Bottom trawling gets a bum rap, CSUMB study finds.

Nic Coury
Local petrale sole, like this dish at the former Alvarado Fish & Steakhouse, may be a more sustainable fish than we thought.

Bottom trawling—dragging nets along the sea floor to catch species like halibut and sanddabs—isn’t always the destructive fishing method it’s made out to be, according to a collaborative study by fishermen, The Nature Conservancy and CSU Monterey Bay.

The study, published in National Marine Fisheries Service’s Fishery Bulletin, found that not all sea floors are created equal. The “soft” sea floor (mostly mud and sand) that comprises up to 85 percent of the continental shelf off the California coast may be able to recover quickly from small footrope trawl gear, the study concludes. Yet most of the state waters and much of the federal waters are closed to bottom trawling.

“Our study adds to a growing body of literature from around the world showing trawling impacts are context dependent—they depend on the type of gear used, the types of habitats trawled and how often trawling occurs,” a press release states. “Trawling in rocky areas with long-lived corals will likely have more long-lasting impacts than trawling in soft-bottom habitats that may be less vulnerable and can recover more quickly.”

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guide, which has long shunned much of Monterey Bay’s own local catch because it viewed bottom trawling as environmentally unfriendly, is now picking up on that more nuanced approach. The updated Seafood Watch guide upgraded 21 species of West Coast groundfish from red (avoid) to yellow (good alternative) or green (best choice) rankings, as the Weekly reported last fall.

Also promising: next-generation light-trawl gear that floats just above the sea floor instead of dragging. Environmental Defense Fund consultants Huff McGonigal and David Crabbe developed the technology to allow fishermen to “fish a wider area, travel faster, reduce fuel costs by a quarter and preserve bottom-dwelling fauna,” as the Weekly reported in 2013.

Read the original post: MontereyCountyWeekly.com | by Kera Abraham

Chemical clues in fossil shells may help us understand today’s ocean acidification

By: Brendan Bane

As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, so too do those in the sea, leading to ocean acidification that outpaces that of any other time in tens of millions of years. Some effects of ocean acidification are imminent, like the fact that calcified organisms such as corals and shellfish will have access to less and less of the chemical components they need to build their shells and skeletons. Other outcomes are less clear, and scientists wanting to predict what may come of our quickly acidifying waters are looking to past climatic events that were similar to our own.

One such event, the Paleo-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred 56 million years ago, is likely our closest analog to modern ocean acidification. Researchers who refer to the PETM as a case study have long suspected that ancient waters acidified then, but until recently, they never had physical evidence of it actually happening. Then just this past year, researchers uncovered the PETM’s chemical chronology encrypted in the shells of fossilized plankton, called foraminifera, and learned that the two timelines aren’t entirely similar; today’s surface ocean is acidifying ten times faster than it did during the PETM. Their findings were published in Paleoceanography in June, 2014.

Penman (the lead author) offered this image of himself (center), Richard Norris (Scripps) and Pincelli Hull (Yale) inspecting sediment cores from the PETM while aboard a scientific drilling vessel.
Penman (the lead author) offered this image of himself (center), Richard Norris (Scripps) and Pincelli Hull (Yale) inspecting sediment cores from the PETM while aboard a scientific drilling vessel. Photo credit Donald Penman.
“While foraminifera are alive, they incorporate the chemistry of the water into their shells,” said Bärbel Hönisch, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University and coauthor of the study. “When they die, they take that information with them into the sediment.”

Hönisch and several other scientists analyzed the chemical composition of fossilized foraminifera embedded in “nannofossil ooze,” a section of rock particularly rich with tiny fossilized organisms, which they drilled out of sub-ocean sediment near Japan.

Foraminifera, like coral and shellfish, pull carbonate ions from the surrounding seawater to build their shells. In a way, the chemical composition of these shells acts as a snapshot of the chemical composition of the water the foraminifer lived in. When water grows increasingly acidic, foraminifera replace whole carbonate molecules with borate molecules. When the scientists of this study inspected the boron composition of shells from plankton that died during the PETM, they learned not only how acidic the ocean was at the time, but also how quickly its chemistry shifted and how long it stayed that way.

“Acidification during the PETM was relatively rapid,” said oceanographer Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, another coauthor of the study, “but it was also sustained. The whole event took a very long time.” A massive surge in atmospheric carbon, its cause still unknown, warmed the globe by four to eight degrees and dropped the ocean’s pH by about 100 percent. Conditions remained that way for approximately 70,000 years. These environmental changes triggered many biological ones. Seafloor-dwelling foraminifera suffered mass extinction while another type of tiny aquatic organism, dinoflagellates, thrived and expanded.

Foraminifera like the one pictured above record their environment’s chemistry in calcium carbonate shells, essentially leaving a trail of chemical breadcrumbs for future investigators. Photo by Howard Spero.
Foraminifera like the one pictured above record their environment’s chemistry in calcium carbonate shells, essentially leaving a trail of chemical breadcrumbs for future investigators. Photo by Howard Spero.
Although the PETM ocean did acidify quickly, it happened ten times slower than what’s happening today. Our ocean’s pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 in the last 150 years, an amount that took a few thousand years in the PETM. Scientists predict the drop will only continue, with the seas reaching a pH of 7.8 to 7.9 by 2100. That change was and continues to be fueled by manmade carbon being pumped into the atmosphere and subsequently absorbed by the ocean.

In understanding how to compare the two events and what outcomes will emerge from modern acidification, rate is key.

“In any aspect of environmental change, particularly global change, rate matters” said lead author Donald Penman of the University of California Santa Cruz. Natural buffers like deep seawater mixing likely mitigated acidification during the PETM. But those same buffers will surely be outpaced by today’s heightened rate. “If you put carbon dioxide into the ocean faster than its natural processes can deal with it,” Penman said, “then they don’t do you any good.”

Marine animals will also be challenged by the speed at which their environment is changing. “We know that organisms and ecosystems can adapt and evolve to slow changes as they have throughout earth’s history,” Penman said. “However, when you invoke the same change over a shorter time, then you can outstrip organisms’ ability to evolve with that change. Species go extinct, and marine ecosystems change dramatically, perhaps irrecoverably.”

The researchers noticed that extinctions occurred during the PETM even at a pH change rate of 0.1 per thousands of years – which may not bode well for today’s foraminifera.

“The fact that some organisms went extinct during the PETM puts our current activities in perspective,” said Hönisch. “If the organisms died then, it is even more likely that some organisms will die now.”

With a clearer picture of the PETM painted, researchers can begin to draw more detailed analogies between the two events, and hopefully catch any drastic environmental changes before they surprise us.

“Now that we have [ocean acidification during PETM] quantified,” Penman said, “we can begin to make calculations of how much and how quickly carbon was emitted during the PETM. This will help us disentangle what sources of carbon and feedbacks were in operation during the PETM, and whether or not they are something we need to worry about in the future.”

Penman (the lead author) offered this image of himself (center), Richard Norris (Scripps) and Pincelli Hull (Yale) inspecting sediment cores from the PETM while aboard a scientific drilling vessel. Photo credit Donald Penman.

Foraminifera like the one pictured above record their environment’s chemistry in calcium carbonate shells, essentially leaving a trail of chemical breadcrumbs for future investigators. Photo by Howard Spero.

Citations:
Penman, D. E., Hönisch, B., Zeebe, R. E., Thomas, E., & Zachos, J. C. (2014). Rapid and sustained surface ocean acidification during the Paleocene‐Eocene Thermal Maximum. Paleoceanography.
Hönisch, B., Ridgwell, A., Schmidt, D. N., Thomas, E., Gibbs, S. J., Sluijs, A., … & Williams, B. (2012). The geological record of ocean acidification. science, 335(6072), 1058-1063.

Read the original post Mongabay.com.

Atlantic, Pacific Fish Face Mixing as Arctic Warms

The gradual warming of the Arctic Ocean over the next century will weaken a natural barrier that has separated fish from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for millions of years, leading to a mixing of species that could make life difficult in fishing communities from Alaska to Norway.

A new study by scientists in Denmark combined current models of climate change, and the biological water temperature and food requirements for 520 fish species native to the two oceans. The report forecast changes in the range of these fish in five-year increments from now until 2100, when the world’s oceans are expected to heat up globally by an average 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit).

“There will be an interchange of the fish communities between those two seas,” beginning as soon as 2050, said Mary Wisz, lead author on the report in Nature Climate Change and a senior ecosystem scientist at Aarhaus University in Denmark. “We know from historical examples that this kind of interchange, when biotas have been separated over long evolutionary time scales, can have huge consequences.”

In this warmer future, fishermen based in Kodiak, Alaska, could be pulling up Atlantic cod, a prized species normally caught off New England and Northern Europe. A similar change has already started off the coast of Greenland, where fishermen in the last five years have been catching larger numbers of Atlantic mackerel, which prefers more temperate water.

Wisz and colleagues say that by 2100, up to 41 species could enter the Pacific and 44 species could enter the Atlantic, through Arctic water passages over Canada or Russia. This interchange will have ecological and economic consequences to ecosystems that at present contribute 39 percent to global marine fish landings.

While some fishermen may benefit from the new catches, scientists warn that it’s hard to predict exactly what kind of fish will take over, and which will be driven away by the newcomers. It’s also possible that several kinds of fish could compete for the same food source – smaller fish, marine shrimp or larvae, for example, leading to a big reshuffling of the existing marine food chain.

“Some species when they come together they get along,” said Peter Moller, curator of fishes at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and another author on the new report. “But of course the Atlantic cod has the potential to become extremely numerous and dominating if it has the right conditions. There is speculation if it gets to a new place, it can be a real game-changer.”

Moller said the cod is an especially voracious predator of smaller fish, and could impact commercial landings of Alaska Pollock, for example. Around 3 million tons of Alaska pollock are caught each year in the North Pacific from Alaska to northern Japan. Alaska pollock is the world’s second most important fish species in terms of total catch.

Jason Link, senior scientist for ecosystem management at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, agreed that the mixing of species will cause changes in the food web in both oceans, but it’s hard to predict exactly how it will shake out.

“Another issue not noted in this paper is what happens in the ecosystem that these fish move out of, do they remain there or do other species replace them from the south?” Link said via e-mail.

Another thorny issue is how to manage fishing boats who will likely be plying the rugged Arctic Ocean once commercial harvests become feasible.

“This work raises important ramifications for fishes in response to changes in sea ice,” Link said.

Wisz and Moller say their next task is to look at realistic scenarios of predators and prey in the new warmer Arctic ecosystem.

Read original post here.

Monterey Bay Aquarium testing the waters with open source camera

Mercury News | By Samantha Clark, Santa Cruz Sentinel

Rockfish researchers recover a frame carrying a small SeeStar system and a larger, older camera system after a deployment in Monterey Bay. (Francois Cazanave — MBARI)

MOSS LANDING — Ocean research can be a costly voyage. Scientists often need expensive, high-tech, complex equipment, which some research institutions might lack the funds to build or buy.

So engineers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute designed a simple underwater camera and lighting system that is made mostly of hardware store materials. And all for $3,000.

Most oceanographic camera systems cost $5,000 to $20,000 and require ships and cranes to carry the heavy equipment.

Any researcher can find the directions online to build the camera system themselves. It takes stills and video and operates as deep as 1,000 feet for months at a time.

“There is a movement to have open source oceanographic equipment,” said Chad Kecy, lead designer and MBARI engineer. “Anyone could take our designs and modify them for specific needs they have. It’s just a less expensive and easier way of getting cameras in the water.”

The project began in 2012 when MBARI marine biologist Steve Haddock wanted a cheap and easily deployable camera for researchers around the world to document jellyfish blooms. He also wanted versatility. A lightweight system needed to attach to a pier, be mounted on the seafloor and carried by a robotic submarine.

The SeeStar’s relatively simple design met Haddock’s criteria. It’s a GoPro camera with longer battery life and controllable lights all housed inside standard PVC pipe with commercially available electrical cables.

“We chose materials intentionally that people would be able to purchase at a local hardware store,” Kecy said. “The mechanical parts, we tried to get them off the shelf. We were thinking about cost at every step of the way.”

Researchers have begun testing the waters with the SeeStar system. Instead of using their bulky and expensive cameras, scientists with the Nature Conservancy and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories opted for multiple SeeStar cameras to capture video in Rockfish Conservation Areas along the west coast and seafloor animals under the ice in Antarctica.

The California Wetfish Producers Association used SeeStar to photograph the eggs and larvae of market squid. While the squid make up a large and economically important fishery in California, scientists don’t know much about what they do when they’re not spawning or the best conditions for spawning.

“If you were to charter at ROV (remotely operated vehicle), I’ve heard it’s like $10,000 a day, which is outrageous and beyond our budgeting,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the nonprofit. “Putting together our own SeeStar camera is going to give us a lot of opportunity to understand what’s going on within their life cycle. Just by looking at a photograph, we were able to tell which eggs were about to hatch.”

However, the designers want camera to be even more accessible. The circuit board that controls the system is still complex enough leave non-engineers scratching their heads, so Kecy is looking to replace it with the popular Arduino microcontrollers this year.

“The camera system could have uses beyond marine research and could be used for monitoring anything long term,” Kecy said. “Because it’s open source, inexpensive and really easy, it just presents an opportunity for more researchers to cameras out in the water.”

—— (c)2015 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) Visit the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) at www.santacruzsentinel.com

Fatty Acids in Fish May Shield Brain from Mercury Damage

New findings from research in the Seychelles provide further evidence that the benefits of fish consumption on prenatal development may offset the risks associated with mercury exposure. In fact, the new study, which appears today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that the nutrients found in fish have properties that protect the brain from the potential toxic effects of the chemical.

Three decades of research in the Seychelles have consistently shown that high levels of fish consumption by pregnant mothers – an average of 12 meals per week – do not produce developmental problems in their children. Researchers have previously equated this phenomenon to a kind of biological horse race, with the developmental benefits of nutrients in fish outpacing the possible harmful effects of mercury also found in fish. However, the new research indicates that this relation is far more complex and that compounds present in fish – specifically polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) – may also actively counteract the damage that mercury causes in the brain.

“These findings show no overall association between prenatal exposure to mercury through fish consumption and neurodevelopmental outcomes,” said Edwin van Wijngaarden, Ph.D., and associate professor in the University of Rochester Department of Public Health Sciences and a co-author of the study. “It is also becoming increasingly clear that the benefits of fish consumption may outweigh, or even mask, any potentially adverse effects of mercury.”

“This research provided us the opportunity to study the role of polyunsaturated fatty acids on development and their potential to augment or counteract the toxic properties of mercury,” said Sean Strain, Ph.D., a professor of Human Nutrition at the Ulster University in Northern Ireland and lead author of the study. “The findings indicate that the type of fatty acids a mother consumes before and during pregnancy may make a difference in terms of their child’s future neurological development.”

The new study comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and international agencies are in the process of revisiting fish consumption advisories to better reflect the health benefits of nutrients found in fish. The FDA’s current guidance – which recommends that pregnant women limit their consumption of certain fish to twice a week – was established because of the known risk of high level mercury exposure on childhood development.

Mercury is found in the environment as a result of both natural and human (e.g. coal plant emissions) activity. Much of it ends up being deposited in the world’s oceans and, as a result, fish harbor the chemical in very small amounts.

This has given rise to concerns that the cumulative impact of prenatal exposure to mercury through fish consumption may have negative health outcomes, despite the fact that that a link between low-level exposure and developmental consequences in children has never been definitively established.

At the same time, fish are rich in a host of beneficial nutrients, including fatty acids, which are essential to brain development, leading to a long-standing exchange among scientists, environmentalists, and policymakers over the risk vs. benefit of fish consumption. This debate has significant consequences for global health, as billions of people across the world rely on fish as their primary source of protein.

The Seychelles Child Development Study – a partnership between the University of Rochester Ulster University, and the Republic of Seychelles Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education – is one of the longest and largest population studies of its kind. The Seychelles, a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean, has proven to be the ideal location to examine the potential health impact of persistent low-level mercury exposure. The nation’s 89,000 residents consume fish at a rate 10 times greater than the populations of the U.S. and Europe.

The study published today followed more than 1,500 mothers and their children. At 20 months after birth, the children underwent a battery of tests designed to measure their communication skills, behavior, and motor skills. The researchers also collected hair samples from the mothers at the time of their pregnancy to measure the levels of prenatal mercury exposure.

The researchers found that mercury exposure did not correlate with lower test scores. This finding tracked with the results of previous studies by the group – some of which have followed children in the Seychelles into their 20s – that have also shown no association between fish consumption and subsequent neurological development.

The researchers also measured the PUFA levels present in the pregnant women and found that the children of mothers with higher levels of fatty acids known as omega 3, or n3 – the kind found in fish – performed better on certain tests. Another common form of PUFA, called n6, comes from other meats and cooking oils and is found in greater abundance in the diets of residents of developed countries.

The fatty acids in fish (n3) are known to have anti-inflammatory properties, compared to n6, which can promote inflammation. One of the mechanisms by which mercury inflicts its damage is through oxidation and inflammation and this has led the researchers to speculate that not only does n3 provide more benefit in terms of brain development, but that these compounds may also counteract the negative effects of mercury.

This was reflected in the study’s findings, which showed that the children of mothers with relatively higher levels of n6 did poorer on tests designed to measure motor skills.

“It appears that relationship between fish nutrients and mercury may be far more complex than previously appreciated,” said Philip Davidson, Ph.D., the principal investigator of the Seychelles Child Development Study, a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester, and senior author of the study. “These findings indicate that there may be an optimal balance between the different inflammatory properties of fatty acids that promote fetal development and that these mechanisms warrant further study.”

Additional co-authors of the study include Sally Thurston, Gene Watson, Tanzy Love, Tristram Smith, Kelley Yost, Donald Harrington, and Gary Myers with the University of Rochester, Alison Yeates, Maria Mulhern, and Emeir McSorley with Ulster University, and Conrad Shamlaye and Juliette Henderson with the Republic of Seychelles Ministry of Health. The research was supported with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Government of Seychelles.

Read original post: http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/index.cfm?id=4238

New SeeStar camera system allows researchers to monitor the depths without sinking the budget

Note: CWPA is now planning to use this camera system in our squid research.

SeeStar camera system mounted on a tripod beneath the Antarctic ice near McMurdo Station. Image courtesy of Stacey Kim, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

To build equipment that can operate reliably in the deep sea, MBARI engineers must often use expensive, high-tech materials and complex electronic-control systems. This makes it difficult for researchers at other institutions to build similar equipment, and thus for MBARI to fulfill its goal of sharing its technology with researchers around the world. However, MBARI engineers recently designed a new underwater camera and lighting system which they hope will be simple and inexpensive enough so that almost any researcher could build one.

The SeeStar project, as it is called, began as the brainchild of marine biologist Steve Haddock and Electrical Engineer Chad Kecy. Haddock, an expert on jellies, wanted a cheap and easily deployable camera that researchers around the world could use to document jellyfish blooms. He also wanted a system that was versatile enough to be attached to a pier, mounted on a tripod on the seafloor, or carried by a robotic submarine.

In designing SeeStar, Kecy worked closely with Mechanical Engineer François Cazenave and Software Engineer Mike Risi. They ended up with a system that costs just under $3,000 in parts, but can operate as deep as 300 meters (almost 1,000 feet) for months at a time.

The three modules of the SeeStar System allow it to be mounted on many different platforms. Image: (c) 2013 MBARI

SeeStar has three parts—a camera, a battery pack, and LED lights—each contained in its own pressure housing. The pressure housings are made of relatively inexpensive PVC pipe with plastic end caps. Kecy said, “We tried to choose parts that you could buy at almost any hardware store—standard PVC tubing, stainless-steel rods and bolts… nothing too exotic.”

The three pressure housings are connected using commercially available flexible electrical cables. This modular construction makes SeeStar easy to attach to a variety of platforms. The team selected a camera made by GoPro because it was relatively inexpensive and easy to use. Kecy then designed a custom circuit board to control both the camera and the LED lights.

From the beginning, SeeStar was conceived as an open-source project. Kecy explained, “Our goal is to put enough information on the web for someone to build an entire system. There are written instructions, mechanical drawings, electrical schematics, circuit-board build files, and controller code up there on our website. It’s still a work in progress, but at least it’s up there… and we’ll be updating it as we improve the system.”

Kecy continued, “One of our biggest challenges was designing a general device that different people could use in different ways, rather than a specific device for a specific task. Doing open-source hardware required a different mindset from our normal engineering development process. We also wanted to keep costs down.”

Although SeeStar began as a system for counting jellies, it soon became apparent that the system could be used for all kinds of underwater research. By the end of 2013, other marine researchers began to hear about Kecy’s project. Soon he was being approached by a variety of organizations wanting to try out the camera.

Rockfish researchers recover a frame carrying a small SeeStar system and a larger, older camera system after a deployment in Monterey Bay. Image: Francois Cazanave (c) 2014 MBARI

Photograph taken by SeeStar of rockfish and anemones on the seafloor of Monterey Bay. By taking many such images over time, researchers hope to be able to monitor changes in fish populations. Image: (c) 2014 MBARI

One of the first outside groups to show interest in SeeStar was a group of researchers from the Nature Conservancy and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML), who were studying fish in Rockfish Conservation Areas along the US West Coast. As Kecy put it, “They had an existing camera system, but it was and bulky and expensive, and they were looking for one that was smaller and easier to use. They also wanted multiple cameras, which they could deploy in a number of locations simultaneously.”

Working with Cazenave, the researchers used SeeStar to collect short videos at 12 different locations on the seafloor of Monterey Bay, about 100 meters (330 feet) below the surface. They then used these videos to identify and count different types of fish. The group is presently evaluating SeeStar cameras as a tool for monitoring marine protected areas all along the US West Coast.

Another group, the California Wetfish Producers Association, used SeeStar to photograph the eggs and larvae of market squid. These squid support one of the most economically important fisheries on the California Coast, yet many aspects of their life cycles are still unknown.

Several MBARI researchers have also used SeeStar in their research. One group attached SeeStar to an underwater robot (an autonomous underwater vehicle or AUV) so that they could observe and count jellyfish in the open ocean.

Another MBARI group used a SeeStar-equipped AUV to follow a second robotic vehicle as it traveled across the ocean surface. Video from SeeStar confirmed that the AUV was able to track the surface vehicle closely, like a white shark stalking a sea lion. A third MBARI group is using SeeStar to document wear and tear on a buoy that generates electrical power from the ocean waves.

The most ambitious SeeStar project is currently under way in Antarctica, where researchers from MLML are using two SeeStar systems to study seafloor animals under the ice near McMurdo Station. In order to deploy the camera in this challenging environment, the researchers must first drill a 25-centimeter (10-inch) hole in the ice, then lower the camera on a folding tripod through the hole and down to the seafloor.

In December 2014, one of the Antarctic SeeStar systems successfully recorded still images of the seafloor every 20 minutes for an entire month. As of this writing, two SeeStar systems were just recovered from 200 meters (660 feet) beneath the ice. If this second deployment is successful, the team hopes to return next season to deploy SeeStar beneath the Antarctic ice for an entire year.

Photograph taken by SeeStar of market-squid eggs on the seafloor of Monterey Bay. Image: (c) 2014 MBARI

Even though the current version of SeeStar is relatively inexpensive, it still uses circuit boards and controllers that may be difficult for non-engineers to build. During 2015, the team will be addressing these issues in several different ways. They will investigate alternative cameras that could provide higher resolution still images and more control of exposure, as well as commercially available underwater lighting systems.Kecy also hopes to replace his existing camera controller board with a new board that works with the popular Arduino microcontrollers. This would make the system as a whole cheaper and easier to use, as well as providing more flexibility in operating the camera. Because an Arduino camera-controller board would have many uses beyond marine research, Kecy hopes that an open-source hardware company might be willing to manufacture and sell his board on line.Once Kecy has the Arduino controller system completed, he plans to take it to “Maker Faires” and similar hobbyist gatherings to generate interest from other potential users. This way, if the project takes off, the user community will come up with improvements of their own.Looking back on the evolution of the SeeStar project, Kecy said, “The most satisfying thing has been getting the camera out there and having people use it. I love it when researchers come back from a deployment and see the videos and are happy with them. It’s great to make something that people not only can use, but also something they get useful results from.”

Even though it is still in development, SeeStar is already letting marine researchers see things underwater that they’ve never seen before. It’s also helping MBARI in its continuing efforts to share its high-tech tools with the rest of the world.

MBARI YouTube video on this research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421828030&x-yt-cl=84411374&v=wZrmUTl8Z68

For more information on this article, please contact Kim Fulton-Bennett:
(831) 775-1835, kfb@mbari.org

Read original story: http://www.mbari.org/news/homepage/2015/seestar/seestar.html