The Jelly Web - November/December 1999 meeting of ACS Monterey Bay

ACS Monterey Bay Program for November/December 1999

The Jelly Web: life in the ocean's midwaters

Thursday, December 2, 1999, 7:30 p.m.
Note change in date due to Thanksgiving.
Lecture Hall, Monterey Boatworks, Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove
Speaker: Bruce Robison, Senior Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

The most expansive animal habitat on earth lies between the sea's surface and the floor of the deep oceans and with our speaker we will be exploring these waters with camera and robot.

Here the animals can be divided into grazers, filter-feeders and predators. The jelly web is made up of an ecologically dominant group of gelatinous animals in midwater communities. Research in Monterey Bay shows that one third of our abundant krill populations is consumed by gelatinous predators, which therefore compete successfully against migratory krill consumers such as baleen whales, albacore tuna and squids. We learned about the role of bioluminescence and countershading among predators and prey. In this environment new species, i.e. previously undescribed, abound. Many escaped detection by early expeditions because of their fragility. Modern techniques for videotaping and capture now reveal these "new to science" species.

Our speaker received his Ph.D. on the ecology of deep sea fishes from Stanford University. He joined MBARI at its founding in 1987 and is now Senior Scientist. He has used submersibles and ROVs to explore the deep oceans in many areas of the world. Highly readable accounts of his work can be found in "The Deep Sea" (co-authored with Judith Connor), Monterey Bay Aquarium Natural History Series, 1998 and "Light in the Oceans Midwaters" in Scientific American, V 273, no. 1, July 1995.

This exceptional presentation was illustrated with video.

Links to other web sites about Creatures from the Deep.
Link to MBARI.

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