Post #19 Biocode and other projects at the Gump Station

One of the rewarding aspects of doing a sabbatic at a marine lab (or any other busy place) is the interesting people you meet doing fascinating work.  For example, in for the first several weeks while I was here, the BIOCODE folks occupied the entire lab next door.

This is a multiyear project that brings in some of the world's best specialists in different marine plant and animal groups in an attempt to identify every living plant and animal here in Moorea.  It's a prodigious effort that is well described at their web site, which can be found by clicking on BIOCODE here.  One of the ring-leaders is Gustav Pauley, Curator of Marine Malacology at the Florida Museum of Natural History:

It was a surprise to see him here and a great pleasure because we were graduate students together at the University of Washington.  Gustav knows just about every marine invertebrate here, he has an amazing encyclopedic mind.  Another member of the team this year was Jeff Cordell, also from UW.

Jeff specializes is tiny crustaceans.  These pictures of Gustav and Jeff accurately show how they spent 10-14 hours a day working through samples either they had collected, or possibly specimens collected by special divers (see below).

Every organism has its picture taken to be put in a reference collection of photos.  Here are just a couple of their wonderful photographs:

Every species also has a DNA sample taken to be sequenced.  The growing data bank of DNA sequence information from various species is incredibly useful in so many different fields of study, including taxonomy, ecology, population dynamics, etc.

This year, there was an effort to collect specimens from water at depths below where most scuba divers venture.  For this they brought in some specialists that use carefully engineered mixed gas rigs that enabled them to get to over 350 feet.  They used what is called a "rebreather," for the diver rebreathes some of the same gas over and over while the equipment adds oxygen as needed and scrubs the CO2 that is exhaled.

Here is David Pence from the University of Hawaii Diving Safety Office with his rebreather:

When diving very deep, he may actually stay only about 30 minutes at the deepest level, but then spend several HOURS gradually rising to the surface so that gases such as nitrogen dissolved in his blood can slowly come out.  However, the rewards of such efforts can be great.  Here is world-renowned photographer David Liitschwager getting ready to photograph a peppermint butterfly fish collected at 360 feet.  (David was working at the station on some of this own projects.  He has had many articles in National Geographic Magazine, among others.  You can check out some of his work here.)

Here is my close-up of this amazingly colorful fish:

David's photograph would be far better.  If for a publication it would show nothing but the fish against a white background.  He might take 600 to several thousand shots to get that one "perfect" picture.