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The ecoSCOPE is an optical sensor system, deployed from a small remotely operated vehicle (ROV) or fibre optic cable, to investigate behavior and microdistribution of small organisms in the ocean.
Although an ROV may be very small and quiet, it is impossible to approach feeding herring closer than 40 cm. The ecoSCOPE allows observation of feeding herring from a distance of only 4 cm. From 40 cm, the herrings' prey (copepods) in front of the herring are invisible due to the deflection of light by phytoplankton and microparticles in highly productive waters where herring live. With the ecoSCOPE, the predators are illuminated by natural light, the prey by a light sheet, projected via a second endoscope from strobed LEDs (2 ms, 100% relative intensity at 700 nm, 53% at 690 nm, 22% at 680 nm, 4% at 660 nm, 0% at 642 nm).
By imitating the long, thin snout of the garfish protruding into the security sphere of the alert herrings, an endoscope with a tip diameter of 11 mm is used. The endoscope is camouflaged to reduce the brightness-contrast against the background: the top is black and the sides are silvery. Additionally, the front of the ROV is covered by a mirror, reflecting a light gradient resembling the natural scene and making the instrument body virtually invisible to the animals. A second sensor images other copepods, phytoplankton and particles at very high magnification. Another advantage of these small "optical probes" is the minimal disruption of the current-field in the measuring volume, allowing for less disturbed surveys of microturbulence and shear.
Another video can be seen in the article for Atlantic herring.
An ecoSCOPE was also deployed to measure the dynamics of particles in a polluted estuary: see image on Particle (ecology), another as an underwater environmental monitoring system, utilizing the orientation capacity of juvenile glasseel.
The ecoSCOPE is a product of the new initiative of "Ocean Online Biosensors": a synthesis of IT-sensoric and the sensing capability of ocean organisms.
Depicted in the image on the right is the central unit. On all four corners are small entrances, through which water from different sources enters (in this case, rivers and creeks in New Jersey). It flows through a small labyrinth and mixes in the central chamber. It exits through a small tube in the middle. The glasseels migrate through this small tube heading into the current. In the middle is the entrance for the eels. They test the different water qualities and migrate toward the corner, where they exit.
It is the opinion of many scientists that eels have developed the finest nose on the planet. They can sense concentrations of one part in 19 trillion. This is the same concentration as one glass of alcohol in the waters of all America's Great Lakes. For the eels the sensory impressions are probably as diverse as the colors visible for us.
The system is submerged, and a digital camera observes the exits. The dynIMAGE software monitors the frequency of decisions per exit. Many thousand of glasseels pass through the system on a single day. The three exits in the left lower corner carry water from polluted sources (one is a drinking water reservoir).
EcoSCOPE systems have already been tracking water pollution and its effect on fish and plankton behavior in Europe and the United States). For the future it is anticipated to deploy ecoSCOPEs continuously online, within the project LEO Projekt off New York City, visible for the public. Tests have also been performed with different qualities of drinking water and with solutions of runoff juice from different samples of fish.
Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms found in water that are unable to propel themselves against a current. The individual organisms constituting plankton are called plankters. In the ocean, they provide a crucial source of food to many small and large aquatic organisms, such as bivalves, fish, and baleen whales.
Antarctic krill is a species of krill found in the Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. It is a small, swimming crustacean that lives in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000–30,000 individual animals per cubic metre. It feeds directly on minute phytoplankton, thereby using the primary production energy that the phytoplankton originally derived from the sun in order to sustain their pelagic life cycle. It grows to a length of 6 centimetres (2.4 in), weighs up to 2 grams (0.071 oz), and can live for up to six years. It is a key species in the Antarctic ecosystem and in terms of biomass, is one of the most abundant animal species on the planet – approximately 500 million metric tons.
Clupeidae is a family of clupeiform ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings and sprats. Many members of the family have a body protected with shiny cycloid scales, a single dorsal fin, and a fusiform body for quick, evasive swimming and pursuit of prey composed of small planktonic animals. Due to their small size and position in the lower trophic level of many marine food webs, the levels of methylmercury they bioaccumulate are very low, reducing the risk of mercury poisoning when consumed.
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Atlantic herring is a herring in the family Clupeidae. It is one of the most abundant fish species in the world. Atlantic herrings can be found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, congregating in large schools. They can grow up to 45 centimetres (18 in) in length and weigh up to 1.1 kilograms (2.4 lb). They feed on copepods, krill and small fish, while their natural predators are seals, whales, cod and other larger fish.
The Long-term Ecological Observatory (LEO) is a project off the coast of New Jersey, United States, which monitors the processes in the ocean with online IT systems, spearheaded by the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University. Already installed are sensors for temperature, salinity, transmission, light, light attenuation, fluorescence, pressure and velocity.
The biological pump (or ocean carbon biological pump or marine biological carbon pump) is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the ocean interior and seafloor sediments. In other words, it is a biologically mediated process which results in the sequestering of carbon in the deep ocean away from the atmosphere and the land. The biological pump is the biological component of the "marine carbon pump" which contains both a physical and biological component. It is the part of the broader oceanic carbon cycle responsible for the cycling of organic matter formed mainly by phytoplankton during photosynthesis (soft-tissue pump), as well as the cycling of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) formed into shells by certain organisms such as plankton and mollusks (carbonate pump).
Filter feeders are a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure. Some animals that use this method of feeding are clams, krill, sponges, baleen whales, and many fish. Some birds, such as flamingos and certain species of duck, are also filter feeders. Filter feeders can play an important role in clarifying water, and are therefore considered ecosystem engineers. They are also important in bioaccumulation and, as a result, as indicator organisms.
In marine and freshwater ecology, a particle is a small object. Particles can remain in suspension in the ocean or freshwater. However, they eventually settle and accumulate as sediment. Some can enter the atmosphere through wave action where they can act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Many organisms filter particles out of the water with unique filtration mechanisms. Particles are often associated with high loads of toxins which attach to the surface. As these toxins are passed up the food chain they accumulate in fatty tissue and become increasingly concentrated in predators. Very little is known about the dynamics of particles, especially when they are re-suspended by dredging. They can remain floating in the water and drift over long distances. The decomposition of some particles by bacteria consumes much oxygen and can cause the water to become hypoxic.
Holoplankton are organisms that are planktic for their entire life cycle. Holoplankton can be contrasted with meroplankton, which are planktic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in the benthic zone. Examples of holoplankton include some diatoms, radiolarians, some dinoflagellates, foraminifera, amphipods, krill, copepods, and salps, as well as some gastropod mollusk species. Holoplankton dwell in the pelagic zone as opposed to the benthic zone. Holoplankton include both phytoplankton and zooplankton and vary in size. The most common plankton are protists.
Uwe Kils is a German marine biologist specializing in Antarctic biology.
The Antarctic Technology Offshore Lagoon Laboratory (ATOLL) was a floating oceanographic laboratory for in situ observation experiments. This facility also tested instruments and equipment for polar expeditions. The ATOLL hull was the largest fiberglass structure ever built at that time. It was in operation from 1982 to 1995.
Diel vertical migration (DVM), also known as diurnal vertical migration, is a pattern of movement used by some organisms, such as copepods, living in the ocean and in lakes. The adjective "diel" comes from Latin: diēs, lit. 'day', and refers to a 24-hour period. The migration occurs when organisms move up to the uppermost layer of the water at night and return to the bottom of the daylight zone of the oceans or to the dense, bottom layer of lakes during the day. DVM is important to the functioning of deep-sea food webs and the biologically-driven sequestration of carbon.
Ocean color is the branch of ocean optics that specifically studies the color of the water and information that can be gained from looking at variations in color. The color of the ocean, while mainly blue, actually varies from blue to green or even yellow, brown or red in some cases. This field of study developed alongside water remote sensing, so it is focused mainly on how color is measured by instruments.
Forage fish, also called prey fish or bait fish, are small pelagic fish which are preyed on by larger predators for food. Predators include other larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Typical ocean forage fish feed near the base of the food chain on plankton, often by filter feeding. They include particularly fishes of the order Clupeiformes, but also other small fish, including halfbeaks, silversides, smelt such as capelin and goldband fusiliers.
In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling, and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling. In common usage, the terms are sometimes used rather loosely. About one quarter of fish species shoal all their lives, and about one half shoal for part of their lives.
Clupea is genus of planktivorous bony fish belonging to the family Clupeidae, commonly known as herrings. They are found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Two main species of Clupea are currently recognized: the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring, which have each been divided into subspecies. Herrings are forage fish moving in vast schools, coming in spring to the shores of Europe and America, where they form important commercial fisheries.
A planktivore is an aquatic organism that feeds on planktonic food, including zooplankton and phytoplankton. Planktivorous organisms encompass a range of some of the planet's smallest to largest multicellular animals in both the present day and in the past billion years; basking sharks and copepods are just two examples of giant and microscopic organisms that feed upon plankton. Planktivory can be an important mechanism of top-down control that contributes to trophic cascades in aquatic and marine systems. There is a tremendous diversity of feeding strategies and behaviors that planktivores utilize to capture prey. Some planktivores utilize tides and currents to migrate between estuaries and coastal waters; other aquatic planktivores reside in lakes or reservoirs where diverse assemblages of plankton are present, or migrate vertically in the water column searching for prey. Planktivore populations can impact the abundance and community composition of planktonic species through their predation pressure, and planktivore migrations facilitate nutrient transport between benthic and pelagic habitats.
Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) is a NASA Earth-observing satellite mission that will continue and advance observations of global ocean color, biogeochemistry, and ecology, as well as the carbon cycle, aerosols and clouds. PACE will be used to identify the extent and duration of phytoplankton blooms and improve understanding of air quality. These and other uses of PACE data will benefit the economy and society, especially sectors that rely on water quality, fisheries and food security.
Compared to terrestrial environments, marine environments have biomass pyramids which are inverted at the base. In particular, the biomass of consumers is larger than the biomass of primary producers. This happens because the ocean's primary producers are tiny phytoplankton which grow and reproduce rapidly, so a small mass can have a fast rate of primary production. In contrast, many significant terrestrial primary producers, such as mature forests, grow and reproduce slowly, so a much larger mass is needed to achieve the same rate of primary production.
