:01.890
and then some really interesting habitat
816
00:33:01.890 --> 00:33:04.050
along this large continental slope.
817
00:33:04.050 --> 00:33:05.850
But Stetson is right at the top here,
818
00:33:05.850 --> 00:33:08.130
and we're gonna go take a look at what it looks like
819
00:33:08.130 --> 00:33:10.983
at a deep coral habitat near Stetson Bank.
820
00:33:11.997 --> 00:33:13.920
And so this is what it looks like.
821
00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:16.320
And this picture is a little blurry by design
822
00:33:16.320 --> 00:33:18.532
because that's actually what it looks like
823
00:33:18.532 --> 00:33:20.970
at Stetson Bank at a depth of around 60 meters.
824
00:33:20.970 --> 00:33:23.520
And so here you're seeing a few different corals,
825
00:33:23.520 --> 00:33:25.140
but the turbidity is really high.
826
00:33:25.140 --> 00:33:26.850
And so that means there are just more particles
827
00:33:26.850 --> 00:33:28.710
in the water, which might be a function
828
00:33:28.710 --> 00:33:30.960
of being at this depth near Stetson
829
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:33.082
and also being a little bit deeper,
830
00:33:33.082 --> 00:33:35.790
or excuse me, also being a little bit further up
831
00:33:35.790 --> 00:33:37.408
on the continental shelf.
832
00:33:37.408 --> 00:33:38.885
And so in this picture,
833
00:33:38.885 --> 00:33:40.980
there are a few different coral species.
834
00:33:40.980 --> 00:33:43.170
And I'm gonna point out a few that I've counted
835
00:33:43.170 --> 00:33:46.200
by actually looking at video taken at Stetson Bank.
836
00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:48.024
One of them is called Stichopathes,
837
00:33:48.024 --> 00:33:50.040
and this is the most abundant coral.
838
00:33:50.040 --> 00:33:52.080
That one is in the top right over here.
839
00:33:52.080 --> 00:33:54.060
If you can see my laser pointer,
840
00:33:54.060 --> 00:33:58.230
it's this big curled wire coral, we call it.
841
00:33:58.230 --> 00:34:00.270
The next one is Thesea nivea.
842
00:34:00.270 --> 00:34:03.660
So this is this purple soft coral fan that's in the middle.
843
00:34:03.660 --> 00:34:05.910
This one can be really common as well.
844
00:34:05.910 --> 00:34:08.870
And in the back if you can make it out, it's called Muricea.
845
00:34:08.870 --> 00:34:10.470
And Muricea can be a really large coral
846
00:34:10.470 --> 00:34:14.092
that exists in very large numbers at some places.
847
00:34:14.092 --> 00:34:16.170
And then this other one here is one
848
00:34:16.170 --> 00:34:18.330
that we're not quite sure exactly what it is.
849
00:34:18.330 --> 00:34:21.240
So we've taken a sample of it and we've sequenced its DNA,
850
00:34:21.240 --> 00:34:22.347
but we're not entirely sure what it is.
851
00:34:22.347 --> 00:34:24.180
And for now we call it the spongey coral.
852
00:34:24.180 --> 00:34:26.760
'Cause in a way it kind of resembles a sponge.
853
00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:29.877
And now I wanna show you what happened when I took some
854
00:34:29.877 --> 00:34:32.788
water samples here and then tried to sequence the DNA
855
00:34:32.788 --> 00:34:34.616
of these corals in the sample.
856
00:34:36.412 --> 00:34:37.860
So first what I found is
857
00:34:37.860 --> 00:34:40.080
that I got a sequence from Muricea pendula,
858
00:34:40.080 --> 00:34:42.630
and how I know this is that I've also taken some sequences
859
00:34:42.630 --> 00:34:45.360
that are publicly available that have been collected
860
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:48.180
by museums or other researchers, and I matched it
861
00:34:48.180 --> 00:34:50.670
to the sequence that I found in the water sample.
862
00:34:50.670 --> 00:34:52.290
And so I can with high confidence, say
863
00:34:52.290 --> 00:34:55.230
that I'm detecting this coral not only by seeing it,
864
00:34:55.230 --> 00:34:57.756
but also by capturing the water around it.
865
00:34:58.710 --> 00:35:02.910
The next one is Thesea nivea. I also got a sequence from.
866
00:35:02.910 --> 00:35:06.342
And so this sequence at the location I've decided
867
00:35:06.342 --> 00:35:09.570
to show you here, which is only five different nucleotide
868
00:35:09.570 --> 00:35:12.120
letters, is different than Muricea pendula.
869
00:35:12.120 --> 00:35:14.970
So that tells me not only that these species are different
870
00:35:14.970 --> 00:35:18.000
from each other, but having that database of all corals
871
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:19.408
that have been sequenced
872
00:35:19.408 --> 00:35:21.450
to date helps me identify it pretty confident.
873
00:35:21.450 --> 00:35:23.520
The same can be said for Stichopathes.
874
00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:24.780
And so this makes sense.
875
00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:26.580
These are the three most abundant corals
876
00:35:26.580 --> 00:35:29.460
that are found at this habitat, and I can find their DNA
877
00:35:29.460 --> 00:35:33.180
in the water, now the last one is a little problematic.
878
00:35:33.180 --> 00:35:34.590
And so this spongey coral here,
879
00:35:34.590 --> 00:35:36.690
I actually did not detect any DNA
880
00:35:36.690 --> 00:35:40.770
that I can confidently assign belongs to that coral.
881
00:35:40.770 --> 00:35:44.790
And so what this points out is that the kind of utility,
882
00:35:44.790 --> 00:35:46.230
if you will, of using something
883
00:35:46.230 --> 00:35:49.170
like eDNA sequencing might depend on the abundance
884
00:35:49.170 --> 00:35:50.003
of the corals.
885
00:35:50.003 --> 00:35:52.710
So things that might be at really low abundance might not be
886
00:35:52.710 --> 00:35:55.632
as easily detectable when you just take a water sample
887
00:35:55.632 --> 00:35:57.761
and sequence eDNA.
888
00:35:57.761 --> 00:35:59.611
However, what I hope you see
889
00:35:59.611 --> 00:36:01.320
at the next place I'm gonna take you is that
890
00:36:01.320 --> 00:36:04.039
that can change depending on where you are.
891
00:36:04.039 --> 00:36:06.090
And so now we're gonna go to Bright Bank.
892
00:36:06.090 --> 00:36:08.520
And so Bright Bank is a place that's kind of near
893
00:36:08.520 --> 00:36:09.780
and dear to my heart at this point
894
00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:11.730
because I've done a lot of research there
895
00:36:11.730 --> 00:36:13.980
and I feel like I've gotten to know it pretty well.
896
00:36:13.980 --> 00:36:16.980
And Bright Bank is further out on the continental shelf,
897
00:36:16.980 --> 00:36:18.485
so it's right out here.
898
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:21.660
And the habitats that we study at Bright Bank are
899
00:36:21.660 --> 00:36:23.623
for the most part a little bit deeper
900
00:36:23.623 --> 00:36:25.463
than those at Stetson Bank.
901
00:36:27.022 --> 00:36:28.690
So here we go to Bright.
902
00:36:28.690 --> 00:36:31.618
And what I want you to see about this graph here is
903
00:36:31.618 --> 00:36:34.417
that there are a number of different coral species
904
00:36:34.417 --> 00:36:37.560
at Bright, more so than I see in the video at Stetson Bank.
905
00:36:37.560 --> 00:36:39.310
That doesn't necessarily mean that there are
906
00:36:39.310 --> 00:36:41.898
overall more species at Bright than Stetson.
907
00:36:41.898 --> 00:36:43.470
We can't say that for certainty,
908
00:36:43.470 --> 00:36:45.585
but at least in the video that I've analyzed
909
00:36:45.585 --> 00:36:48.460
from the ROV dives that I've been a part of,
910
00:36:48.460 --> 00:36:50.782
I do tend to see more species here.
911
00:36:50.782 --> 00:36:53.400
And so now I'm gonna give you an idea of which
912
00:36:53.400 --> 00:36:56.460
of those species I can detect with environmental DNA.
913
00:36:56.460 --> 00:36:59.610
So the first one that I detect is this Ellisella coral.
914
00:36:59.610 --> 00:37:00.780
So this is a cool coral.
915
00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:02.400
It's pretty similar to the one I showed you
916
00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:04.620
in a previous slide, if you remember, except
917
00:37:04.620 --> 00:37:06.360
that this one branches a little differently.
918
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:07.622
It's a little more curvy
919
00:37:07.622 --> 00:37:10.470
in some odd ways, which is pretty neat.
920
00:37:10.470 --> 00:37:13.140
The next one I also detected is indeed Stichopathes.
921
00:37:13.140 --> 00:37:15.360
So I did detect this one, I'm just not showing it to you
922
00:37:15.360 --> 00:37:17.970
because that would be a lot of pictures on the screen,
923
00:37:17.970 --> 00:37:20.040
but Stichopathes is also very abundant
924
00:37:20.040 --> 00:37:22.487
and I detect it in the DNA.
925
00:37:22.487 --> 00:37:24.530
The next one I'm gonna show you is Nicella.
926
00:37:24.530 --> 00:37:26.130
So this is a neat little coral.
927
00:37:26.130 --> 00:37:28.020
So this is actually closely related
928
00:37:28.020 --> 00:37:30.270
to this Ellisella, believe it or not, except
929
00:37:30.270 --> 00:37:31.933
that it branches very differently.
930
00:37:31.933 --> 00:37:34.170
So while it's a similar color, it branches
931
00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:37.593
in a very different way and forms these short fans.
932
00:37:37.593 --> 00:37:40.293
And as you can see, I not only obtained a sequence
933
00:37:40.293 --> 00:37:43.888
for Ellisella and Stichopathes, but also for Nicella.
934
00:37:44.875 --> 00:37:47.130
And then the last one I'm gonna point out
935
00:37:47.130 --> 00:37:49.950
to you in the imagery is this Antipathes atlantica.
936
00:37:49.950 --> 00:37:52.530
And I've chosen to show you a sequence that has a lot
937
00:37:52.530 --> 00:37:54.990
of spaces missing because I wanna point out
938
00:37:54.990 --> 00:37:58.440
that this is a black coral, and as a result, its sequence
939
00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:00.420
at this position is very different
940
00:38:00.420 --> 00:38:02.250
than Ellisella or Nicella.
941
00:38:02.250 --> 00:38:04.650
What you're seeing here is that the algorithm I've used
942
00:38:04.650 --> 00:38:07.590
has taken a much longer sequence of DNA,
943
00:38:07.590 --> 00:38:09.600
of which these six letters are a part of,
944
00:38:09.600 --> 00:38:10.920
and mapped them together so
945
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:12.960
that you can compare across species.
946
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:14.751
And what the algorithm found is that
947
00:38:14.751 --> 00:38:18.000
for Antipathes atlantica, while there might be some regions
948
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:20.340
of that longer sequence I'm not showing you,
949
00:38:20.340 --> 00:38:22.567
that match up perfectly with Ellisella.
950
00:38:22.567 --> 00:38:24.930
There's a big space missing here.
951
00:38:24.930 --> 00:38:27.900
And so these differences in the DNA code reflect
952
00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:31.440
how evolutionarily different these coral species are,
953
00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:34.050
where Antipathes atlantica is a much different type
954
00:38:34.050 --> 00:38:37.260
of coral, a black coral, then these two closely related
955
00:38:37.260 --> 00:38:39.845
species which are soft corals.
956
00:38:39.845 --> 00:38:41.850
And now what I wanna point out is
957
00:38:41.850 --> 00:38:45.120
that it's not always the case that we see more species
958
00:38:45.120 --> 00:38:48.330
or corals in video than we detect in their DNA.
959
00:38:48.330 --> 00:38:51.210
And Bright Bank is a good example of that.
960
00:38:51.210 --> 00:38:53.580
So there's one species here that I'm gonna point out,
961
00:38:53.580 --> 00:38:57.210
among a few, that I didn't see in the video,
962
00:38:57.210 --> 00:38:58.830
but I detect its DNA,
963
00:38:58.830 --> 00:39:01.590
and this is Muricea pendula, the coral I showed you
964
00:39:01.590 --> 00:39:03.922
on the last slide, that in certain places
965
00:39:03.922 --> 00:39:06.968
can form really high density coral gardens,
966
00:39:06.968 --> 00:39:09.437
as we call them.
967
00:39:09.437 --> 00:39:11.010
And so, what I found is
968
00:39:11.010 --> 00:39:14.130
that while I can detect Muricea pendula, I'm not seeing it
969
00:39:14.130 --> 00:39:15.263
in the video.
970
00:39:15.263 --> 00:39:17.296
And so this begs the question, where did
971
00:39:17.296 --> 00:39:19.230
that DNA sequence come from?
972
00:39:19.230 --> 00:39:20.937
So what can we do to go out
973
00:39:20.937 --> 00:39:23.515
and actually find Muricea pendula to confirm
974
00:39:23.515 --> 00:39:25.590
that it is present at Bright Bank?
975
00:39:25.590 --> 00:39:27.750
Well, the first answer is pretty straightforward.
976
00:39:27.750 --> 00:39:29.880
It's that when you're doing an ROV dive,
977
00:39:29.880 --> 00:39:32.010
like if you were going for a scuba dive
978
00:39:32.010 --> 00:39:33.540
or a snorkel, you're not able
979
00:39:33.540 --> 00:39:35.400
to see everything around you, right?
980
00:39:35.400 --> 00:39:37.470
There's a certain limit to what you can see,
981
00:39:37.470 --> 00:39:40.410
and you're probably moving in maybe a systematic way to try
982
00:39:40.410 --> 00:39:43.350
and accurately quantify the different types of animals
983
00:39:43.350 --> 00:39:45.540
that live in a certain place.
984
00:39:45.540 --> 00:39:48.480
And so perhaps it's as simple as we didn't turn a corner
985
00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:51.540
and take a look and find a ton of Muricea pendula.
986
00:39:51.540 --> 00:39:55.140
The other answer, or possible answer, to this question is
987
00:39:55.140 --> 00:39:57.810
that DNA could be coming from somewhere far away.
988
00:39:57.810 --> 00:40:00.900
So based on my experience annotating a lot of video
989
00:40:00.900 --> 00:40:04.080
and counting the corals that exist at Bright Bank, I know
990
00:40:04.080 --> 00:40:05.880
that while there's not really a lot
991
00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:09.540
of Muricea here exactly where this video is collected,
992
00:40:09.540 --> 00:40:12.300
I have other videos that are deeper off of the side
993
00:40:12.300 --> 00:40:15.301
of Bright Bank where there is tons of Muricea.
994
00:40:15.301 --> 00:40:18.330
And so part of my PhD research, that I'm not gonna go
995
00:40:18.330 --> 00:40:21.720
into depth about today, is actually understanding how large
996
00:40:21.720 --> 00:40:24.990
amounts of DNA from distant places might be transported.
997
00:40:24.990 --> 00:40:27.480
And so that might make this environmental DNA data
998
00:40:27.480 --> 00:40:29.280
a little trickier to interpret,
999
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:31.800
but it also makes the technique more powerful
1000
00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:34.170
because in a way we can now detect corals
1001
00:40:34.170 --> 00:40:35.760
that we might not be able to see.
1002
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:38.400
And while we might not know exactly where they could be,
1003
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:40.800
this could, you know, point us towards places
1004
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:42.570
that require further exploration
1005
00:40:42.570 --> 00:40:46.020
to actually characterize exactly how many corals are there.
1006
00:40:46.020 --> 00:40:47.670
And so with that, I'm just gonna summarize
1007
00:40:47.670 --> 00:40:50.100
what I've talked with you about today.
1008
00:40:50.100 --> 00:40:52.950
And my takeaway message is that coral habitats
1009
00:40:52.950 --> 00:40:54.990
in the deep ocean are just really awesome.
1010
00:40:54.990 --> 00:40:58.080
They've kind of fascinated me and written my life story
1011
00:40:58.080 --> 00:40:59.640
for the past five years.
1012
00:40:59.640 --> 00:41:00.993
So I'm really excited
1013
00:41:00.993 --> 00:41:02.640
to share some things about them with you.
1014
00:41:02.640 --> 00:41:04.860
And as far as my research goes, what I'm finding is
1015
00:41:04.860 --> 00:41:06.900
that yeah, we can use coral forensics
1016
00:41:06.900 --> 00:41:09.090
or actually sequencing the genetic traces of corals
1017
00:41:09.090 --> 00:41:11.310
in water to detect corals.
1018
00:41:11.310 --> 00:41:12.720
And in some cases it might tell us
1019
00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:14.670
a little bit more about the environment
1020
00:41:14.670 --> 00:41:19.440
than one single ROV video might might be able to.
1021
00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:20.700
And so the takeaway is we need
1022
00:41:20.700 --> 00:41:22.560
to do more deep sea exploration.
1023
00:41:22.560 --> 00:41:24.750
The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is
1024
00:41:24.750 --> 00:41:26.310
a spectacular place to do that
1025
00:41:26.310 --> 00:41:27.870
because there are so many species,
1026
00:41:27.870 --> 00:41:29.610
and I'm just really excited to be able to do this
1027
00:41:29.610 --> 00:41:30.900
for a living and to continue
1028
00:41:30.900 --> 00:41:34.332
to do this as I finish up my PhD.
1029
00:41:34.332 --> 00:41:37.129
And so with that, I'm just gonna acknowledge some people.
1030
00:41:37.129 --> 00:41:38.303
First of all, I'd like
1031
00:41:38.303 --> 00:41:40.807
to acknowledge the sanctuary specifically Kelly,
1032
00:41:40.807 --> 00:41:41.820
for having me.
1033
00:41:41.820 --> 00:41:43.710
I'd also like to acknowledge my lab.
1034
00:41:43.710 --> 00:41:46.710
So Dr. Santiago Herrera's Lab, these other folks,
1035
00:41:46.710 --> 00:41:48.450
Sam Vohsen, Nicole Pittoors,
1036
00:41:48.450 --> 00:41:50.370
and Penny Demetriades were a big part
1037
00:41:50.370 --> 00:41:51.780
of our lab's efforts
1038
00:41:51.780 --> 00:41:54.390
on the cruise where I showed you all these pictures.
1039
00:41:54.390 --> 00:41:56.010
In addition, I'd like to thank the captain
1040
00:41:56.010 --> 00:41:59.040
and the crews of the Research Vessel MANTA, as well
1041
00:41:59.040 --> 00:42:00.510
as the Research Vessel POINT SUR,
1042
00:42:00.510 --> 00:42:02.100
that are both operated out of the Gulf,
1043
00:42:02.100 --> 00:42:04.980
and I've been a part, I've been fortunate to sail on
1044
00:42:04.980 --> 00:42:07.080
and actually do some of this research.
1045
00:42:07.080 --> 00:42:08.230
And then I'd also like
1046
00:42:08.230 --> 00:42:10.020
to thank the Global Explorer ROV team.
1047
00:42:10.020 --> 00:42:11.310
So if they put us down there
1048
00:42:11.310 --> 00:42:12.810
with an ROV, we wouldn't be producing
1049
00:42:12.810 --> 00:42:14.250
too much useful information.
1050
00:42:14.250 --> 00:42:17.280
These folks actually make things work, they fly the robot
1051
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:20.580
around and take these really fantastic pictures for us.
1052
00:42:20.580 --> 00:42:22.830
And then lastly, I'd like to thank our funding sources
1053
00:42:22.830 --> 00:42:25.830
that have funded the research that's a part of my PhD.
1054
00:42:25.830 --> 00:42:28.740
So first the NOAA Office of Exploration, as well
1055
00:42:28.740 --> 00:42:30.780
as some other offices at NOAA.
1056
00:42:30.780 --> 00:42:34.170
And I'd just like to thank you all for tuning in today
1057
00:42:34.170 --> 00:42:36.900
and hearing my talk, and I'm really excited to chat
1058
00:42:36.900 --> 00:42:38.460
with you more about my research
1059
00:42:38.460 --> 00:42:41.190
and whatever you might've found interesting
1060
00:42:41.190 --> 00:42:42.865
about what I said today.
1061
00:42:43.812 --> 00:42:46.110
Thank you, Luke. That was fantastic.
1062
00:42:46.110 --> 00:42:47.903
Great explanations about
1063
00:42:47.903 --> 00:42:50.730
how all this complicated stuff works.
1064
00:42:50.730 --> 00:42:53.010
You really simplified it very nicely.
1065
00:42:53.010 --> 00:42:56.878
So folks, if you do have questions for Luke, now is the time
1066
00:42:56.878 --> 00:42:59.400
to put them into the question box over there
1067
00:42:59.400 --> 00:43:03.000
in the control panel, and we will ask him for you.
1068
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.950
So you're not gonna be able to unmute yourself
1069
00:43:04.950 --> 00:43:07.080
and ask the questions out loud, but type them
1070
00:43:07.080 --> 00:43:10.320
into the question box and then we will start sharing them
1071
00:43:10.320 --> 00:43:12.570
with Luke and see how many we can get answered
1072
00:43:12.570 --> 00:43:14.880
before we run out of time.
1073
00:43:14.880 --> 00:43:15.863
So Luke, one of the questions,
1074
00:43:15.863 --> 00:43:17.880
We've been answering some of them
1075
00:43:17.880 --> 00:43:20.460
behind the scenes a little bit where we had the knowledge,
1076
00:43:20.460 --> 00:43:21.780
but one of them that I would like to clarify
1077
00:43:21.780 --> 00:43:24.360
for everyone is, what is the size space you're looking
1078
00:43:24.360 --> 00:43:25.910
at when you see one of those pictures?
1079
00:43:25.910 --> 00:43:27.960
Is it a matter of feet or inches you're looking at?
1080
00:43:27.960 --> 00:43:29.220
Yeah, no, that's a great question.
1081
00:43:29.220 --> 00:43:31.140
And that's something
1082
00:43:31.140 --> 00:43:33.510
that's actually not very apparent even when you've done this
1083
00:43:33.510 --> 00:43:35.880
for a long time because you're looking at things
1084
00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:37.470
in two dimensions, it's really hard
1085
00:43:37.470 --> 00:43:39.520
to give yourself a sense of scale.
1086
00:43:39.520 --> 00:43:41.172
You might have noticed it in the picture,
1087
00:43:41.172 --> 00:43:43.290
I think there might have been some lasers on.
1088
00:43:43.290 --> 00:43:45.450
But what we do is we take green lasers
1089
00:43:45.450 --> 00:43:48.120
and actually shine them 10 centimeters apart
1090
00:43:48.120 --> 00:43:51.030
at the sea floor to kind of give us a sense of scale.
1091
00:43:51.030 --> 00:43:53.430
But what you're looking at and least in some
1092
00:43:53.430 --> 00:43:55.800
of the pictures is definitely feet.
1093
00:43:55.800 --> 00:43:58.110
So out to maybe 20 feet.
1094
00:43:58.110 --> 00:44:00.390
The picture with the big Plumapathes coral,
1095
00:44:00.390 --> 00:44:03.150
that's certainly a radius of, you know, 20 feet or so.
1096
00:44:03.150 --> 00:44:04.500
You can see pretty far.
1097
00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:06.570
But in that zoomed in picture where I showed you five
1098
00:44:06.570 --> 00:44:09.150
or six different corals, that's really small.
1099
00:44:09.150 --> 00:44:12.270
So that's probably, yeah, a couple of feet across.
1100
00:44:12.270 --> 00:44:14.250
Honestly, that's a pretty zoomed in picture.
1101
00:44:14.250 --> 00:44:15.760
So there are a lot of corals
1102
00:44:15.760 --> 00:44:18.046
that you really need to zoom in to see.
1103
00:44:19.380 --> 00:44:23.077
Great, we also use those lasers a lot,
1104
00:44:23.077 --> 00:44:24.865
but if there's no coral for them
1105
00:44:24.865 --> 00:44:27.060
to hit, then you have the lasers just shoot off
1106
00:44:27.060 --> 00:44:29.010
into space and you don't measure anything.
1107
00:44:29.010 --> 00:44:31.586
I've done that. (laughs)
Got it.
1108
00:44:31.586 --> 00:44:35.940
Alright, so question, getting into the weeds here.
1109
00:44:35.940 --> 00:44:40.427
First off the bat, do you have access to all the PCR primers
1110
00:44:40.427 --> 00:44:43.080
for species you are interested in?
1111
00:44:43.080 --> 00:44:46.950
And are new unanticipated species primers becoming available
1112
00:44:46.950 --> 00:44:48.180
over time?
1113
00:44:48.180 --> 00:44:50.070
Yeah, that's an awesome question.
1114
00:44:50.070 --> 00:44:52.088
I'm actually the person to ask, (chuckles)
1115
00:44:52.088 --> 00:44:53.313
so that's fantastic.
1116
00:44:53.313 --> 00:44:55.410
Could you explain the terminology please,
1117
00:44:55.410 --> 00:44:57.739
because it's talking to me. (laughs)
1118
00:44:57.739 --> 00:44:58.572
Good point.
1119
00:44:58.572 --> 00:44:59.405
Yeah, I almost jumped right
1120
00:44:59.405 --> 00:45:01.350
into the weeds without (chuckles) explaining it there.
1121
00:45:01.350 --> 00:45:06.120
So PCR first of all is it's a type of reaction
1122
00:45:06.120 --> 00:45:09.960
that we can do in the lab that will take a sample of DNA
1123
00:45:09.960 --> 00:45:14.610
and amplify or enrich that sample
1124
00:45:14.610 --> 00:45:17.160
for a certain number of species in that sample.
1125
00:45:17.160 --> 00:45:19.050
So for instance, if I have a sample
1126
00:45:19.050 --> 00:45:21.870
of water, I'm capturing DNA from every organism
1127
00:45:21.870 --> 00:45:23.730
that might be swimming in that environment.
1128
00:45:23.730 --> 00:45:26.460
So that doesn't only include corals that might include fish,
1129
00:45:26.460 --> 00:45:29.460
of course, it might include other marine invertebrates.
1130
00:45:29.460 --> 00:45:33.060
And so what I wanna do is I wanna actually take the DNA
1131
00:45:33.060 --> 00:45:36.810
from corals and basically copy it many, many,
1132
00:45:36.810 --> 00:45:37.800
many, many times.
1133
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:39.630
And what a PCR does is exactly
1134
00:45:39.630 --> 00:45:42.720
that, it'll just copy it exponentially until you end up
1135
00:45:42.720 --> 00:45:45.690
with a sample that is full of coral DNA.
1136
00:45:45.690 --> 00:45:47.370
And that's what I'll actually send out
1137
00:45:47.370 --> 00:45:50.493
to the sequencing facility to sequence for me.
1138
00:45:51.870 --> 00:45:55.710
Now to actually amplify the species you're interested in.
1139
00:45:55.710 --> 00:45:57.840
What you need are PCR primers
1140
00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:00.840
and these primers are just sequences
1141
00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:03.870
that match only to the species you are interested in.
1142
00:46:03.870 --> 00:46:07.680
Now, some primers have been developed to amplify
1143
00:46:07.680 --> 00:46:11.010
or enrich for sequences from different organisms.
1144
00:46:11.010 --> 00:46:12.630
Like there are some that do a really good job
1145
00:46:12.630 --> 00:46:15.420
for all marine animals, for instance, there are some
1146
00:46:15.420 --> 00:46:17.823
that are really well established for fish.
1147
00:46:18.870 --> 00:46:21.330
And so as this technology becomes more
1148
00:46:21.330 --> 00:46:24.990
and more accessible, mainly because it's becoming cheaper,
1149
00:46:24.990 --> 00:46:27.090
and more and more labs get involved, more
1150
00:46:27.090 --> 00:46:29.580
and more PCR primers are being developed.
1151
00:46:29.580 --> 00:46:32.340
And so actually a big part of my PhD research
1152
00:46:32.340 --> 00:46:34.530
and what you don't see that's behind the scenes,
1153
00:46:34.530 --> 00:46:35.700
at least in this talk, is
1154
00:46:35.700 --> 00:46:38.850
that I have developed PCR primers specifically
1155
00:46:38.850 --> 00:46:41.490
for black corals and soft coral fans.
1156
00:46:41.490 --> 00:46:44.100
And I'm actually using those to get the data
1157
00:46:44.100 --> 00:46:45.900
that I shared with you today.
1158
00:46:45.900 --> 00:46:49.620
And so I guess what I would say to anyone who's interested
1159
00:46:49.620 --> 00:46:51.810
in doing this is that more
1160
00:46:51.810 --> 00:46:55.020
and more PCR primers will definitely come online.
1161
00:46:55.020 --> 00:46:59.070
It's a tricky business to actually get it to work perfectly,
1162
00:46:59.070 --> 00:47:01.020
but what I've found is that it's definitely doable
1163
00:47:01.020 --> 00:47:03.600
and hopefully we'll have more and more resources
1164
00:47:03.600 --> 00:47:06.117
for doing this sort of work in the future.
1165
00:47:07.987 --> 00:47:10.260
Thank you for explaining that.
1166
00:47:10.260 --> 00:47:14.730
So the primer is something you add, an additive
1167
00:47:14.730 --> 00:47:17.610
to the water sample, is that what I'm understanding?
1168
00:47:17.610 --> 00:47:20.220
In a way, so what happens is you take the water sample
1169
00:47:20.220 --> 00:47:22.470
and then what I didn't show you is you're actually
1170
00:47:22.470 --> 00:47:24.480
going filter that water sample.
1171
00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:26.340
What you do is you save the filter
1172
00:47:26.340 --> 00:47:28.620
and you'll have captured any particles in the water
1173
00:47:28.620 --> 00:47:31.950
that might contain DNA, and then you do one reaction
1174
00:47:31.950 --> 00:47:36.240
before the PCR, and that's what we call a DNA purification.
1175
00:47:36.240 --> 00:47:39.720
And in that step, you take all the DNA out of the sample
1176
00:47:39.720 --> 00:47:42.990
and then the PCR comes next and the PCR actually amplifies
1177
00:47:42.990 --> 00:47:45.609
or copies the DNA you're interested in.
1178
00:47:45.609 --> 00:47:46.497
Got it.
1179
00:47:46.497 --> 00:47:48.780
So yeah, generally yes, it's taking DNA
1180
00:47:48.780 --> 00:47:50.700
from a water sample that you're interested in
1181
00:47:50.700 --> 00:47:52.350
and making it much more available to you
1182
00:47:52.350 --> 00:47:55.170
and then allowing you to actually sequence it.
1183
00:47:55.170 --> 00:47:56.280
Thank you.
1184
00:47:56.280 --> 00:47:57.630
Yep. Sure.
1185
00:47:57.630 --> 00:48:00.442
Next question, why can't the DNA codes released
1186
00:48:00.442 --> 00:48:02.910
from corals at the Flower Garden Banks be matched
1187
00:48:02.910 --> 00:48:05.033
with DNA released from reefs off Mexico
1188
00:48:05.033 --> 00:48:06.655
and the Caribbean to determine which
1189
00:48:06.655 --> 00:48:09.450
reefs originally seeded the Flower Garden Banks?
1190
00:48:09.450 --> 00:48:12.240
That's a fantastic question.
1191
00:48:12.240 --> 00:48:14.970
So to give you an idea
1192
00:48:14.970 --> 00:48:18.000
of what I'm doing when I'm talking about sequencing DNA,
1193
00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:21.630
at least from environmental DNA, is I'm usually dealing
1194
00:48:21.630 --> 00:48:24.420
with pretty short sequences.
1195
00:48:24.420 --> 00:48:28.935
And the reason for that is that the sequencing technologies
1196
00:48:28.935 --> 00:48:33.180
that we're using are for the moment to
1197
00:48:33.180 --> 00:48:35.340
at least do exactly what I want, kind of limited
1198
00:48:35.340 --> 00:48:36.360
in that regard.
1199
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:40.860
So I showed you only short sequences of like five letters.
1200
00:48:40.860 --> 00:48:43.573
In actuality it's longer than that, it's around 350
1201
00:48:44.407 --> 00:48:48.150
to 400 letters, at least the sequences I'm dealing with.
1202
00:48:48.150 --> 00:48:49.800
But with that much information,
1203
00:48:49.800 --> 00:48:51.420
what you can do pretty confidently
1204
00:48:51.420 --> 00:48:55.320
is you can identify corals to the species level.
1205
00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:57.690
Now, what you could do with that information
1206
00:48:57.690 --> 00:48:59.520
if you collect samples from the Gulf of Mexico
1207
00:48:59.520 --> 00:49:00.353
and from the Caribbean,
1208
00:49:00.353 --> 00:49:04.350
is you can see how those two habitats might share species.
1209
00:49:04.350 --> 00:49:05.520
So in a way, you might be able
1210
00:49:05.520 --> 00:49:10.260
to say this coral habitat, let's say Bright Bank
1211
00:49:10.260 --> 00:49:14.160
for example, has X, Y, and Z coral species.
1212
00:49:14.160 --> 00:49:16.800
And we know that this part of the Caribbean
1213
00:49:16.800 --> 00:49:19.320
also has the same three coral species.
1214
00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:21.870
And if we know something about the physical oceanography
1215
00:49:21.870 --> 00:49:24.000
or how currents move, we might be able
1216
00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:27.900
to generate some hypotheses or guesses about how corals
1217
00:49:27.900 --> 00:49:29.040
in the Flower Garden Banks
1218
00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:30.690
in the Caribbean might be similar,
1219
00:49:30.690 --> 00:49:34.530
and how they might actually be exchanging coral colonies
1220
00:49:34.530 --> 00:49:35.940
through reproduction.
1221
00:49:35.940 --> 00:49:38.190
However, that's as far as you can get
1222
00:49:38.190 --> 00:49:40.290
with eDNA to this point.
1223
00:49:40.290 --> 00:49:43.347
But some studies have tried to do it a little bit more,
1224
00:49:43.347 --> 00:49:44.760
and what you need to do is you need
1225
00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:47.970
to sequence a longer part, or you need to target a part
1226
00:49:47.970 --> 00:49:51.810
of the genome that's super variable for a given species
1227
00:49:51.810 --> 00:49:55.650
to look at how like, let's say a population of one type
1228
00:49:55.650 --> 00:49:58.860
of coral is different or more related to a population
1229
00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:00.750
of another type of coral in the Caribbean
1230
00:50:00.750 --> 00:50:02.730
than it might be into the Atlantic.
1231
00:50:02.730 --> 00:50:04.680
And so when you're looking within coral types
1232
00:50:04.680 --> 00:50:07.920
to actually see how genetically similar, the same type
1233
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:11.520
of coral is to each other, we're still kind of
1234
00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:13.860
in the, I guess we're on the forefront of doing
1235
00:50:13.860 --> 00:50:16.320
that from environmental DNA, but
1236
00:50:16.320 --> 00:50:18.660
for the time being, it's not something that's widely done.
1237
00:50:18.660 --> 00:50:21.600
And that's a big area of ongoing research.
1238
00:50:21.600 --> 00:50:25.040
So I hope that helped answer your question.
1239
00:50:25.040 --> 00:50:28.057
Yes, thank you. And I'm glad somebody asked that.
1240
00:50:28.057 --> 00:50:29.707
I've always wondered that.
1241
00:50:29.707 --> 00:50:30.540
Yeah.
1242
00:50:30.540 --> 00:50:33.180
Next question, does eDNA degrade
1243
00:50:33.180 --> 00:50:34.740
at different rates in the ocean?
1244
00:50:34.740 --> 00:50:38.220
Is that something you're able to quantify in your research?
1245
00:50:38.220 --> 00:50:39.600
Yeah, that's a fantastic question.
1246
00:50:39.600 --> 00:50:42.750
And it's something that I actually have quantified.
1247
00:50:42.750 --> 00:50:45.975
So I conducted some lab experiments, I guess
1248
00:50:45.975 --> 00:50:48.030
over the past couple of years.
1249
00:50:48.030 --> 00:50:51.030
That was a project that I started as soon
1250
00:50:51.030 --> 00:50:53.670
as I joined the graduate program
1251
00:50:53.670 --> 00:50:56.700
and joined Dr. Herrera's Lab.
1252
00:50:56.700 --> 00:51:00.060
And what I did is I took coral tissue
1253
00:51:00.060 --> 00:51:03.240
and I actually introduced it into experimental tanks
1254
00:51:03.240 --> 00:51:04.920
at different temperatures.
1255
00:51:04.920 --> 00:51:06.630
And what I did was I just left it there.
1256
00:51:06.630 --> 00:51:08.370
I left, I controlled the temperature,
1257
00:51:08.370 --> 00:51:11.310
the oxygen concentration and the pH in those tanks.
1258
00:51:11.310 --> 00:51:13.770
And then I sampled those tanks every single day
1259
00:51:13.770 --> 00:51:18.540
to see how much eDNA was left after a certain time point.
1260
00:51:18.540 --> 00:51:20.430
And so what I found, and what a lot
1261
00:51:20.430 --> 00:51:22.710
of other studies have found from marine animals, is
1262
00:51:22.710 --> 00:51:26.790
that the environmental DNA will degrade faster
1263
00:51:26.790 --> 00:51:28.230
at higher temperatures.
1264
00:51:28.230 --> 00:51:30.960
And so this makes sense in a lot of ways.
1265
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:33.330
First of all, it may be just
1266
00:51:33.330 --> 00:51:35.940
because temperature increases the rate
1267
00:51:35.940 --> 00:51:37.498
of chemical reactions.
1268
00:51:37.498 --> 00:51:40.562
And so DNA, like any molecule will break down.
1269
00:51:40.562 --> 00:51:43.260
And so that might happen faster at higher temperatures.
1270
00:51:43.260 --> 00:51:46.200
The other reason could be that things like microbes
1271
00:51:46.200 --> 00:51:50.010
that might actually be, in a way, degrading the DNA
1272
00:51:50.010 --> 00:51:53.340
by using it for the compounds that it they need for
1273
00:51:53.340 --> 00:51:56.340
to make a living themselves, they might also contribute
1274
00:51:56.340 --> 00:51:59.790
to breaking down DNA molecules and they might do that faster
1275
00:51:59.790 --> 00:52:03.170
at higher temperatures because they can grow faster.
1276
00:52:03.170 --> 00:52:07.260
And so that's a great question and what I think I would end
1277
00:52:07.260 --> 00:52:09.090
with in regards to that question is
1278
00:52:09.090 --> 00:52:10.620
that what you should be aware
1279
00:52:10.620 --> 00:52:13.140
of when you're studying a place that's as vast
1280
00:52:13.140 --> 00:52:15.090
as the deep sea is what the temperature
1281
00:52:15.090 --> 00:52:17.802
is when you're taking an environmental DNA sample.
1282
00:52:17.802 --> 00:52:19.350
If you're extremely deep
1283
00:52:19.350 --> 00:52:21.780
in the ocean, the temperature is gonna be really low.
1284
00:52:21.780 --> 00:52:25.410
And so potentially that means the DNA that is there,
1285
00:52:25.410 --> 00:52:27.853
if it hasn't sunk to the bottom and settled
1286
00:52:27.853 --> 00:52:30.308
in the sediments, it might be transported
1287
00:52:30.308 --> 00:52:31.800
by currents a long distance.
1288
00:52:31.800 --> 00:52:33.660
And that's also an area of ongoing research.
1289
00:52:33.660 --> 00:52:36.705
And a lot of experiments have looked into that.
1290
00:52:36.705 --> 00:52:39.390
And as more and more field data is collected from
1291
00:52:39.390 --> 00:52:41.670
around the world from deep sea habitats
1292
00:52:41.670 --> 00:52:43.461
with eDNA, we'll certainly be able
1293
00:52:43.461 --> 00:52:46.680
to know a lot more confidently about how long exactly
1294
00:52:46.680 --> 00:52:49.273
that can last and what your data can look like
1295
00:52:49.273 --> 00:52:50.673
from different places.
1296
00:52:51.780 --> 00:52:56.160
Fantastic, I think we have time
1297
00:52:56.160 --> 00:52:57.390
for two more questions.
1298
00:52:57.390 --> 00:52:59.640
This one is, are you finding DNA
1299
00:52:59.640 --> 00:53:02.250
from unknown species of corals?
1300
00:53:02.250 --> 00:53:03.758
Yes. Yeah, I am.
1301
00:53:03.758 --> 00:53:06.330
That's one
1302
00:53:06.330 --> 00:53:10.740
of the coolest parts I think about studying the deep ocean
1303
00:53:10.740 --> 00:53:15.180
or the mesophotic ocean, is that, I don't know.
1304
00:53:15.180 --> 00:53:17.610
I can't tell you that I'm finding new species,
1305
00:53:17.610 --> 00:53:18.930
but what I can tell you is that a lot
1306
00:53:18.930 --> 00:53:20.700
of the species I'm finding,
1307
00:53:20.700 --> 00:53:23.070
we haven't sequenced their genomes yet.
1308
00:53:23.070 --> 00:53:25.890
And so what that means is that this method is only
1309
00:53:25.890 --> 00:53:27.900
as powerful as the reference database
1310
00:53:27.900 --> 00:53:29.280
that I mentioned earlier.
1311
00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:31.410
And so that's built off of research
1312
00:53:31.410 --> 00:53:33.450
from around the world, you know, different museums,
1313
00:53:33.450 --> 00:53:35.700
different people conducting this sort of research.
1314
00:53:35.700 --> 00:53:37.140
And what we really need to do is try
1315
00:53:37.140 --> 00:53:39.630
and sequence the genome of every coral that exists
1316
00:53:39.630 --> 00:53:41.370
in the ocean and then we could help
1317
00:53:41.370 --> 00:53:43.500
to identify all of the species.
1318
00:53:43.500 --> 00:53:46.170
But yeah, when I take a look at my data, while I'm able
1319
00:53:46.170 --> 00:53:48.450
to confidently identify, you know, a fair amount
1320
00:53:48.450 --> 00:53:51.628
of the sequences that I find, there are a lot of sequences
1321
00:53:51.628 --> 00:53:53.430
that I can't identify just because
1322
00:53:53.430 --> 00:53:55.680
we haven't even sequenced the genome of that coral.
1323
00:53:55.680 --> 00:53:58.980
So it's still an area that, you know, there's a lot
1324
00:53:58.980 --> 00:54:01.140
of exploration left to do, which is I think why I've been
1325
00:54:01.140 --> 00:54:05.250
so kind of intrigued with studying the deep ocean
1326
00:54:05.250 --> 00:54:06.655
for so long now.
1327
00:54:07.830 --> 00:54:09.660
Always plenty to learn.
1328
00:54:09.660 --> 00:54:10.890
Yep.
1329
00:54:10.890 --> 00:54:12.420
All right. I think this will be our last question.
1330
00:54:12.420 --> 00:54:14.910
What was something that you found most surprising
1331
00:54:14.910 --> 00:54:16.500
in your submersible experience?
1332
00:54:16.500 --> 00:54:19.080
Any aha or wow moments?
1333
00:54:19.080 --> 00:54:22.140
Yeah, so this sounds, this sounds silly,
1334
00:54:22.140 --> 00:54:25.710
but honestly when we talked about understanding the size
1335
00:54:25.710 --> 00:54:28.500
of things, for the longest time I had always been
1336
00:54:28.500 --> 00:54:30.810
so confused when a coral would come up onto the deck
1337
00:54:30.810 --> 00:54:33.300
of the ship if we had collected it and I take a look at it
1338
00:54:33.300 --> 00:54:35.370
and go, oh my gosh, this thing is puny
1339
00:54:35.370 --> 00:54:36.660
or this thing is huge.
1340
00:54:36.660 --> 00:54:38.130
Because when you see it in two dimensions,
1341
00:54:38.130 --> 00:54:40.650
you really just have no idea what it looks like.
1342
00:54:40.650 --> 00:54:42.420
And so when you see things
1343
00:54:42.420 --> 00:54:43.800
in three dimensions, when you're actually
1344
00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:46.620
in the sub, you see how the bottom changes.
1345
00:54:46.620 --> 00:54:50.130
There's where I was is very volcanic, so there are big lobes
1346
00:54:50.130 --> 00:54:53.700
of lava and so it's a really complex environment.
1347
00:54:53.700 --> 00:54:55.050
And then I saw this fish that
1348
00:54:55.050 --> 00:54:58.680
for the longest time I had thought was huge.
1349
00:54:58.680 --> 00:54:59.970
It's called the tripod fish
1350
00:54:59.970 --> 00:55:01.860
and you should definitely Google image search
1351
00:55:01.860 --> 00:55:05.190
that deep sea tripod fish like the camera tripod.
1352
00:55:05.190 --> 00:55:07.271
And I thought it was huge and then I actually saw one
1353
00:55:07.271 --> 00:55:09.810
and it was very small, it was like this big
1354
00:55:09.810 --> 00:55:12.090
and it kind of just took, took my breath away.
1355
00:55:12.090 --> 00:55:14.553
So, yep. Very cool.
1356
00:55:15.432 --> 00:55:17.430
Thank you so much, Luke.
1357
00:55:17.430 --> 00:55:19.980
So folks, that's all the questions we can take for now,
1358
00:55:19.980 --> 00:55:23.340
but Luke, we do have quite a passel of them left.
1359
00:55:23.340 --> 00:55:24.870
So I'll be touching base with you
1360
00:55:24.870 --> 00:55:27.030
after the program to see what we can do about those.
1361
00:55:27.030 --> 00:55:28.410
All right, sounds great. Thanks, Kelly.
1362
00:55:28.410 --> 00:55:29.740
Thank you all for joining.
1363
00:55:29.740 --> 00:55:31.655
All right, we're not done yet.
1364
00:55:31.655 --> 00:55:33.742
Got a few things to wrap up here folks,
1365
00:55:33.742 --> 00:55:36.810
so let me get back to my part of my presentation.
1366
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:40.350
Here we go.
1367
00:55:40.350 --> 00:55:44.370
So folks, we hope you enjoyed this final webinar
1368
00:55:44.370 --> 00:55:47.100
of our 2023 Seaside Chat series.
1369
00:55:47.100 --> 00:55:49.500
Be sure to check back with us next January
1370
00:55:49.500 --> 00:55:51.060
and see what we have in store
1371
00:55:51.060 --> 00:55:55.053
for the 2024 schedule. You never know.
1372
00:55:55.890 --> 00:55:58.800
And depending on the number of questions we have left,
1373
00:55:58.800 --> 00:56:01.200
as I mentioned, there are quite a few, we will get with Luke
1374
00:56:01.200 --> 00:56:03.660
and see what we can get answered after the webinar ends.
1375
00:56:03.660 --> 00:56:06.240
And then we will email out the responses.
1376
00:56:06.240 --> 00:56:08.748
For those of you who have participated in the previous three
1377
00:56:08.748 --> 00:56:11.490
we've been sending 'em out about a week after the fact.
1378
00:56:11.490 --> 00:56:14.610
It'll depend how quickly we can get these answers back
1379
00:56:14.610 --> 00:56:17.310
from Luke and some of them we can answer ourselves,
1380
00:56:17.310 --> 00:56:18.180
but we will do our best
1381
00:56:18.180 --> 00:56:20.520
to get them out to you fairly promptly.
1382
00:56:20.520 --> 00:56:21.353
If you'd like to learn more
1383
00:56:21.353 --> 00:56:23.490
on your own, we have provided a document full
1384
00:56:23.490 --> 00:56:26.850
of resource links in the handouts pane of the control panel,
1385
00:56:26.850 --> 00:56:28.448
and if you haven't yet downloaded it,
1386
00:56:28.448 --> 00:56:31.050
now would be a very good time.
1387
00:56:31.050 --> 00:56:33.360
As always, we welcome your feedback and questions
1388
00:56:33.360 --> 00:56:35.220
and you can submit input by replying
1389
00:56:35.220 --> 00:56:37.921
to the follow-up email you receive after the webinar,
1390
00:56:37.921 --> 00:56:42.513
or by emailing us at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1391
00:56:44.860 --> 00:56:47.250
Today's presentation has also been part
1392
00:56:47.250 --> 00:56:50.070
of the National Marine Sanctuary Webinar Series.
1393
00:56:50.070 --> 00:56:52.440
While Seaside Chat lasts just one month.
1394
00:56:52.440 --> 00:56:55.470
Our National Webinar Series continues throughout the year
1395
00:56:55.470 --> 00:56:56.880
to provide you with educational
1396
00:56:56.880 --> 00:56:59.370
and scientific expertise, resources,
1397
00:56:59.370 --> 00:57:03.150
and training to support ocean and climate literacy.
1398
00:57:03.150 --> 00:57:05.940
Be sure to check the website for recordings of past webinars
1399
00:57:05.940 --> 00:57:08.272
and the schedule of what's to come.
1400
00:57:08.272 --> 00:57:10.650
As a reminder, we will share the recording
1401
00:57:10.650 --> 00:57:13.620
of this webinar via the National Marine Sanctuaries
1402
00:57:13.620 --> 00:57:17.170
and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary website.
1403
00:57:19.980 --> 00:57:23.520
Following this webinar, attendees will receive a PDF copy
1404
00:57:23.520 --> 00:57:26.520
of a certificate of attendance that provides documentation
1405
00:57:26.520 --> 00:57:28.410
for one hour of professional development
1406
00:57:28.410 --> 00:57:30.360
for today's presentation.
1407
00:57:30.360 --> 00:57:33.390
This includes our Texas CPE provider number for those
1408
00:57:33.390 --> 00:57:35.223
of you who are Texas educators.
1409
00:57:35.223 --> 00:57:36.660
If you are an educator
1410
00:57:36.660 --> 00:57:39.180
outside of Texas, please use this certificate
1411
00:57:39.180 --> 00:57:41.760
to help get your hours approved in your district.
1412
00:57:41.760 --> 00:57:43.830
And if you require additional information in
1413
00:57:43.830 --> 00:57:48.738
that respect, please contact me at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1414
00:57:48.738 --> 00:57:50.940
There will also be a short evaluation
1415
00:57:50.940 --> 00:57:52.770
following today's presentation.
1416
00:57:52.770 --> 00:57:54.630
Please complete this survey immediately
1417
00:57:54.630 --> 00:57:56.190
after signing off the webinar.
1418
00:57:56.190 --> 00:57:58.470
It should only take you about three minutes,
1419
00:57:58.470 --> 00:58:01.530
and we greatly appreciate any feedback you are
1420
00:58:01.530 --> 00:58:02.805
willing to share.
1421
00:58:04.590 --> 00:58:06.480
Thanks again to Luke McCartin
1422
00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:09.120
for a great presentation about coral forensics
1423
00:58:09.120 --> 00:58:10.590
in the Mesophotic Zone
1424
00:58:10.590 --> 00:58:13.320
at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
1425
00:58:13.320 --> 00:58:14.820
Luke, it was a pleasure to have you
1426
00:58:14.820 --> 00:58:16.912
as our presenter this evening.
1427
00:58:18.547 --> 00:58:21.000
Thank you so much for having me, Kelly.
1428
00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.370
It was a really great time and super fun to talk
1429
00:58:23.370 --> 00:58:24.933
with you all about my research.
1430
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:29.010
We enjoyed it. I enjoyed it for sure. (chuckles)
1431
00:58:29.010 --> 00:58:32.550
And thanks to all of you for taking the time to join us.
1432
00:58:32.550 --> 00:58:34.593
This concludes today's webinar.