Dive and Discover : Expedition 14 : Mail Buoy, December 2

Read questions and answers in the Mail Buoy

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I have this project "life on board" and I have been wondering, how/what does the inside of the Atlantis look like?

Hello Tyrel,
When I look at the ship it is hard to describe. Sort of normal, is the way it looks to me. Walls and floors and ceilings. We have different names for things. We call them
bulkheads and decks and overheads.

Through postdoc Maria Pachiadaki we know that the SID-ISMS had brought intact cells back from the deep. However, the filters from the first dive where the "RNALater" solution went through them rather than staying on top of them, can be used for further study, or they have not been preserved at all?

Nikouli Eleni
University of Thessaly Dept. of Ichthyology& Aquatic Environment, Volos, Greece

Yes, there are many microorganisms living in the halocline and the brine. There were some minor problems with the sampler (most of them are already resolved) and we are planning to do as many casts as we can in order to get many RNALater preserved filters.

About our first set of filters: we managed to find out (thanks to Dr. William Orsi) that at least half of them were indeed fixed in RNALater (to a final concentration of about 50%) which according to the literature is good enough for RNA preservation. More tests in the lab will reveal the quality and the quantity of the RNA and the scientists involved in the particular project will decide if these samples will be used for a transcriptomics analysis (which is based on the analysis of mRNA and requires immediate fixation of the organisms). The gathered material can be used for many other projects answering various ecological and evolutionary questions (based on rRNA and DNA analysis).

Could the organisms found in the DHAB possibly bring a deadly disease or virus up? I'm a bit concerned about it.

Hello Sam,
What an interesting question. Fortunately, we are in very little danger from the organisms in DHABs.

For a microorganism to be pathogenic (able to cause disease), it needs to be able to live for some time in its host. For example, the flu virus is able to live in our blood at around 36.6 degrees C and approximately 9 parts per thousand (ppt) of salinity. If there are living microorganisms in the DHABs, this means that they are adapted to live in much higher salinities, around 160 ppt and even higher, and a much lower temperature (around 15 degrees C). So it is rather unlikely they could make us sick, but even so we should always be careful when dealing with unexplored habitats.

Also, keep in mind that some of the extreme microorganisms that live in other
high-salt environments, not only are not pathogenic but have potential for providing us with valuable goods like enzymes we use in everyday life (such as detergents and ice cream).

How can you expect to get decent samples when your probe never enters the brine lakes themselves? Do you later plan on going deeper in the brine lake?

Hello William,
SID-ISMS bears a turbidity sensor hanging approximately 2 m below the instrument itself. So when SID approaches the interface we slow down as much as possible and keep an eye to the lower sensor readings. Because the interface works like a trap of particles falling from the overlying water column, its turbidity is higher! This is our indication that we are close to the brine. As soon as we get this signal, we lower the SID in the brine and follow the indications of all its sensors (salinity, oxygen, turbidity) to ensure that it is in the brine. And then we are ready for truly briny sampling!

What could the sample containers be made of so that you could keep water samples in them without them corroding the container?

Hello William,
It's true that sulfide is very corrosive and may damage equipment. That's why designers of sampling equipment have to use appropriate materials, resistant to corrosion. Sampling containers in particular are made of hard plastic (polycarbonate) that—as you may see in the pictures—stays intact during its diving in the extreme environment of the brines!

What do you plan on doing with the samples after you find them, what sort of tests will you run?

William S.
Diamond Middle School
Lexington, Mass

When you found the animal thing did you extract DNA and if so how many did you need?

Meghan R.
Falmouth Academy

What kind of research experiments will you conduct on the protists you collect. What is your hypothesis for the outcomes of the experiments?

Ivan V.
William Diamond Middle School
Lexington, MA

What do you plan to do with your samples and results if you get any?

Devin B.
Diamond Middle School
Lexington, Massachussets

What will you do with the organisms that you find in DHABs?

Aidan D.
William Diamond Middle School
Lexington, Massachusetts

Hello students! Since many of you asked more or less the same question, we will answer all of you at the same time.

Our first aim is to see if there are any protists down there, both in the water and the sediment of the brines. Well, we already have some info on that from previous cruises...

To see who is down there we will perform molecular analysis (this is related to DNA-based lab work). But even after that, we still cannot tell which of these protists are alive. They may have lived in the water above the DHAB and then fallen into the DHAB after they died. Because the DHAB water is so salty, it might have “pickled” the protists so they did not decompose, or are decomposing very slowly.

To investigate this, we will apply extra molecular analysis back in the lab but also we will perform in situ grazing experiments (at the depths where protists actually live!) These experiments will show us if these protists can actually make a living in the brine by feeding on bacteria. In the microbial world, in order to be considered as an alive-and-kicking member of the community, a microorganism has to be able to feed itself and reproduce. But hey, isn't it the same for all creatures, including us?

To safely perform all the above analyses, we need to collect as many intact microbial cells as possible. For this reason we use SID-ISMS and JASON sampling. The outcome of all analyses will be communicated both in the scientific literature, conferences, and related websites like the ones from WHOI. So keep an eye out for news from us even after the cruise!

I am in Ms. Sheild's seventh grade class and I was wondering: How are the organisms that live in the DHABs similar to organisms that live closer to the surface of the ocean and how are they different? If they are similar to the organisms that live near the surface, how did they adapt to live in the DHABs? Thank you for taking time to answer my question.

Dear Maya, thank you very much for such a considerate question. We are really impressed.

What we are looking at in the deep brine lakes are predominantly plankton organisms, unicellular creatures floating in the water. We can find plankton in almost any kind of water like lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and also in the ocean.

When the brine lakes emerged at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, a few thousand years ago, there were most likely some plankton organisms that also live closer to the surface which invaded the new brine habitats. Some of them were successful, as they had mechanisms that protected them from the harsh conditions in the brines like high salt concentrations, lack of oxygen, and toxic substances. They started to build a productive community in the brines.

Evolutionary processes separated these organisms eventually from their relatives living beneath the surface, but they still share many similarities like similar looks and some basic metabolic processes. But one decisive difference is the lack of light in these depths. As you probably know, all green plants need light to grow. And so do some unicellular plankton organisms called algae. They perform photosynthesis to produce energy from carbon dioxide and water. You won't find algae in the deep waters of the brine. Furthermore, the brines lack oxygen. Some organisms have specific adaptations to produce energy without oxygen (humans and most animals need oxygen to produce energy....you can feel it yourself: when running fast you need to breath more in order to provide more oxygen to your muscles). But for these organisms, which we call strict anaerobes, oxygen is toxic and they could not live in the oxygen-rich surface waters.

Cheers,
Sabine Filker and Thorsten Stoeck
Technical University of Kaiserslautern

William D.
Falmouth Academy

Hi William,
Jason’s depth limit is 6500 meters. You can learn more about Jason and how it works on the Dive and Discovery website, at www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tools/jason.html.

Is there any way you plan to fix the cloud Jason uproars when it hits the
ground?

When the Jason comes up from the Deep Sea Brines does the crew clean it off with special chemicals to clean and stop corrosion from bad chemicals in the water? I saw the corrosion of the metal on one of your slideshows, it seems bad. Is there a way to stop the corrosion from happening in the first place, some kind of paint, or rubber maybe?

Hello Megan,
This is an oceanographic research vessel, 274' long and 53' wide. We have two stern
propellers and a bowthruster. We are very maneuverable. You can read more about R/V Atlantis on the Dive and Discover website at www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tools/atlantis.html.