The waters around the Florida Keys were once rich with sponge beds which contributed to the economy of the Keys through the sponging industry (circa late 19th century). The sponging industry collapsed due to over harvesting and a Sponge fungus which killed off much of the sponge population. Although sponges have made some sort of recovery, they do not appear to be quite as healthy (personal observation) with bleaching, spots, etc.
In your observations do you see a lot of “health issues” with the sponge population? Do you feel that there could be a resurgence in the sponge fungus that killed off the sponge beds in the late 19th & early 20th century?
What effect do the ocean warming and acidification have on sponge populations in the Keys?
Only a few species of sponges are harvested commercially and are suitable for the bath and other purposes. These species are found primarily in shallow seagrass beds, not on the reef. Commercial sponges in Florida were decimated in the early 20th century by disease, which was probably imported from elsewhere. We have observed diseases on several reef sponge species, but they appear to be sporadic, and have not resulted in mass mortalities. These diseases are probably unrelated to the one that affected commercial sponges. We don’t know if these diseases are new to Florida’s reefs, or if their incidence is increasing. Sponge populations, however, do appear to be increasing over time, so the impacts of disease seem to be limited up to now.
Our monitoring program is designed to answer the question about global climate change and ocean acidification, but will require years of study. Unlike corals, sponges do not have calcified skeletons, and should be less impacted by ocean acidification. Based on this, we would predict that sponge populations would continue to increase as corals decline.
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Aquanaut Profiles
How do you get oxygen down to the habitat?
We have compressors on a buoy above the habitat which pump air down to storage bottles around the habitat. We then have a steady vent of air from these storage bottles into the habitat which displaces habitat atmosphere out of the wet porch. We like to say that the wet porch ‘burps’ as it exits the habitat. We also have carbon dioxide scrubbers in the habitat and therefore the habitat could be described as a ‘semi-closed circuit rebreather’.
Air contains 21% oxygen, so as the air flows in it adds oxygen to the atmosphere. Of course, the Aquanauts are continuously metabolizing oxygen and as a result, a balance develops between the rate of oxygen addition and the rate of metabolization which results in a steady state oxygen content of approximately 20%.
We don’t quite understand the predation experiment. Can you tell us about the setup? Besides just starting to learn about marine science, we are also currently discussing scientific testing processes.
A series of platforms is set up on the reef. On each platform there are two sponges. One sponge sits in the open, exposed to the marine environment (including predators), while the other sponge is protected from predators by a cage. Numerous sponge pairs have been deployed in this manner and by comparing what happens over time to the protected and unprotected sponges we can see what effect the predators have.
Do you have television there?
We do not have television in Aquarius, but we could easily add this if it was ever needed or requested using special network encoders and decoders.
A student is asking about oxygen and/or nitrogen in your tanks. Can you tell us about how your tanks are set up on individuals?
When diving from Aquarius we always breathe compressed air. Each Aquanaut who SCUBA dives from the habitat wears two large SCUBA bottles on their back with redundant pressure regulators and supply hoses. Sometimes we also dive from the habitat with air supplied from an umbilical connected back to the habitat. In this case the Aquanaut wears an emergency bottle on their back.
When diving from our surface boats, we usually use air in single SCUBA bottles, but sometimes we use “Enriched Air Nitrox” which is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen which contains a greater percentage of oxygen then that of normal air.
Can you Skype underwater? How quick is internet access?
We can Skype from inside Aquarius. We also have the capability to Skype (but text only) from our underwater stations if we needed that ability. Aquarius internet access is very high speed thanks to the Motorola Point-to-Point bridge between the Life Support Buoy and our Base of Operations in Key Largo. We have DS3 (45 Megabits/second) which provides extremely fast connectivity to the internet.
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Elizabeth O asks: I am 15 years old and it has been my dream to become a marine biologist. I live in Florida, so I was basically raised at the beach. I am very serious about it and my goals are to stay in the Aquarius for a mission, and possibly work for NOAA when i get older. I am taking Marine Biology in 11th grade next year and am starting online college classes as well. My question is what are some specific classes in college that I should be taking?
Dear Elizabeth,
And we hope that one day you will indeed do a mission in Aquarius! In addition to taking marine biology classes, you need to get a solid background in science and math in both High School and College – that means biology, math, plus chemistry, geology, and physics. Then when you go to graduate school you can focus more on ocean science already having a good foundation in science.
One of the other important things for you to do, is to get involved in related activities outside of school, such as summer programs, internships, or volunteer at a local aquarium, marine institution, or nature center. These sort of activities will get you hands on experience and introduce you to people working in the field. Check out www.vims.edu/Bridge or www.eco.org for more information.
Good luck and study hard.
Ellen Prager, PhD
Science Advisor, Aquarius Reef Base
PS: For all those asking about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, we are monitoring the situation in case oil heads towards the area and will take appropriate action if this happens – thanks for your thoughts, we are all hoping for the best for the people, wildlife, and environment being effected.
Fernand Dionne asks: I would like to know if you are aware or planning on doing any research on the possibility to use algea to “eat” (dissolve) petroleum, I think it would be a great asset to clean the ocean when a disaster strikes.
Dear Fernand,
We do not do this sort of research, but there are other scientists doing exactly that. Some of the microbes that have been discovered in the deep sea feed on hydrocarbons, so they hold potential to aid in spill clean-ups, but I don’t know if any are ready for or actually being used. Good question.
We are all very concerned about the impacts of the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico, along the coast, and in other waters, such as Florida, if it should spread farther.
Dr. Ellen Prager
Science Advisor, Aquarius Reef Base
Ms. Pam’s Science Class asks: We are 2nd-4th grade students at The Liberty School in Durango, CO. We are studying Oceanography and have been watching your web cam today. We are enjoying watching Jason, James, Brad, and Saul. We don’t know who the 5th person is. We are curious to know what you have been doing today. At one point, it looked like you were doing laundry. Did you learn or see anything interesting while you were outside diving? Have you seen any sharks? Do you have any other missions coming up soon?
Ms. Pam’s Science Class,
There are currently five people in the habitat. Jason, Brad and James moved in on Tuesday, I (Saul) joined them on Wednesday and Nathan Bender joined us on Thursday to serve as the Decompression Technician; assisting with the decompression process. Nate’s main job is to initiate decompression and monitor the divers as they breathe oxygen during the first 70 minutes of the decompression process. Decompression is the process by which we slowly return to the pressure of the surface over about 17 hours to safely release the excess gas our bodies have absorbed by living at higher pressure.
This mission, our first of the season is dedicated to system checks and staff training. On Wednesday we spent some time going through our electronics systems (video, audio, etc.) in preparation for the mission we are conducting with NASA in May and then we had a few dives. On Thursday Jason, Brad and I dove in the morning. The main purpose of our dives was to study and learn about the habitat as the three of us are relatively new to the Aquarius program. After our dives, we started cleaning up the habitat in preparation for decompression and the end of the mission. This evening we installed new flooring; you will see on the web camera that blue flooring is now in place; a major improvement requiring a few hours of hard work to get in place.
We have not seen any sharks, but there is an abundance of marine life, including a big green eel.
Thank you for watching.
Saul Rosser
Operations Director, Aquarius Reef Base