May 21, 2019 • 59 mins
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe chat with deep sea marine biologist Diva Amon about life in the deep ocean -- from the wonderous organisms that thrive there to the human activities that threaten their future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick, and today we've got to treat for you.
It's a conversation with Dr Diva aim On. That's right.
(00:22):
This is a wonderful chat where we're gonna talk about
about deep sea exploration. What is it like to explore
the deep ocean from someone who's been there, um, and
then what sorts of organisms and ecosystems are we learning about,
How much do we not know about the deep ocean?
And what are some of the biggest threats facing the
deep ocean. Yeah, so this was a fascinating conversation. Obviously,
(00:42):
if you want a little bit of background, we've done
some episodes about the deep sea in the past. We'll
link to a few of those on the landing page
for this episode. I think we've done quite a few.
Within just the past six months or so, we've had
deep sea on the brain. Yeah. But the short version
is that the the ocean is deep. Uh. Is it
so deep that the pres sure down there is in
kins the darkness is absolute and yet even in this
(01:05):
cold and it's cold and even but even in these uh,
this environment that is so hostile to human life, uh,
there is a great abundance of marine life to be
found there and gorgeously strange and diverse habitats and ecosystems arise.
That's right. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Alright, Diva,
thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell
(01:27):
our listeners a little bit about yourself? So my name
is Dr Diva Ahman. I'm a deep se biologist who's
originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, but I'm
currently based at the Natural History Museum in London, in England.
And what do you do there? Um, Well, it really
varies day to day, um quite a lot. So probably
(01:49):
the best part of my job is actually going out
to see on what we call research cruises. Then nothing
like the cruises that most people think about. Um, they
don't involve you know, elderly individuals or all you can
eat buffase definitely not um. And yeah, that most of
all I do centers around that field work, which can
(02:11):
be for about you know, one to three months of
the year, um. Usually broken up into four to five
week periods, and when we're on that ship, we basically
explore parts of the deep sea that most people haven't
ever been to, that sometimes no one has ever been to,
and we collect samples of um animals, of the geology,
(02:33):
the rocks, and so on, water samples, and that allows
us to get a better understanding for that area of
the ocean. And then once the next the research crew
story is done, we bring everything back to the lab
and there we work on those samples for usually the
remainder of the year, and that involves doing, depending on
what questions we're asking, a variety of analysis. And then
(02:56):
I also do a lot of science communication because I
think it's super fun and super important and um that's
not just to the public, but also to policymakers to
try and make sure our oceans and managed in a
more a man in a more um sustainable and effective way. Yeah,
it's great. I love what I do. Oh, it sounds amazing.
(03:16):
So you talked about how science communication is a part
of your job. If you could isolate, you know, like
one thing that you really wish everyone could understand about
the oceans or the deep sea that not enough people
have grasped. But what do you think that messages Oh wow, UM,
perhaps the let me think about this one. Didn't mean
(03:39):
to put your on spots. No, no, no, it's great,
it's a great question. UM. I think it would probably
be two things. The unknown nature. You know, most people
never even think about the deepotion. It's completely out of sight,
out of mind, and that unfortunately has a lot of
implications for UM it's management and how we treat it. UM.
(04:03):
And while it may seem very out of sight and
out of mind, it actually is not out of our grasp. UM.
On every research cruise that we go on, we see
our impacts in the deep sea. And so it would
probably be to you know, have a home that even
though it's this place that most people never go to,
that most people will never get the opportunity to experience,
(04:25):
you know, we're still having a very very real impact
in this place that also is really really important to
us being here on the planet. And do changes in
the deep ocean and the deep sea, do we see
those having consequences that cascade out to you know, parts
of ecology in the world that we do interact with more. Yeah. Absolutely, So. Again,
(04:45):
not a lot of people realize that, you know, everything
is connected, and the deep otion is at the largest
ecosystem on the planet. You know, it occupies about sixty
of the planet's surface and provides over nineties ex percent
of all the habitable space on Earth. And so, I
mean this is really a huge area. And because of
(05:08):
that huge size, it has a really really big responsibility.
It plays a role in these global processes that really
regulate our planets, so things like regulating temperature. It absorbs
the majority I think it's absorbed about nine six percent
of heat from our atmosphere so far, as well as
(05:29):
a twentysomething percent I don't know the exact figure offhand
of carbon dioxide emissions, and so, you know, regulating the
world's climate, which we all know is getting more and
more important. It also cycles nutrients. It also detoxifies the
shallow parts of our planet um and it provides us
with you know, a range of resources which a lot
of people don't actually realize as well, things like food,
(05:50):
things like oil and gas in the future, potentially medicine,
and potentially metals. And there is of course this like
really inherent cultural value as well. You know, we see
the deep ocean and so many movies and so many books,
and that that ability to inspire is really something that
we shouldn't underestimate at all. So can you tell us
just a little bit about growing up in the Caribbean
(06:13):
and how you know how that it may have inspired
your interest in marine biology, but then also how you
ended up focusing on the deep sure without trying or
probably sound quite cheesy. Um. So I grew up in
the Caribbean, on the island, on the islands of Trinan, Tobago,
and I mean about thirty years ago. There wasn't that
(06:35):
much to do the back then, and so it meant
that I spent a lot of time outside um in
the garden, on the beach, in the ocean, and it
just gradually led to this real passion um for the
ocean and for the things that lived there. And there
were a lot of things that I really didn't understand
or didn't know about the sea and what lived in it,
(06:56):
and that really sort of propelled me to decide to
study University UM marine science. And funnily enough, I actually
wanted to do medicine UM and my parents were like, no, no, no, Um,
why don't you do something that you think you you know,
really will absolutely love, which again I'm very very grateful
(07:16):
for UM. And yeah, I decided to go and study
marine biology, and as I said, most people don't think
about the deep sea. When I went to do my
undergraduate degree, I knew very little apart from perhaps like
one or two animal books where there were pictures of
hatchet fish and you know, giant squid and other things.
But it just really wasn't It just didn't play a
(07:39):
big rule despite having grown up by the ocean and UM,
it wasn't until my final year really that everything sort
of fell into place where I took a deep sea
biology course and the lecturer was saying that, you know,
over of our deep ocean hasn't yet been explored, and
(08:03):
by explored, I mean visualized, like it hasn't been seen
with human eyes, or it hasn't been seen with a
camera that takes photos or images. And that just is
such a staggering figure considering we're talking about our own planet.
It really hit home that, you know, you to be
to be working in deep sea science, you get the
(08:25):
opportunity to be a real life explorer. And I think
is children everybody goes through a period of wanting to
do that, And yes, as I said earlier, I just
absolutely love what I do, and that's when I decided, hey,
I'm going to give us a shot, and since then
no regrets. Do you think you could sort of place
our current understanding of deep sea ecosystems and a little
(08:47):
bit of historical context like where do we come from
and where are we today in our understanding of these ecosystems?
So while it may sound abysmal, I mean the deepotion
never having been explored, um, it is better than it's
ever been. Right, our knowledge has increased to a point
in history, UM where we are able to make better
(09:11):
decisions than we ever have been. But it's still really
this sort of drop in the bucket, you know. True
deep seat exploration started I think in the sort of
eighteen hundreds UM. One of the biggest, one of the
most important expeditions, UM was the Challenger expedition, and that
went around the world really making the first concertive effort
(09:32):
to sample as much as they could in the deep sea.
But of course back then it was mostly you know,
a troll you throw off the back of the boat
and just sort of drag up whatever you can, whereas
now where the equipment that's being used is so high
tech and as a result expensive, which of course is
a very very big limitation, but it means that, yes,
(09:54):
I said, our knowledge is increasing. We're able to explore
these places that no one has ever been an incredible
really find detail and answer questions which have plagued us
for centuries um And unfortunately, still while that is great
and exciting, we still have a huge way to go
(10:15):
in order to be able to truly, you know, understand
our planet as best we can. Now. When when one
goes to your website diva aman dot com, it's done.
You know, you get a snapshot of all these different
expeditions that you've been a part of. But can you
(10:35):
explain to our listeners, like what what are the tools
of exploration that are generally involved in one of these expeditions? Yeah? So,
I mean the first one is you need a ship.
Not about a ship because usually you're going pretty far
away from land, and you're going out there for weeks
(10:56):
and you're never going to see a lot of time,
you never see land during that read um, and so
means your ship has to have everything you could possibly
need on it, you know, all the food provisions, that
you would need for that time, people to cook it,
people to drive, people to operate all the equipment science
and um, yeah, usually it's about fifty people or so
(11:17):
on one of these ships, and that's sort of the platform,
right that then everything else operates off of. And so now, yes,
we still use those more rudimentary pieces of equipment like
trolls which you throw off back steps, see what it gets.
It's not necessarily the best piece of equipment to use.
But but now there's also you know, other things like grabs.
(11:41):
You can lower down pieces of equipment like grabs and
cares that bring up you know, perfectly preserved areas of
a sleep full like one M by one m squared,
so that you can really get some good quantitative um numbers.
But then, I mean, but then you've got the really
excit eating equipment. And I know a lot of deep
(12:02):
se scientists thing to this will will curse me for
saying that. But I mean the things that get me
excited because I work on usually the really big animals,
animals you can see in images and animals you can
see in videos. And to do that we tend to
use what I think is is a lot of the
sexy stuff. So that'll be things like UM remotely operated vehicles,
(12:23):
which can be about the size of a car, and
they're basically our eyes and our ears on the sea floor,
on our hands on the sea floor. They are attached
to the ship by a tether and they are able
to go down I think the deepest currently for an
RV is six I'm not sure what other is in
(12:44):
feet or miles and um and they go down there
with lights, with baskets to put samples, with cameras with
a range of sensors on them, and they essentially do
our dirty work for us, because we can't actually just
you know, scuba dive down there given the extreme conditions.
But then there are also things like autonomous underwater vehicles
(13:05):
or a u v s, which are not attached to
the ship. They can be programmed to, for instance, run
a grid of UM imaging, so it takes take snapshots
in a really detailed grid, and they'll go off and
do it and then when they finished, they'll pop back
to the surface and we go by and we pick
them up, and they can do that for days, if
not weak sometimes. So again the technology is just has
(13:28):
increased to this incredible level but of course, you know,
the Creme della creme is really the submersibles, and that's
you know, one of most people's favorites because you actually
get to go down in those um usually they hold
between two and three people and they are very small
(13:50):
and uncomfortable, but they are your chariot down into this
world that few people get to go to. And yeah,
it's just to completely wild experience. And those also are
not attached to the ship, and they'll have, like the RVs,
a range of equipment on them, senses, baskets to put samples,
(14:10):
video cameras and images. But there you get the added
advantage of having or disadvantage whichever where you want to
look at, of having humans down there to actually you know,
make firsthand observations. I was just thinking about the role
of visual identification in in the kind of work you do.
I mean, what's it. Uh, could you talk a little
(14:34):
bit about what you know, that necessity of looking at
this strange world and being able to understand what you're
looking at sometimes from maybe poor visual data. Yeah, so
that's a big thing, and actually that has a lot.
It's a really big issue now because of course our
technology is increasing when leaps and bounds, and it means
that often because of those changes in UM, for instance,
(14:58):
photo resolution, you know, a out of imagery isn't actually
comparable on a scientific or statistical level anymore. So that
of course has its own problems UM. But with that said,
you know, it really is the level of equipment now
and that level of imagery is really giving us a
(15:18):
completely new way of looking at these environments. Like right
now you can do, for instance, three de mosaic ing
of hydrothermal events so that you can zoom in because
it's such high resolution and see you know, individuals sent
to me to size animals on this absolutely massive structure
UM and it's just yeah, revolutionizing the way that that
(15:42):
we understand the deepotion. What was the question again, I'm sorry,
maybe it wasn't a good question. I went off from
tangent and then I was like, wait, what, Well, actually
I'm more interested in that you just mentioned being able
to image hydrothermal vents, and I'm wondering if maybe you
could sort of paint a picture for us of some
of these major types of undersea ecosystems and habitats before
(16:07):
we get onto that. Can I put in one more
point for the other question. Absolutely, sorry, um so, I
was gonna say that, you know, while imagery is great
for deep sea biologists if you want to really characterize
an animal and fully understand, you know, if it's new
for instance, or or really what it is you unfortunately
(16:29):
images will only take you so far. It's really important
that you get a sample. Um you're unable to you know,
identify a new species given a name, go through that
process without having something in hand. And that's because there
are lots of animals that look very similar, um, superficially
from the outside, but actually you need to have either
(16:52):
really really fine detail of like how many hairs there
are on the fourth leg of this crab, for instance,
or that the DNA. They can look identical to us,
but their DNA is actually really really different. So images
really do only take you so far, and they're just
sort of one piece of that puzzle of understanding the
(17:13):
deep otion. I guess sorry, we could do the other
question now, that's great. Uh So, yeah, we're asking about
hydrothermal vince and other deep sea habitats, like can can
you sort of describe these and talk about the different
roles these habitats play when most people think of the
deep ocean, they just tend to think of this, you know, abyss,
(17:34):
it's dark, it's cold, and freeway on the planet. And
actually that's really really far from the truth. Just like
on land, there are a variety of habitats in our
deep seas. There are mountains, there are planes, there are trenches,
there are fields of corals and sponges, there are um,
(17:58):
even lakes at the bottom of the of the deep ocean.
I mean, it is just essentially like being on land,
where you just get a huge range um. And that
means that you know, with each of those habitats, you
get a not a completely different but usually a very
different fauna, so different communities live there. Um. And that
(18:20):
leads to the deep ocean having really really high diversity,
which yeah, not a lot of people realize. UM. And
some of them, I mean, they're all amazing, and so
many of them are so visually stunning. UM. But of
course I guess I have favorite some biased um, and
(18:42):
so those will be thing. Actually, I don't know, they're
all amazing, they're actual I'll take that back. I don't
have favorites. They're all actually they're all great. But I
mean Some of the ones that sort of jump out
are Brian pools because I mean who knew lakes at
the bottom of the sea. Hydrothermal vents, which are these
(19:02):
um sort of underwater volcanoes that gush this superheated black
fluid that looks like thick, thick, thick smoke and usually
has huge amounts of life living around them. You get
whale falls. So when a whale dies, yes, sometimes it
washes ashore, but a lot of the time will end
it down in the deep sea where it will prompt
(19:24):
this feeding bonanza. UM. On these seamounts you tend to
get like essentially the rainforests of the oceans. UM, they
can have these sponge and coral gardens that act as
trees almost and they provide cons like trees doing rainforests
for a huge variety of animals. And some of these environments,
(19:48):
you know, the animals are incredibly old. We're now beginning
to understand in the deep sea. So for instance, there
have been corals and the devotion found to be well
over four thousand years old, So that's like around the
time the wheel was invented. So there's one, you know,
there's there's probably more than one, but we know for
(20:09):
sure there's a species of animal that can live for
that long. I mean that just blows my mind, right, Um,
and yeah, it's just there's just huge variety and all
of the animals down there are just so weird but
so wonderful. It's just it's it's just fascinating, you know.
I know, you couldn't pick a favorite habitat. Do you
(20:30):
have personal favorite deep sea animals the ones that just
light you up the most? I mean, so in terms
of habitats, definitely, Brian pools are amazing. Brian pools are
three to eight times It's where basically water seawater that's
three to eight times saltier than the surrounding seawater settles
because of that density and essentially forms a lake on
(20:53):
the sea floor. And interestingly, you get these muscles and
other animals forming like a seashore around that that very
um salty water that's sitting on the sea floor. So
that's amazing. Um. Hydrothermal vents are amazing. Well, wheel folds
are amazing. I mean, we cover the habitats already, but
in terms of animals, of gosh, against such a hard question,
(21:16):
A couple that come to mind. Um definitely the hof crab.
I mean, who doesn't love the club. It's a white, hairy,
um blind crab that lives about two and a half
kilometers down off Antarctica in the deep ocean at these
(21:36):
hydrothermal vent environment sees underwater volcanoes. And what they do
is because and hydrothermal vents, that fluid that they gush,
that gushes out of them, it's really really rich in
chemicals like methane and hydrogen sulfide, and there was environments
those communities surrounding hydrothermal vents. Well, instead of using light
(22:00):
because there's no light in the deep sea apart from bioluminescence, um,
they will use these chemicals as their source of energy
in a process instead of photosynthesis and a process called chemosynthesis.
And that means that you know, you end up with
animals that are just so weird. And instead of having
(22:20):
plants as the primary producers like we do want land
and shallow waters, we have m bacteria the other primary producers,
and so they'll be these thick backed, white bacterial mats
growing all over these vents. But what is special about
the hof crab is that it will actually have those
bacteria growing on its body. So it has that that
(22:44):
hairy chest, those hairy arms um for the bacteria to
grow on. And so what it will do is it
will bathe itself in this warm, chemical rich fluid. The
bacteria will then grow and essentially then it will scrape
all of the bacteria off of its chest and off
of its arms and into its mouth and it's like
(23:05):
having its bomb and its body. I mean that sounds
our grocery. That sounds great to me, you know, it
just but yeah, they're just they're just the most fabulous
little animals. And they we now know because of work
by colleagues that they actually where they live on hydrothermal
events will be determined by their sex as well as
(23:28):
what reproductive status they're in. So they found that, you know,
the biggest um male hof crabs will move to the
tops of the chimneys, whereas the females who have eggs
will move further away from the hottest parts of the
chimney into more lukewarm water. I mean, it's just it's
(23:49):
just fascinating. But in case you didn't know, they're the
real name is a Yeti crabs because they look like
they vominable stowman or yet sy like. They've been nicknamed
the hoff crab um because they because of that hairy
chest aspect on the expedition, on the cruise, they were
basically someone drew an allergy between them and David Hasselhoff.
(24:11):
And yeah, and as far as I understand, he quite
enjoys the idea. So yeah, so it's a quirky one.
But then I mean there's also um an animal that
I worked on. While it may not be like visually
stunning it just as you know, a weird little thing
(24:33):
called ostax. It's a bone eating worm, and so it
lives only on the bones of dead animals in the
deep sea, especially on the largest one, so whales, for instance,
and that is the only place they have found. And
they have this sort of rich structure that they use
(24:54):
that secretes acid and allows them to dissolve the whale
bone and allow them to bury down into it like
a tree's roots to and then they're able to get
their food from those bones. And what is what is
amazing about them? You know, there's just so many sex
strategies in the deep sea that are so weird that
they all the ones that were that you can see
(25:16):
when you approach a whalefall on the deep sea floor,
m actually a female um but they have no one
knew whe the males were. It took ages for scientists
to understand. But it turns out the males are tiny,
tiny little blob like animals rather than this beautiful worm,
and they sit on the female's bodies in within their tube.
(25:40):
They have mixed tubes. Sometimes they sit within their mixed tubes,
and a female can have hundreds of them, um and
they're just there to provide her with sperm until they
essentially run out and then they die and then she'll
just replace them. And again that sounds great to me.
But um so just yeah, it's just this great easy
(26:00):
world down there with all of these mad animals that
it's like, you know, nature just went a bit crazy,
or rather evolution went a bit crazy. And I guess
that makes sense given how extreme the conditions are down
in the deep sea. You know, you really, evolution has
really sort of taken a turn and it's just a
great place to innovation. Well maybe they're the normal ones
(26:22):
and we're the weird ones. I mean exactly, And there
are these thoughts that you know, life did come from
the deep ocean, potentially from these hydrosenmal event environments, so
exactly who knows. All right, we need to take a
quick break. We'll be right back with more of our conversation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. All Right, we're back.
We're going to jump right back into the interview. So
(26:43):
you were just talking about these whalefall habitats, the whale
carcasses and the bone worms. We've discussed a bit on
the show before some research about shipwrecks sometimes playing a
similar role to whale carcasses at the bottom of the ocean.
Do you have any experience with shipwrecks as deep sea
habitats and any possible parallels there. Yeah, so it's such
(27:05):
a great question. By the way, when I got the email,
I was like, huh, interesting, because the deep ocean is
so food limited. There really is not a lot of
food to go around in the deep sea, and that's
because most of it comes from the sea surface um
in the form of dead plankton um both phyto and zooplankton.
(27:25):
But then also you get a fish and other things
that drift down, and then of course you get these
occasionally much larger packages of food like whales and would
um so trees when they wash out to sea and
so on, and they these for organic falls once they
get to the deep see, because they're able to be
(27:46):
broken down. They form this this huge source of food.
And as most of us know, you know a lot
of ships are actually made of wood. Um. And so
just like on land, how you have a variety of
animals that will eat wood break downward. Um, it's the
same thing in the deep sea. And so I know
when was it in twenty seventeen, I was on an
(28:06):
expedition UM in the Gulf of Mexico exploring areas there,
and we came across eighteenth century vessel and because it
was wood made of wood, but it actually had copper
cladding along the front of it. And so you could
see that all the wood, or a lot of the
would rather not all of it had been consumed and
(28:29):
eaten away. And you can see the little boring holes
by lots of animals. Um. But because of that, would
you actually get similar um processes happening to those that
happen at whalefall. So at whalefalls, they will go through
different stages in terms of animals eating them and The
(28:50):
second to last stage is where they essentially become chemosynthetics,
so similar to the hydrothermal events, they because of the
degradation of all that food organic matter, it results in
a lot of the oxygen being removed from the water,
and then a whole new set of life that can
live without oxygen moves in and results and uses these
(29:13):
chemicals and are now being emitted from the wood and
the sea floor. And that's exactly what happens at these
at some of these shipwrecks, you get these and because
of the acumums and possess you get this thick bacterial map,
these white thick back to your maps, and a very
specific set of fauna moving in to make the most
of that environment. But they essentially end up as this
(29:34):
sort of hub of deep sea life because while a
lot of the deep sea may look barren, of course
it's not. But compared to a lot of the deep sea,
they end up with a huge abundance of animals, big
diversity of species. And that's just the wood ones. I mean.
Then you also get the ones that are made of
less degradable materials like metal or fiberglass, and those are
(30:00):
very similar to the final stage of whale falls um.
So once all the nutrients has been removed from a whalefall,
whether it's the flesh of the whale or the nutrients
from the bones, the bones essentially just become a structure,
a physical structure on the sea floor like a rock,
and as a result, animals will move in that can
(30:23):
sit movement little, so for instance, a coral or a
sea star will sit on top of the whale fall
on top of the bones, and that will allow them
to project up into the away from the sea floor
where currents can be slower because of the friction, and
it allows them to get much more food. And so
(30:44):
it really is you know, pretty good to for them
to propel themselves off the sea floor. And that's the
same thing that happens at a lot of shipwrecks. They
provide this habitat because of that structure, because of that
physical um distance from the sea floor, for a lot
of animals to attach to so that they can get
(31:04):
up into the water column and get more food, but
also for a lot of animals to hide and shelter in.
So they really are interesting. And another thing that a
lot of people don't realize is you know, some whale falls,
it's thought can last for over a hundred years on
the sea floor, and we know that shipwrecks also can
last for a very very long time on the deep
(31:25):
sea floor as well. So a lot of analogies that interesting.
So one thing I was reading that you had written
about was about deep water exploration in the Mariana region.
I read where you mentioned that you can sometimes just
come across these masses of strange organisms that nobody on
(31:45):
the team can identify. Can can you talk to something
about that experience. I mean, it's not just in the
Marianas region, it's just globally in the deep sea m
I'd say on nearly every research crew that I've been on,
that has happened um And I'm sure other DPC scientists
would tell you the same. And that's just a nod
(32:07):
to the how little exploration there's been. But it's just
this really humbling feeling. You know, often as scientists, a
lot of people think that we have all the answers,
but really working in the deepotion reminds us that we
we don't. Um On every on every research cruise we
go on, we see new animals, we see new habitats um.
(32:28):
And yeah, I think not a lot of people realize
that that's the case. Most people think that, you know,
we know everything about our about our planet, about our oceans,
but really we're very very far away from that. Was
that kind of where you're going with that question or
were you opening at something else? No, of course that's true.
I was wondering also, I mean, if there were any
experiences that stood out to you about specific things you
(32:50):
saw and you mentioned in the piece I was reading
about just like strange white spheres and like green wiry things.
I think that they didn't have named that was I
mean that? Okay, So on every expedition, yes, we find animals.
We don't know exactly what species they are, or maybe
even what genus they are, maybe even what family they
(33:11):
are in that taxonomic classification. But yeah, occasionally you get
you get you see these things and you're like, I
don't even know whether that's a line, whether that's a
plant or because of course you don't really get plants
in the deep sea because there's don't light, or you
don't get plants in the deep sea unless they're dead. Um,
and so you just you know, you're like, how is this,
(33:33):
How is this happening? How can I not even understand
the basic classification of this animal? And that happened quite
a lot in the Mariana region. Actually, um, you're right.
We saw these sort of green thread like structures that
were um hanging off of deep sea corals in the current,
and so we thought that maybe maybe it was algae
(33:53):
that had you know, gotten further down to the deep sea,
and then was the current had blown in and then
it's sort of snagged. But then the weirdest one definitely
was were these spares. They were only a couple maybe
a centimeter a couple of millimeters across, but there were
the housands of them just all on the sea floor.
And we had on that expedition because we were able
(34:16):
to stream the dives live. It was on the Okeanos Explorer,
the No A ship O Pianist Explorer, and they stream
all of their dives live, and it means that the
public can watch, and it means that a lot of
scientists who aren't able to be on the ship because
of constraints of space, but perhaps also they have other
things going on, they can watch and join in and
communicate with us. So it means we really have a
(34:38):
much larger wealth of knowledge. But again, in that case,
you know, we had dozens of scientists on the core
with us, on the dive with us, and no one
was able to say what those spears were. And we
saw them several times during that expedition. We tried to
pick them up, we tried to crush them with the
r V manipulator that r V hands, and it just
(35:00):
we yeah, we were We narrowed it down to about
five things, but we still don't know for sure. And
that was three years ago, you know, and that's just
a really common in the deep seat. Yeah, so I
love the the sense of scientific wonder and discovery. You know,
(35:20):
you're you're able to relay about the deep ocean, and
we're gonna come We're gonna come back to that towards
the end. But but I wanted to ask a few
questions though about about the threats that the deep sea
ecosystems are facing. What are the biggest threats to deep
sea ecosystems today? So the biggest threats Okay, there's a
(35:41):
huge suite of things that are impacting the deep sea um,
but currently it's probably fishing um. There's actually a lot
of deep ocean fishing, and a lot of it can
be very very destructive practices. So things like trawling, which
essentially just clear cuts communities. Nothing is left unscathed. And when,
(36:02):
for instance, when the corals and sponges those rainforests are
are broken and disturbed, then it means the habitat for
lots of other animals is lost, and that happens in
in a lot of our world's deepotions. But then there's
also you know, pollution. We're hearing a lot these days
about plastic, but there's lots of other materials. I mean,
(36:23):
people used to even though it's illegal now, UM, people
used to purposefully dump into the deep sea because it
was sort of this essentially bottomless pit, you know, it
was once thought to be. And so there's been things
like pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, it's been dumped in the Puerto Rico Trench,
and UM, ammunition and chemical weapons that have been dumped
(36:47):
off of U in the Pacific and off Hawaii and
so on. UM. But that's changing. But of course there's
still a lot of stuff that gets into the deep sea,
not on purpose, right, whether it is plastic, but wash
is out to sea in rivers, or something that blows
off a ship um and unfortunately, you know, it's it's
a reality. On every research cruise that I've been on,
(37:09):
we've come across our trash on the deep sea floor
from the Antarctic to the Mariana Trench. And I'm not
sure if you've been watching the news, but there was
someone who broke the record for the deepest dive um
in our world's oceans and then Marianna Trench just this week,
and when he got down there, you know, he found
trash and that really is a very sad reality, but
(37:33):
that's those those pieces of trash are sort of the
part of the things that are easy to see and
easy to understand. But there's also lots of impacts that
we can't see. So things like chemical pollution. Some of
the animals in the Mariana Trench and other parts of
the deep otion have been found to have incredibly high
levels of really destructive chemicals in their bodies, things like
(37:54):
PCBs and so on. Then now plastics were realizing breakdown
in of microplastics and those end up in the deep
otion and a lot of animals actually eat them, and
no one is really sure what effect that's having. On them,
and then of course we've got this huge umbrella over
everything of climate change. It's happening globally. It is the
(38:18):
biggest environmental crisis and one of the biggest crises in
general to face our planet. And the deep sea is
no exception. Um, whether it is rising temperatures, whether it
is um ocean a certification because of that, or also deoxygenation,
all of those things are happening in our deep oceans
(38:39):
and they're almost sort of we we think, and there's
you know, research we're in the recent you know, decade
or so happening on this, and more and more happening
on this that actually, though the impacts of climate change
may be exacerbating some of the other impacts that are
already happening, and so we're having these sort of cumulative
(39:02):
impacts that we don't quite understand yet. And you know,
this lack of lack of understanding, that lack of science
is really a huge barrier to being able to deal
with these impacts. Um, it really really is a big problem.
I was actually I don't know the answer to this.
I wonder if you do, so, how does in previous
(39:25):
mass extinctions that have taken place on the Earth. I
know many ocean organisms are affected, but in the deep sea.
Do we think that the deep sea is usually more
affected or less affected or about equally affected to other
ecosystems when there's a massive mass extinction? Oh my god,
this is a really hard question. I'll give you a
very broad answer, just because I'm not like certain. But
(39:50):
there have been a range of extinction events that have
happened on the planet, and usually um, while in our oceans,
you know, a lot of the lie in a lot
of in most of the oceans deep and shallow have died. Um.
It is thought in some of them that you know,
that is where life remained and that is where life
(40:11):
was able to recolonize from. But that shouldn't really be
you know, shouldn't really give us any hope. Well down there, no, no,
they won't. UM. So it really is about, you know,
changing the way that we're sort of treating our planet.
And especially as you know, the technology is increasing, the
(40:35):
demand is increasing for resources because of these increasing global populations,
increasing standards of living, and that means that we're pushing
deeper and deeper into our oceans to get these basic
resources that we lie on fishing is a big one food,
but there's also things like you know, deep sea mining
(40:56):
is on the horizon UM for those metals that we
need for our laptops, our cell phones, our renewable energy UM.
And then there's also UM things like marine genetic resources.
So because the deep sea is this really extreme place
and animals have evolved so so much down there, they
(41:18):
thought that they met they might have a lot of
properties and compounds that might be really useful to us. UM. So,
for instance, antibiotic resistance is going to be again one
of the biggest challenges facing humanity, and so now there's
a big push to look to the deep ocean for
antibiotics and other types of medicine for instance, that you know,
(41:38):
may be able to help combat that issue in the future. UM.
And so that's this is this is increasing and we
really do need to think about how we regulate our
deep otions because a lot of them aren't very well
regulated because they sit in international waters UM or areas
beyond national jurisdictions. The term that people are using these days,
(42:01):
and that means that you know, they've been really loosely
regulated and managed UM up to today, and that's changing.
But slowly. Now in terms of deep sea mining, you
mentioned how that is that's on the horizon, what can
be done and what is being done to to to
curve and prevent destruction from from those enterprises. So the
(42:30):
the deep ocean is the clothes. While it is not pristine,
it's the closest ecosystem we have on the planet to
one that is pristine. And you know, historically we haven't
been a great species. For instance, on land and shallow waters.
We exploited lots of environments without having a very good
understanding of them, and so things went arrived very quickly,
(42:53):
and we've been doing that for millennia right longer UM.
And but with the deep sea we have this real
opportunity to understand what exists there prior to exploitation so
that we can essentially better value and better manage it. UM.
So there is science being done very slowly, not quickly enough,
(43:18):
which is a problem, but it is sort of ticking
over and right now. What there are two really big
processes happening globally UM. One is at the United Nations
a process called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Negotiations UM,
and that is essentially to try and put laws and
(43:38):
regulations in place to manage international waters because currently they're
sort of this UM. They're called the common heritage of humankind,
and that means that they belong to everyone on the planet.
They belong to everyone that's yet to come on the planet,
(43:58):
and as a result, they sort of belong to no one, right,
So there's that catch twin two. So now there's this
process happening at the u N to manage these areas
and all of the life within them more responsibly UM,
and hopefully, you know, within the next two to three
years that will be concluded with a really strong UM
(44:19):
set of regulations so that we can really begin to
step it up. Also happening is related to deep sea
mining is again another process. It's deep se mining. Well,
all mineral resources in the deep ocean is governed by
a body called the International Seabed Authority UM, and they
(44:39):
are an intergovernmental body and they right now are going
through a similar process as that of BBNG, where they
are trying to put in place the regulations that will
govern mining if it ever does begin UM. And it's
really important that those regulations be grounded in rigorous science,
(45:00):
because again that is really one of those key limiting factors. Hey,
our understanding. UM. But you know, it's a great start,
and so the next five years to ten years are
going to be hugely important for our oceans and as
a result, hugely important for our planet. UM. And we
(45:22):
just kind of have to keep our hopes up and
keep engaging and keep hoping that um, you know that
really strong regulations emerge and as a result, everyone will
be much much better for that. But it remains to
be seen. Okay, time to take a quick break, but
we will be right back. Thank Alright, we're back, and
(45:44):
we're going to jump right back into the interview on
top of urging for you know, the right kind of
large scale policy is to fight climate change and to
you know, try to prevent the destruction of these habitats
by industry. Is there is there anything really that that
individual people can do to help or is this really
something that just has to be addressed on the large scale? UM?
(46:05):
I mean both. Definitely, the large scale process is so
so important, UM. But I mean something that you know
anyone can do is become responsible consumers. You know, I
know when people here this all the time, but ask
where your fish is coming? From ask how it was caught, Um,
you know in the Mariana Trench, that plastic bag that
(46:26):
ended up over ten kilometers down there. Um, someone had
to take that from a grocery, right. So it's about
you know, really behaving responsibly because everything on the planet
is connected, um, and all of our actions have an impact.
And I think something else is really you know, educating
(46:46):
yourself about the oceans, about what lives there, um, and
then sort of educating others because that's the way that
we can really influence change in our communities. And that's
where a lot of um impetus can be placed on policymakers. Right.
Without that that backing of the public, sometimes a lot
of stuff doesn't get done. So really it's just about
(47:07):
that knowledge increasing it awesome, Robert. So we did have
a few things from from Robert's son's class that we Yeah,
it just happened that my son's for one of his
first grade grade classes, they're they're discussing their covering of
marine biology and discussing various ocean layers. So I reached
(47:29):
out to them. Right for first grade. I was like, wow,
I wish my school was like but but yeah, I
reached out to him, and I said, you know, we're
we're chatting with an expert this week. Maybe the class
has some questions they would like to to ask, so
so I'm going to ask them on their behalf. Here
these are actual questions from first graders about marine biology
(47:50):
and the deep ocean. So the first one is how
do animals in the midnight zone handle the water pressure?
I mean, that's a super specific question. I'm pretty sure
when I was in first bird, I didn't know what
the midnight zone was. I'm pretty sure up until like
ten years ago, I didn't know what the midnights. But
I asked with the zeal of a child who just
learned about the midnight zone. You've got to know great, um.
(48:14):
But this this unfortunately isn't my area of expertise, but
especially the midnight zone. But I'll give a more broad answer. UM.
So many fish and any and lots of other animals
that live in the deep ocean. One of the ways
they handle that huge change in water pressure, UM, is
that they don't have air pockets in their bodies. So
(48:36):
if you think about us, we have our lungs and
those that has air in it, right, And that is
the reason that we one of the reasons that we're
unable to go into the deep sea because they were
at that air would essentially become really really compressed and
eventually we would just squish. Um. But a lot of
animals get around that by just not having those air
(48:57):
pockets um and are largely composed of water, and so
if you're essentially the same material as what you're living in,
it means that the pressure when you when that when
it changes, can remain sort of balanced. But unfortunately, fun
fact a bit morbid. Um. When some fish in the
(49:18):
depotion do have those air bladders in them, and when
you you know, when we're doing our science, if we
were to collect one of them and then bring it
to the surface, because of that change in pressure. When
you're really deep down, um, every air is very compressed,
but as you move shallower it expands because of that
(49:41):
difference in pressure, and a lot of those fish, because
of that air pocket in them, the air will actually
expand as they're coming to the sea surface, and sometimes
they end up like exploding, or their stomach comes out
of their mouth, or their eyes bug out. It's just
and right, not very pretty. We actually talked about this
(50:03):
in an episode not too long ago. The the version
of the stomach from was it a rock fish, I
think when they get pulled up from deep pressure, Yeah,
exactly so. And not just rock fish, but you know
any deeps fish that have have these air pockets. It
just I can imagine it's not a very nice experience
for them to go through. All right, Well, here's another
(50:24):
first grade question. How do animals without sight find food
in the ocean? And that's a great question because in
the deep sea, there's no light once you go past
about four meters depth. Sun cannot get down there, and
so that means that a lot of animals either if
they do have eyes, they can't see very well or
(50:45):
they just flat up don't have eyes. Right, So it's
really really important in the deep otion that they have
another way to find their food. Um. So there's two
main ways. One is that they can use they have
chemical senses. So just like how when your mom is
making your favorite meal and you're in your bedroom and
you can smell it wafting up the stairs. Um, animals
(51:07):
can do the same. They can detect these chemicals in
the water and then because of currents bringing that chemical,
those chemicals to them, just like how the wind would
bring us the scent of the food. They can follow
that to wherever that that parcel of food maybe. And
the other way is they can have it's the big
(51:29):
word mechano sensory cues. So what that means is that
they will have, for instance, um structures along their body,
like little lateral lines or little hairs that make them
extra sensitive for picking up vibrations in the water. So
it's like how if you were to go outside and
you were to feel a breeze on your arm. Animals
(51:52):
can do that, but sleeps the animals can do that,
but on a much greater scale. So if there was,
for instance, a dying fish down the deep sea that
was sort of flapping about making lots of movement, or
something like a dead whale had just drifted down to
deep sea and then hit the sea floor with a
big thump, animals will be able to pick up those
(52:12):
vibrations and then again follow them to find the next meal,
which is pretty cool, awesome. Well, um, they have the
first graders ask a few more questions. But you've you've
you've hit on most of the answers already. But but
I will close one of their questions was, what's the
most interesting thing you've seen in the ocean. You've already
(52:32):
shared a number of different, um, you know, fascinating examples
of ecosystems and organisms. But I wonder if there's if
there's there's one more ecosystem or organism that you would
like to highlight before we close out, or something anomalous old.
(52:53):
It's just it's so hard because you know, on every
single research could we go on, we see amazing things. Right,
It's just not an exaggeration. Um oh um. Perhaps. I
mean I've had a number of really memorable experiences. Um.
So a couple that are jumping to mind. Uh um.
(53:16):
When we were exploring the deep sea in the Antarcticum,
I remember my first morning on the ship. This isn't
necessarily in the ocean, in the deep sea, but I
remember my first morning on the ship. I was brushing
my teeth looking out the window, Um, just at the
amazing you know, we can see any land or any icebergs.
But I was just looking at the view and all
(53:37):
of a sudden there was a splitsh splash right by
the window. I was like, what was that? And then
it was just this huge flock of chin strap penguins
just you know, sort of swam by, and that was
just I mean, I'll never forget that. That was just
an incredible experience, of course, and I started brushing my
teeth and ran outside with my camera and stayed out
there for like four hours. But but apart from that, um,
(54:01):
something anomalous would be it was it was actually a
bit sad um again in the Gulf of Mexico in
we were going to be exploring what we thought was
a shipwreck. We had found a shipwreck a couple of
days earlier that no one had been too since it
had been on the sea floor, had known was there.
(54:24):
And we were really excited because we were hoping to
do that again. Um. And you know, we had bets
going on board for how old it would be, what
kind of vessel it would be, what would be living
on it. Everyone was really really excited, and because it
really is exploration in like the truest sense, right, Um.
But when we got to it, it turned out it
(54:46):
wasn't a ship at all, and in fact was a
shipping container that had obviously fallen off a ship in
a storm or something and had exploded on the sea floor,
and as a result, we found the r O V
driving through this field of fridges, washing machines, dryers, chest freezers, dishwashers.
(55:12):
Like it was just the most surreal experience because you're
like two kilometers down in an area of the Gulf
of Mexico no one has ever been before. And yet
still hair is all of our trash just sitting on
the sea floor, you know, like common common goods that
we all have in our home. And then there are
all these way deep sea animals like living on them
(55:33):
or swimming around them, and you're like, what is going on?
I don't understand. Um. And then apart from that, um,
I mean one of some of my favorites. It never
gets old seeing octopus in the deep sea, especially dumbo
octopus that have the flaps on the side of their heads.
(55:54):
I mean, they're just so adorable. Um. And also deep
sea sharks are super cool. Um. And usually we see
a couple of those on on a lot of exhibitions.
On we were off Brazil about yeah, two years ago,
and um, we were diving in submersibles, which of course
is always so much fun. Um, and remind me to
tell you something funny after uh, And we yeah, on
(56:18):
every single dive we were off Brazil, off these rocks
called Saint Paul's and Saint Peter's Rocks, which are smack
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, and
we on every expedition, on every sorry dive in the submersible,
we I guess they were attracted by the by by
the vibration, the noise, the lights, I don't know, but
(56:39):
but on every single dive we were joined by huge
six girls sharks. And there are sharks that predominantly stay
in the deep ocean and can get to really really
big sizes, and so that was super exciting to be
able to see those you know, in their in their habitat.
And then I'll end, I guess with like a funny
(56:59):
fact for from all the kids is that you know,
you when you go down and submersible. It's the most
crazy experience. And I'm sure in your lifetimes people will
be able to do that when they go on holiday. Right. Um,
But things that people don't really think about that there's
no toilet on submersible. In fact, like it's so small
(57:24):
that you know you're usually touching the two other people
that you're in there with, and you may not know
them very well, right, So just something to ponder when
sometimes you're in there for like nine hours, what do
you do? Right? So yeah, yeah, that's that's a kind
of my my. Yeah. Fun, So you pose the question,
(57:46):
but you don't answer it. I can answer it, but yeah,
I'm just figured we'd leave it up to them. Some
think well that this has been so wonderful. Thank you
so much for joining us today. My absolute pleasure. This
has been really really fun. All right, So there you
(58:07):
have it. Thanks again to Dr Diva Aimon for coming
on the show chatting with us again. If you want
to check out more about her work, you can check
out our website. That's a great first stop. Uh, it's
a diva Aman dot com. It's d I v A
a m o in. She's also on social media. We're
going to make sure that our accounts are are linking
(58:29):
to hers on the various social platforms where we're sharing
this episode. That's right, so huge, Thanks as always of
course to Dr Diva Amon for joining us today, but
also to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tary Harrison.
If you would like to get in touch with us
directly with feedback on this episode, Uh, to suggest a
topic for the future, to suggest a guest for the future,
(58:51):
for just to say hello. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(59:13):
listen to your favorite shows.
My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick, and today we've got to treat for you.
It's a conversation with Dr Diva aim On. That's right.
(00:22):
This is a wonderful chat where we're gonna talk about
about deep sea exploration. What is it like to explore
the deep ocean from someone who's been there, um, and
then what sorts of organisms and ecosystems are we learning about,
How much do we not know about the deep ocean?
And what are some of the biggest threats facing the
deep ocean. Yeah, so this was a fascinating conversation. Obviously,
(00:42):
if you want a little bit of background, we've done
some episodes about the deep sea in the past. We'll
link to a few of those on the landing page
for this episode. I think we've done quite a few.
Within just the past six months or so, we've had
deep sea on the brain. Yeah. But the short version
is that the the ocean is deep. Uh. Is it
so deep that the pres sure down there is in
kins the darkness is absolute and yet even in this
(01:05):
cold and it's cold and even but even in these uh,
this environment that is so hostile to human life, uh,
there is a great abundance of marine life to be
found there and gorgeously strange and diverse habitats and ecosystems arise.
That's right. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Alright, Diva,
thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell
(01:27):
our listeners a little bit about yourself? So my name
is Dr Diva Ahman. I'm a deep se biologist who's
originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, but I'm
currently based at the Natural History Museum in London, in England.
And what do you do there? Um, Well, it really
varies day to day, um quite a lot. So probably
(01:49):
the best part of my job is actually going out
to see on what we call research cruises. Then nothing
like the cruises that most people think about. Um, they
don't involve you know, elderly individuals or all you can
eat buffase definitely not um. And yeah, that most of
all I do centers around that field work, which can
(02:11):
be for about you know, one to three months of
the year, um. Usually broken up into four to five
week periods, and when we're on that ship, we basically
explore parts of the deep sea that most people haven't
ever been to, that sometimes no one has ever been to,
and we collect samples of um animals, of the geology,
(02:33):
the rocks, and so on, water samples, and that allows
us to get a better understanding for that area of
the ocean. And then once the next the research crew
story is done, we bring everything back to the lab
and there we work on those samples for usually the
remainder of the year, and that involves doing, depending on
what questions we're asking, a variety of analysis. And then
(02:56):
I also do a lot of science communication because I
think it's super fun and super important and um that's
not just to the public, but also to policymakers to
try and make sure our oceans and managed in a
more a man in a more um sustainable and effective way. Yeah,
it's great. I love what I do. Oh, it sounds amazing.
(03:16):
So you talked about how science communication is a part
of your job. If you could isolate, you know, like
one thing that you really wish everyone could understand about
the oceans or the deep sea that not enough people
have grasped. But what do you think that messages Oh wow, UM,
perhaps the let me think about this one. Didn't mean
(03:39):
to put your on spots. No, no, no, it's great,
it's a great question. UM. I think it would probably
be two things. The unknown nature. You know, most people
never even think about the deepotion. It's completely out of sight,
out of mind, and that unfortunately has a lot of
implications for UM it's management and how we treat it. UM.
(04:03):
And while it may seem very out of sight and
out of mind, it actually is not out of our grasp. UM.
On every research cruise that we go on, we see
our impacts in the deep sea. And so it would
probably be to you know, have a home that even
though it's this place that most people never go to,
that most people will never get the opportunity to experience,
(04:25):
you know, we're still having a very very real impact
in this place that also is really really important to
us being here on the planet. And do changes in
the deep ocean and the deep sea, do we see
those having consequences that cascade out to you know, parts
of ecology in the world that we do interact with more. Yeah. Absolutely, So. Again,
(04:45):
not a lot of people realize that, you know, everything
is connected, and the deep otion is at the largest
ecosystem on the planet. You know, it occupies about sixty
of the planet's surface and provides over nineties ex percent
of all the habitable space on Earth. And so, I
mean this is really a huge area. And because of
(05:08):
that huge size, it has a really really big responsibility.
It plays a role in these global processes that really
regulate our planets, so things like regulating temperature. It absorbs
the majority I think it's absorbed about nine six percent
of heat from our atmosphere so far, as well as
(05:29):
a twentysomething percent I don't know the exact figure offhand
of carbon dioxide emissions, and so, you know, regulating the
world's climate, which we all know is getting more and
more important. It also cycles nutrients. It also detoxifies the
shallow parts of our planet um and it provides us
with you know, a range of resources which a lot
of people don't actually realize as well, things like food,
(05:50):
things like oil and gas in the future, potentially medicine,
and potentially metals. And there is of course this like
really inherent cultural value as well. You know, we see
the deep ocean and so many movies and so many books,
and that that ability to inspire is really something that
we shouldn't underestimate at all. So can you tell us
just a little bit about growing up in the Caribbean
(06:13):
and how you know how that it may have inspired
your interest in marine biology, but then also how you
ended up focusing on the deep sure without trying or
probably sound quite cheesy. Um. So I grew up in
the Caribbean, on the island, on the islands of Trinan, Tobago,
and I mean about thirty years ago. There wasn't that
(06:35):
much to do the back then, and so it meant
that I spent a lot of time outside um in
the garden, on the beach, in the ocean, and it
just gradually led to this real passion um for the
ocean and for the things that lived there. And there
were a lot of things that I really didn't understand
or didn't know about the sea and what lived in it,
(06:56):
and that really sort of propelled me to decide to
study University UM marine science. And funnily enough, I actually
wanted to do medicine UM and my parents were like, no, no, no, Um,
why don't you do something that you think you you know,
really will absolutely love, which again I'm very very grateful
(07:16):
for UM. And yeah, I decided to go and study
marine biology, and as I said, most people don't think
about the deep sea. When I went to do my
undergraduate degree, I knew very little apart from perhaps like
one or two animal books where there were pictures of
hatchet fish and you know, giant squid and other things.
But it just really wasn't It just didn't play a
(07:39):
big rule despite having grown up by the ocean and UM,
it wasn't until my final year really that everything sort
of fell into place where I took a deep sea
biology course and the lecturer was saying that, you know,
over of our deep ocean hasn't yet been explored, and
(08:03):
by explored, I mean visualized, like it hasn't been seen
with human eyes, or it hasn't been seen with a
camera that takes photos or images. And that just is
such a staggering figure considering we're talking about our own planet.
It really hit home that, you know, you to be
to be working in deep sea science, you get the
(08:25):
opportunity to be a real life explorer. And I think
is children everybody goes through a period of wanting to
do that, And yes, as I said earlier, I just
absolutely love what I do, and that's when I decided, hey,
I'm going to give us a shot, and since then
no regrets. Do you think you could sort of place
our current understanding of deep sea ecosystems and a little
(08:47):
bit of historical context like where do we come from
and where are we today in our understanding of these ecosystems?
So while it may sound abysmal, I mean the deepotion
never having been explored, um, it is better than it's
ever been. Right, our knowledge has increased to a point
in history, UM where we are able to make better
(09:11):
decisions than we ever have been. But it's still really
this sort of drop in the bucket, you know. True
deep seat exploration started I think in the sort of
eighteen hundreds UM. One of the biggest, one of the
most important expeditions, UM was the Challenger expedition, and that
went around the world really making the first concertive effort
(09:32):
to sample as much as they could in the deep sea.
But of course back then it was mostly you know,
a troll you throw off the back of the boat
and just sort of drag up whatever you can, whereas
now where the equipment that's being used is so high
tech and as a result expensive, which of course is
a very very big limitation, but it means that, yes,
(09:54):
I said, our knowledge is increasing. We're able to explore
these places that no one has ever been an incredible
really find detail and answer questions which have plagued us
for centuries um And unfortunately, still while that is great
and exciting, we still have a huge way to go
(10:15):
in order to be able to truly, you know, understand
our planet as best we can. Now. When when one
goes to your website diva aman dot com, it's done.
You know, you get a snapshot of all these different
expeditions that you've been a part of. But can you
(10:35):
explain to our listeners, like what what are the tools
of exploration that are generally involved in one of these expeditions? Yeah? So,
I mean the first one is you need a ship.
Not about a ship because usually you're going pretty far
away from land, and you're going out there for weeks
(10:56):
and you're never going to see a lot of time,
you never see land during that read um, and so
means your ship has to have everything you could possibly
need on it, you know, all the food provisions, that
you would need for that time, people to cook it,
people to drive, people to operate all the equipment science
and um, yeah, usually it's about fifty people or so
(11:17):
on one of these ships, and that's sort of the platform,
right that then everything else operates off of. And so now, yes,
we still use those more rudimentary pieces of equipment like
trolls which you throw off back steps, see what it gets.
It's not necessarily the best piece of equipment to use.
But but now there's also you know, other things like grabs.
(11:41):
You can lower down pieces of equipment like grabs and
cares that bring up you know, perfectly preserved areas of
a sleep full like one M by one m squared,
so that you can really get some good quantitative um numbers.
But then, I mean, but then you've got the really
excit eating equipment. And I know a lot of deep
(12:02):
se scientists thing to this will will curse me for
saying that. But I mean the things that get me
excited because I work on usually the really big animals,
animals you can see in images and animals you can
see in videos. And to do that we tend to
use what I think is is a lot of the
sexy stuff. So that'll be things like UM remotely operated vehicles,
(12:23):
which can be about the size of a car, and
they're basically our eyes and our ears on the sea floor,
on our hands on the sea floor. They are attached
to the ship by a tether and they are able
to go down I think the deepest currently for an
RV is six I'm not sure what other is in
(12:44):
feet or miles and um and they go down there
with lights, with baskets to put samples, with cameras with
a range of sensors on them, and they essentially do
our dirty work for us, because we can't actually just
you know, scuba dive down there given the extreme conditions.
But then there are also things like autonomous underwater vehicles
(13:05):
or a u v s, which are not attached to
the ship. They can be programmed to, for instance, run
a grid of UM imaging, so it takes take snapshots
in a really detailed grid, and they'll go off and
do it and then when they finished, they'll pop back
to the surface and we go by and we pick
them up, and they can do that for days, if
not weak sometimes. So again the technology is just has
(13:28):
increased to this incredible level but of course, you know,
the Creme della creme is really the submersibles, and that's
you know, one of most people's favorites because you actually
get to go down in those um usually they hold
between two and three people and they are very small
(13:50):
and uncomfortable, but they are your chariot down into this
world that few people get to go to. And yeah,
it's just to completely wild experience. And those also are
not attached to the ship, and they'll have, like the RVs,
a range of equipment on them, senses, baskets to put samples,
(14:10):
video cameras and images. But there you get the added
advantage of having or disadvantage whichever where you want to
look at, of having humans down there to actually you know,
make firsthand observations. I was just thinking about the role
of visual identification in in the kind of work you do.
I mean, what's it. Uh, could you talk a little
(14:34):
bit about what you know, that necessity of looking at
this strange world and being able to understand what you're
looking at sometimes from maybe poor visual data. Yeah, so
that's a big thing, and actually that has a lot.
It's a really big issue now because of course our
technology is increasing when leaps and bounds, and it means
that often because of those changes in UM, for instance,
(14:58):
photo resolution, you know, a out of imagery isn't actually
comparable on a scientific or statistical level anymore. So that
of course has its own problems UM. But with that said,
you know, it really is the level of equipment now
and that level of imagery is really giving us a
(15:18):
completely new way of looking at these environments. Like right
now you can do, for instance, three de mosaic ing
of hydrothermal events so that you can zoom in because
it's such high resolution and see you know, individuals sent
to me to size animals on this absolutely massive structure
UM and it's just yeah, revolutionizing the way that that
(15:42):
we understand the deepotion. What was the question again, I'm sorry,
maybe it wasn't a good question. I went off from
tangent and then I was like, wait, what, Well, actually
I'm more interested in that you just mentioned being able
to image hydrothermal vents, and I'm wondering if maybe you
could sort of paint a picture for us of some
of these major types of undersea ecosystems and habitats before
(16:07):
we get onto that. Can I put in one more
point for the other question. Absolutely, sorry, um so, I
was gonna say that, you know, while imagery is great
for deep sea biologists if you want to really characterize
an animal and fully understand, you know, if it's new
for instance, or or really what it is you unfortunately
(16:29):
images will only take you so far. It's really important
that you get a sample. Um you're unable to you know,
identify a new species given a name, go through that
process without having something in hand. And that's because there
are lots of animals that look very similar, um, superficially
from the outside, but actually you need to have either
(16:52):
really really fine detail of like how many hairs there
are on the fourth leg of this crab, for instance,
or that the DNA. They can look identical to us,
but their DNA is actually really really different. So images
really do only take you so far, and they're just
sort of one piece of that puzzle of understanding the
(17:13):
deep otion. I guess sorry, we could do the other
question now, that's great. Uh So, yeah, we're asking about
hydrothermal vince and other deep sea habitats, like can can
you sort of describe these and talk about the different
roles these habitats play when most people think of the
deep ocean, they just tend to think of this, you know, abyss,
(17:34):
it's dark, it's cold, and freeway on the planet. And
actually that's really really far from the truth. Just like
on land, there are a variety of habitats in our
deep seas. There are mountains, there are planes, there are trenches,
there are fields of corals and sponges, there are um,
(17:58):
even lakes at the bottom of the of the deep ocean.
I mean, it is just essentially like being on land,
where you just get a huge range um. And that
means that you know, with each of those habitats, you
get a not a completely different but usually a very
different fauna, so different communities live there. Um. And that
(18:20):
leads to the deep ocean having really really high diversity,
which yeah, not a lot of people realize. UM. And
some of them, I mean, they're all amazing, and so
many of them are so visually stunning. UM. But of
course I guess I have favorite some biased um, and
(18:42):
so those will be thing. Actually, I don't know, they're
all amazing, they're actual I'll take that back. I don't
have favorites. They're all actually they're all great. But I
mean Some of the ones that sort of jump out
are Brian pools because I mean who knew lakes at
the bottom of the sea. Hydrothermal vents, which are these
(19:02):
um sort of underwater volcanoes that gush this superheated black
fluid that looks like thick, thick, thick smoke and usually
has huge amounts of life living around them. You get
whale falls. So when a whale dies, yes, sometimes it
washes ashore, but a lot of the time will end
it down in the deep sea where it will prompt
(19:24):
this feeding bonanza. UM. On these seamounts you tend to
get like essentially the rainforests of the oceans. UM, they
can have these sponge and coral gardens that act as
trees almost and they provide cons like trees doing rainforests
for a huge variety of animals. And some of these environments,
(19:48):
you know, the animals are incredibly old. We're now beginning
to understand in the deep sea. So for instance, there
have been corals and the devotion found to be well
over four thousand years old, So that's like around the
time the wheel was invented. So there's one, you know,
there's there's probably more than one, but we know for
(20:09):
sure there's a species of animal that can live for
that long. I mean that just blows my mind, right, Um,
and yeah, it's just there's just huge variety and all
of the animals down there are just so weird but
so wonderful. It's just it's it's just fascinating, you know.
I know, you couldn't pick a favorite habitat. Do you
(20:30):
have personal favorite deep sea animals the ones that just
light you up the most? I mean, so in terms
of habitats, definitely, Brian pools are amazing. Brian pools are
three to eight times It's where basically water seawater that's
three to eight times saltier than the surrounding seawater settles
because of that density and essentially forms a lake on
(20:53):
the sea floor. And interestingly, you get these muscles and
other animals forming like a seashore around that that very
um salty water that's sitting on the sea floor. So
that's amazing. Um. Hydrothermal vents are amazing. Well, wheel folds
are amazing. I mean, we cover the habitats already, but
in terms of animals, of gosh, against such a hard question,
(21:16):
A couple that come to mind. Um definitely the hof crab.
I mean, who doesn't love the club. It's a white, hairy,
um blind crab that lives about two and a half
kilometers down off Antarctica in the deep ocean at these
(21:36):
hydrothermal vent environment sees underwater volcanoes. And what they do
is because and hydrothermal vents, that fluid that they gush,
that gushes out of them, it's really really rich in
chemicals like methane and hydrogen sulfide, and there was environments
those communities surrounding hydrothermal vents. Well, instead of using light
(22:00):
because there's no light in the deep sea apart from bioluminescence, um,
they will use these chemicals as their source of energy
in a process instead of photosynthesis and a process called chemosynthesis.
And that means that you know, you end up with
animals that are just so weird. And instead of having
(22:20):
plants as the primary producers like we do want land
and shallow waters, we have m bacteria the other primary producers,
and so they'll be these thick backed, white bacterial mats
growing all over these vents. But what is special about
the hof crab is that it will actually have those
bacteria growing on its body. So it has that that
(22:44):
hairy chest, those hairy arms um for the bacteria to
grow on. And so what it will do is it
will bathe itself in this warm, chemical rich fluid. The
bacteria will then grow and essentially then it will scrape
all of the bacteria off of its chest and off
of its arms and into its mouth and it's like
(23:05):
having its bomb and its body. I mean that sounds
our grocery. That sounds great to me, you know, it
just but yeah, they're just they're just the most fabulous
little animals. And they we now know because of work
by colleagues that they actually where they live on hydrothermal
events will be determined by their sex as well as
(23:28):
what reproductive status they're in. So they found that, you know,
the biggest um male hof crabs will move to the
tops of the chimneys, whereas the females who have eggs
will move further away from the hottest parts of the
chimney into more lukewarm water. I mean, it's just it's
(23:49):
just fascinating. But in case you didn't know, they're the
real name is a Yeti crabs because they look like
they vominable stowman or yet sy like. They've been nicknamed
the hoff crab um because they because of that hairy
chest aspect on the expedition, on the cruise, they were
basically someone drew an allergy between them and David Hasselhoff.
(24:11):
And yeah, and as far as I understand, he quite
enjoys the idea. So yeah, so it's a quirky one.
But then I mean there's also um an animal that
I worked on. While it may not be like visually
stunning it just as you know, a weird little thing
(24:33):
called ostax. It's a bone eating worm, and so it
lives only on the bones of dead animals in the
deep sea, especially on the largest one, so whales, for instance,
and that is the only place they have found. And
they have this sort of rich structure that they use
(24:54):
that secretes acid and allows them to dissolve the whale
bone and allow them to bury down into it like
a tree's roots to and then they're able to get
their food from those bones. And what is what is
amazing about them? You know, there's just so many sex
strategies in the deep sea that are so weird that
they all the ones that were that you can see
(25:16):
when you approach a whalefall on the deep sea floor,
m actually a female um but they have no one
knew whe the males were. It took ages for scientists
to understand. But it turns out the males are tiny,
tiny little blob like animals rather than this beautiful worm,
and they sit on the female's bodies in within their tube.
(25:40):
They have mixed tubes. Sometimes they sit within their mixed tubes,
and a female can have hundreds of them, um and
they're just there to provide her with sperm until they
essentially run out and then they die and then she'll
just replace them. And again that sounds great to me.
But um so just yeah, it's just this great easy
(26:00):
world down there with all of these mad animals that
it's like, you know, nature just went a bit crazy,
or rather evolution went a bit crazy. And I guess
that makes sense given how extreme the conditions are down
in the deep sea. You know, you really, evolution has
really sort of taken a turn and it's just a
great place to innovation. Well maybe they're the normal ones
(26:22):
and we're the weird ones. I mean exactly, And there
are these thoughts that you know, life did come from
the deep ocean, potentially from these hydrosenmal event environments, so
exactly who knows. All right, we need to take a
quick break. We'll be right back with more of our conversation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. All Right, we're back.
We're going to jump right back into the interview. So
(26:43):
you were just talking about these whalefall habitats, the whale
carcasses and the bone worms. We've discussed a bit on
the show before some research about shipwrecks sometimes playing a
similar role to whale carcasses at the bottom of the ocean.
Do you have any experience with shipwrecks as deep sea
habitats and any possible parallels there. Yeah, so it's such
(27:05):
a great question. By the way, when I got the email,
I was like, huh, interesting, because the deep ocean is
so food limited. There really is not a lot of
food to go around in the deep sea, and that's
because most of it comes from the sea surface um
in the form of dead plankton um both phyto and zooplankton.
(27:25):
But then also you get a fish and other things
that drift down, and then of course you get these
occasionally much larger packages of food like whales and would
um so trees when they wash out to sea and
so on, and they these for organic falls once they
get to the deep see, because they're able to be
(27:46):
broken down. They form this this huge source of food.
And as most of us know, you know a lot
of ships are actually made of wood. Um. And so
just like on land, how you have a variety of
animals that will eat wood break downward. Um, it's the
same thing in the deep sea. And so I know
when was it in twenty seventeen, I was on an
(28:06):
expedition UM in the Gulf of Mexico exploring areas there,
and we came across eighteenth century vessel and because it
was wood made of wood, but it actually had copper
cladding along the front of it. And so you could
see that all the wood, or a lot of the
would rather not all of it had been consumed and
(28:29):
eaten away. And you can see the little boring holes
by lots of animals. Um. But because of that, would
you actually get similar um processes happening to those that
happen at whalefall. So at whalefalls, they will go through
different stages in terms of animals eating them and The
(28:50):
second to last stage is where they essentially become chemosynthetics,
so similar to the hydrothermal events, they because of the
degradation of all that food organic matter, it results in
a lot of the oxygen being removed from the water,
and then a whole new set of life that can
live without oxygen moves in and results and uses these
(29:13):
chemicals and are now being emitted from the wood and
the sea floor. And that's exactly what happens at these
at some of these shipwrecks, you get these and because
of the acumums and possess you get this thick bacterial map,
these white thick back to your maps, and a very
specific set of fauna moving in to make the most
of that environment. But they essentially end up as this
(29:34):
sort of hub of deep sea life because while a
lot of the deep sea may look barren, of course
it's not. But compared to a lot of the deep sea,
they end up with a huge abundance of animals, big
diversity of species. And that's just the wood ones. I mean.
Then you also get the ones that are made of
less degradable materials like metal or fiberglass, and those are
(30:00):
very similar to the final stage of whale falls um.
So once all the nutrients has been removed from a whalefall,
whether it's the flesh of the whale or the nutrients
from the bones, the bones essentially just become a structure,
a physical structure on the sea floor like a rock,
and as a result, animals will move in that can
(30:23):
sit movement little, so for instance, a coral or a
sea star will sit on top of the whale fall
on top of the bones, and that will allow them
to project up into the away from the sea floor
where currents can be slower because of the friction, and
it allows them to get much more food. And so
(30:44):
it really is you know, pretty good to for them
to propel themselves off the sea floor. And that's the
same thing that happens at a lot of shipwrecks. They
provide this habitat because of that structure, because of that
physical um distance from the sea floor, for a lot
of animals to attach to so that they can get
(31:04):
up into the water column and get more food, but
also for a lot of animals to hide and shelter in.
So they really are interesting. And another thing that a
lot of people don't realize is you know, some whale falls,
it's thought can last for over a hundred years on
the sea floor, and we know that shipwrecks also can
last for a very very long time on the deep
(31:25):
sea floor as well. So a lot of analogies that interesting.
So one thing I was reading that you had written
about was about deep water exploration in the Mariana region.
I read where you mentioned that you can sometimes just
come across these masses of strange organisms that nobody on
(31:45):
the team can identify. Can can you talk to something
about that experience. I mean, it's not just in the
Marianas region, it's just globally in the deep sea m
I'd say on nearly every research crew that I've been on,
that has happened um And I'm sure other DPC scientists
would tell you the same. And that's just a nod
(32:07):
to the how little exploration there's been. But it's just
this really humbling feeling. You know, often as scientists, a
lot of people think that we have all the answers,
but really working in the deepotion reminds us that we
we don't. Um On every on every research cruise we
go on, we see new animals, we see new habitats um.
(32:28):
And yeah, I think not a lot of people realize
that that's the case. Most people think that, you know,
we know everything about our about our planet, about our oceans,
but really we're very very far away from that. Was
that kind of where you're going with that question or
were you opening at something else? No, of course that's true.
I was wondering also, I mean, if there were any
experiences that stood out to you about specific things you
(32:50):
saw and you mentioned in the piece I was reading
about just like strange white spheres and like green wiry things.
I think that they didn't have named that was I
mean that? Okay, So on every expedition, yes, we find animals.
We don't know exactly what species they are, or maybe
even what genus they are, maybe even what family they
(33:11):
are in that taxonomic classification. But yeah, occasionally you get
you get you see these things and you're like, I
don't even know whether that's a line, whether that's a
plant or because of course you don't really get plants
in the deep sea because there's don't light, or you
don't get plants in the deep sea unless they're dead. Um,
and so you just you know, you're like, how is this,
(33:33):
How is this happening? How can I not even understand
the basic classification of this animal? And that happened quite
a lot in the Mariana region. Actually, um, you're right.
We saw these sort of green thread like structures that
were um hanging off of deep sea corals in the current,
and so we thought that maybe maybe it was algae
(33:53):
that had you know, gotten further down to the deep sea,
and then was the current had blown in and then
it's sort of snagged. But then the weirdest one definitely
was were these spares. They were only a couple maybe
a centimeter a couple of millimeters across, but there were
the housands of them just all on the sea floor.
And we had on that expedition because we were able
(34:16):
to stream the dives live. It was on the Okeanos Explorer,
the No A ship O Pianist Explorer, and they stream
all of their dives live, and it means that the
public can watch, and it means that a lot of
scientists who aren't able to be on the ship because
of constraints of space, but perhaps also they have other
things going on, they can watch and join in and
communicate with us. So it means we really have a
(34:38):
much larger wealth of knowledge. But again, in that case,
you know, we had dozens of scientists on the core
with us, on the dive with us, and no one
was able to say what those spears were. And we
saw them several times during that expedition. We tried to
pick them up, we tried to crush them with the
r V manipulator that r V hands, and it just
(35:00):
we yeah, we were We narrowed it down to about
five things, but we still don't know for sure. And
that was three years ago, you know, and that's just
a really common in the deep seat. Yeah, so I
love the the sense of scientific wonder and discovery. You know,
(35:20):
you're you're able to relay about the deep ocean, and
we're gonna come We're gonna come back to that towards
the end. But but I wanted to ask a few
questions though about about the threats that the deep sea
ecosystems are facing. What are the biggest threats to deep
sea ecosystems today? So the biggest threats Okay, there's a
(35:41):
huge suite of things that are impacting the deep sea um,
but currently it's probably fishing um. There's actually a lot
of deep ocean fishing, and a lot of it can
be very very destructive practices. So things like trawling, which
essentially just clear cuts communities. Nothing is left unscathed. And when,
(36:02):
for instance, when the corals and sponges those rainforests are
are broken and disturbed, then it means the habitat for
lots of other animals is lost, and that happens in
in a lot of our world's deepotions. But then there's
also you know, pollution. We're hearing a lot these days
about plastic, but there's lots of other materials. I mean,
(36:23):
people used to even though it's illegal now, UM, people
used to purposefully dump into the deep sea because it
was sort of this essentially bottomless pit, you know, it
was once thought to be. And so there's been things
like pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, it's been dumped in the Puerto Rico Trench,
and UM, ammunition and chemical weapons that have been dumped
(36:47):
off of U in the Pacific and off Hawaii and
so on. UM. But that's changing. But of course there's
still a lot of stuff that gets into the deep sea,
not on purpose, right, whether it is plastic, but wash
is out to sea in rivers, or something that blows
off a ship um and unfortunately, you know, it's it's
a reality. On every research cruise that I've been on,
(37:09):
we've come across our trash on the deep sea floor
from the Antarctic to the Mariana Trench. And I'm not
sure if you've been watching the news, but there was
someone who broke the record for the deepest dive um
in our world's oceans and then Marianna Trench just this week,
and when he got down there, you know, he found
trash and that really is a very sad reality, but
(37:33):
that's those those pieces of trash are sort of the
part of the things that are easy to see and
easy to understand. But there's also lots of impacts that
we can't see. So things like chemical pollution. Some of
the animals in the Mariana Trench and other parts of
the deep otion have been found to have incredibly high
levels of really destructive chemicals in their bodies, things like
(37:54):
PCBs and so on. Then now plastics were realizing breakdown
in of microplastics and those end up in the deep
otion and a lot of animals actually eat them, and
no one is really sure what effect that's having. On them,
and then of course we've got this huge umbrella over
everything of climate change. It's happening globally. It is the
(38:18):
biggest environmental crisis and one of the biggest crises in
general to face our planet. And the deep sea is
no exception. Um, whether it is rising temperatures, whether it
is um ocean a certification because of that, or also deoxygenation,
all of those things are happening in our deep oceans
(38:39):
and they're almost sort of we we think, and there's
you know, research we're in the recent you know, decade
or so happening on this, and more and more happening
on this that actually, though the impacts of climate change
may be exacerbating some of the other impacts that are
already happening, and so we're having these sort of cumulative
(39:02):
impacts that we don't quite understand yet. And you know,
this lack of lack of understanding, that lack of science
is really a huge barrier to being able to deal
with these impacts. Um, it really really is a big problem.
I was actually I don't know the answer to this.
I wonder if you do, so, how does in previous
(39:25):
mass extinctions that have taken place on the Earth. I
know many ocean organisms are affected, but in the deep sea.
Do we think that the deep sea is usually more
affected or less affected or about equally affected to other
ecosystems when there's a massive mass extinction? Oh my god,
this is a really hard question. I'll give you a
very broad answer, just because I'm not like certain. But
(39:50):
there have been a range of extinction events that have
happened on the planet, and usually um, while in our oceans,
you know, a lot of the lie in a lot
of in most of the oceans deep and shallow have died. Um.
It is thought in some of them that you know,
that is where life remained and that is where life
(40:11):
was able to recolonize from. But that shouldn't really be
you know, shouldn't really give us any hope. Well down there, no, no,
they won't. UM. So it really is about, you know,
changing the way that we're sort of treating our planet.
And especially as you know, the technology is increasing, the
(40:35):
demand is increasing for resources because of these increasing global populations,
increasing standards of living, and that means that we're pushing
deeper and deeper into our oceans to get these basic
resources that we lie on fishing is a big one food,
but there's also things like you know, deep sea mining
(40:56):
is on the horizon UM for those metals that we
need for our laptops, our cell phones, our renewable energy UM.
And then there's also UM things like marine genetic resources.
So because the deep sea is this really extreme place
and animals have evolved so so much down there, they
(41:18):
thought that they met they might have a lot of
properties and compounds that might be really useful to us. UM. So,
for instance, antibiotic resistance is going to be again one
of the biggest challenges facing humanity, and so now there's
a big push to look to the deep ocean for
antibiotics and other types of medicine for instance, that you know,
(41:38):
may be able to help combat that issue in the future. UM.
And so that's this is this is increasing and we
really do need to think about how we regulate our
deep otions because a lot of them aren't very well
regulated because they sit in international waters UM or areas
beyond national jurisdictions. The term that people are using these days,
(42:01):
and that means that you know, they've been really loosely
regulated and managed UM up to today, and that's changing.
But slowly. Now in terms of deep sea mining, you
mentioned how that is that's on the horizon, what can
be done and what is being done to to to
curve and prevent destruction from from those enterprises. So the
(42:30):
the deep ocean is the clothes. While it is not pristine,
it's the closest ecosystem we have on the planet to
one that is pristine. And you know, historically we haven't
been a great species. For instance, on land and shallow waters.
We exploited lots of environments without having a very good
understanding of them, and so things went arrived very quickly,
(42:53):
and we've been doing that for millennia right longer UM.
And but with the deep sea we have this real
opportunity to understand what exists there prior to exploitation so
that we can essentially better value and better manage it. UM.
So there is science being done very slowly, not quickly enough,
(43:18):
which is a problem, but it is sort of ticking
over and right now. What there are two really big
processes happening globally UM. One is at the United Nations
a process called the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Negotiations UM,
and that is essentially to try and put laws and
(43:38):
regulations in place to manage international waters because currently they're
sort of this UM. They're called the common heritage of humankind,
and that means that they belong to everyone on the planet.
They belong to everyone that's yet to come on the planet,
(43:58):
and as a result, they sort of belong to no one, right,
So there's that catch twin two. So now there's this
process happening at the u N to manage these areas
and all of the life within them more responsibly UM,
and hopefully, you know, within the next two to three
years that will be concluded with a really strong UM
(44:19):
set of regulations so that we can really begin to
step it up. Also happening is related to deep sea
mining is again another process. It's deep se mining. Well,
all mineral resources in the deep ocean is governed by
a body called the International Seabed Authority UM, and they
(44:39):
are an intergovernmental body and they right now are going
through a similar process as that of BBNG, where they
are trying to put in place the regulations that will
govern mining if it ever does begin UM. And it's
really important that those regulations be grounded in rigorous science,
(45:00):
because again that is really one of those key limiting factors. Hey,
our understanding. UM. But you know, it's a great start,
and so the next five years to ten years are
going to be hugely important for our oceans and as
a result, hugely important for our planet. UM. And we
(45:22):
just kind of have to keep our hopes up and
keep engaging and keep hoping that um, you know that
really strong regulations emerge and as a result, everyone will
be much much better for that. But it remains to
be seen. Okay, time to take a quick break, but
we will be right back. Thank Alright, we're back, and
(45:44):
we're going to jump right back into the interview on
top of urging for you know, the right kind of
large scale policy is to fight climate change and to
you know, try to prevent the destruction of these habitats
by industry. Is there is there anything really that that
individual people can do to help or is this really
something that just has to be addressed on the large scale? UM?
(46:05):
I mean both. Definitely, the large scale process is so
so important, UM. But I mean something that you know
anyone can do is become responsible consumers. You know, I
know when people here this all the time, but ask
where your fish is coming? From ask how it was caught, Um,
you know in the Mariana Trench, that plastic bag that
(46:26):
ended up over ten kilometers down there. Um, someone had
to take that from a grocery, right. So it's about
you know, really behaving responsibly because everything on the planet
is connected, um, and all of our actions have an impact.
And I think something else is really you know, educating
(46:46):
yourself about the oceans, about what lives there, um, and
then sort of educating others because that's the way that
we can really influence change in our communities. And that's
where a lot of um impetus can be placed on policymakers. Right.
Without that that backing of the public, sometimes a lot
of stuff doesn't get done. So really it's just about
(47:07):
that knowledge increasing it awesome, Robert. So we did have
a few things from from Robert's son's class that we Yeah,
it just happened that my son's for one of his
first grade grade classes, they're they're discussing their covering of
marine biology and discussing various ocean layers. So I reached
(47:29):
out to them. Right for first grade. I was like, wow,
I wish my school was like but but yeah, I
reached out to him, and I said, you know, we're
we're chatting with an expert this week. Maybe the class
has some questions they would like to to ask, so
so I'm going to ask them on their behalf. Here
these are actual questions from first graders about marine biology
(47:50):
and the deep ocean. So the first one is how
do animals in the midnight zone handle the water pressure?
I mean, that's a super specific question. I'm pretty sure
when I was in first bird, I didn't know what
the midnight zone was. I'm pretty sure up until like
ten years ago, I didn't know what the midnights. But
I asked with the zeal of a child who just
learned about the midnight zone. You've got to know great, um.
(48:14):
But this this unfortunately isn't my area of expertise, but
especially the midnight zone. But I'll give a more broad answer. UM.
So many fish and any and lots of other animals
that live in the deep ocean. One of the ways
they handle that huge change in water pressure, UM, is
that they don't have air pockets in their bodies. So
(48:36):
if you think about us, we have our lungs and
those that has air in it, right, And that is
the reason that we one of the reasons that we're
unable to go into the deep sea because they were
at that air would essentially become really really compressed and
eventually we would just squish. Um. But a lot of
animals get around that by just not having those air
(48:57):
pockets um and are largely composed of water, and so
if you're essentially the same material as what you're living in,
it means that the pressure when you when that when
it changes, can remain sort of balanced. But unfortunately, fun
fact a bit morbid. Um. When some fish in the
(49:18):
depotion do have those air bladders in them, and when
you you know, when we're doing our science, if we
were to collect one of them and then bring it
to the surface, because of that change in pressure. When
you're really deep down, um, every air is very compressed,
but as you move shallower it expands because of that
(49:41):
difference in pressure, and a lot of those fish, because
of that air pocket in them, the air will actually
expand as they're coming to the sea surface, and sometimes
they end up like exploding, or their stomach comes out
of their mouth, or their eyes bug out. It's just
and right, not very pretty. We actually talked about this
(50:03):
in an episode not too long ago. The the version
of the stomach from was it a rock fish, I
think when they get pulled up from deep pressure, Yeah,
exactly so. And not just rock fish, but you know
any deeps fish that have have these air pockets. It
just I can imagine it's not a very nice experience
for them to go through. All right, Well, here's another
(50:24):
first grade question. How do animals without sight find food
in the ocean? And that's a great question because in
the deep sea, there's no light once you go past
about four meters depth. Sun cannot get down there, and
so that means that a lot of animals either if
they do have eyes, they can't see very well or
(50:45):
they just flat up don't have eyes. Right, So it's
really really important in the deep otion that they have
another way to find their food. Um. So there's two
main ways. One is that they can use they have
chemical senses. So just like how when your mom is
making your favorite meal and you're in your bedroom and
you can smell it wafting up the stairs. Um, animals
(51:07):
can do the same. They can detect these chemicals in
the water and then because of currents bringing that chemical,
those chemicals to them, just like how the wind would
bring us the scent of the food. They can follow
that to wherever that that parcel of food maybe. And
the other way is they can have it's the big
(51:29):
word mechano sensory cues. So what that means is that
they will have, for instance, um structures along their body,
like little lateral lines or little hairs that make them
extra sensitive for picking up vibrations in the water. So
it's like how if you were to go outside and
you were to feel a breeze on your arm. Animals
(51:52):
can do that, but sleeps the animals can do that,
but on a much greater scale. So if there was,
for instance, a dying fish down the deep sea that
was sort of flapping about making lots of movement, or
something like a dead whale had just drifted down to
deep sea and then hit the sea floor with a
big thump, animals will be able to pick up those
(52:12):
vibrations and then again follow them to find the next meal,
which is pretty cool, awesome. Well, um, they have the
first graders ask a few more questions. But you've you've
you've hit on most of the answers already. But but
I will close one of their questions was, what's the
most interesting thing you've seen in the ocean. You've already
(52:32):
shared a number of different, um, you know, fascinating examples
of ecosystems and organisms. But I wonder if there's if
there's there's one more ecosystem or organism that you would
like to highlight before we close out, or something anomalous old.
(52:53):
It's just it's so hard because you know, on every
single research could we go on, we see amazing things. Right,
It's just not an exaggeration. Um oh um. Perhaps. I
mean I've had a number of really memorable experiences. Um.
So a couple that are jumping to mind. Uh um.
(53:16):
When we were exploring the deep sea in the Antarcticum,
I remember my first morning on the ship. This isn't
necessarily in the ocean, in the deep sea, but I
remember my first morning on the ship. I was brushing
my teeth looking out the window, Um, just at the
amazing you know, we can see any land or any icebergs.
But I was just looking at the view and all
(53:37):
of a sudden there was a splitsh splash right by
the window. I was like, what was that? And then
it was just this huge flock of chin strap penguins
just you know, sort of swam by, and that was
just I mean, I'll never forget that. That was just
an incredible experience, of course, and I started brushing my
teeth and ran outside with my camera and stayed out
there for like four hours. But but apart from that, um,
(54:01):
something anomalous would be it was it was actually a
bit sad um again in the Gulf of Mexico in
we were going to be exploring what we thought was
a shipwreck. We had found a shipwreck a couple of
days earlier that no one had been too since it
had been on the sea floor, had known was there.
(54:24):
And we were really excited because we were hoping to
do that again. Um. And you know, we had bets
going on board for how old it would be, what
kind of vessel it would be, what would be living
on it. Everyone was really really excited, and because it
really is exploration in like the truest sense, right, Um.
But when we got to it, it turned out it
(54:46):
wasn't a ship at all, and in fact was a
shipping container that had obviously fallen off a ship in
a storm or something and had exploded on the sea floor,
and as a result, we found the r O V
driving through this field of fridges, washing machines, dryers, chest freezers, dishwashers.
(55:12):
Like it was just the most surreal experience because you're
like two kilometers down in an area of the Gulf
of Mexico no one has ever been before. And yet
still hair is all of our trash just sitting on
the sea floor, you know, like common common goods that
we all have in our home. And then there are
all these way deep sea animals like living on them
(55:33):
or swimming around them, and you're like, what is going on?
I don't understand. Um. And then apart from that, um,
I mean one of some of my favorites. It never
gets old seeing octopus in the deep sea, especially dumbo
octopus that have the flaps on the side of their heads.
(55:54):
I mean, they're just so adorable. Um. And also deep
sea sharks are super cool. Um. And usually we see
a couple of those on on a lot of exhibitions.
On we were off Brazil about yeah, two years ago,
and um, we were diving in submersibles, which of course
is always so much fun. Um, and remind me to
tell you something funny after uh, And we yeah, on
(56:18):
every single dive we were off Brazil, off these rocks
called Saint Paul's and Saint Peter's Rocks, which are smack
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, and
we on every expedition, on every sorry dive in the submersible,
we I guess they were attracted by the by by
the vibration, the noise, the lights, I don't know, but
(56:39):
but on every single dive we were joined by huge
six girls sharks. And there are sharks that predominantly stay
in the deep ocean and can get to really really
big sizes, and so that was super exciting to be
able to see those you know, in their in their habitat.
And then I'll end, I guess with like a funny
(56:59):
fact for from all the kids is that you know,
you when you go down and submersible. It's the most
crazy experience. And I'm sure in your lifetimes people will
be able to do that when they go on holiday. Right. Um,
But things that people don't really think about that there's
no toilet on submersible. In fact, like it's so small
(57:24):
that you know you're usually touching the two other people
that you're in there with, and you may not know
them very well, right, So just something to ponder when
sometimes you're in there for like nine hours, what do
you do? Right? So yeah, yeah, that's that's a kind
of my my. Yeah. Fun, So you pose the question,
(57:46):
but you don't answer it. I can answer it, but yeah,
I'm just figured we'd leave it up to them. Some
think well that this has been so wonderful. Thank you
so much for joining us today. My absolute pleasure. This
has been really really fun. All right, So there you
(58:07):
have it. Thanks again to Dr Diva Aimon for coming
on the show chatting with us again. If you want
to check out more about her work, you can check
out our website. That's a great first stop. Uh, it's
a diva Aman dot com. It's d I v A
a m o in. She's also on social media. We're
going to make sure that our accounts are are linking
(58:29):
to hers on the various social platforms where we're sharing
this episode. That's right, so huge, Thanks as always of
course to Dr Diva Amon for joining us today, but
also to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tary Harrison.
If you would like to get in touch with us
directly with feedback on this episode, Uh, to suggest a
topic for the future, to suggest a guest for the future,
(58:51):
for just to say hello. You can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(59:13):
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