So why are actually here? Why did we fly with a big C-17 all the way to Antarctica?
Why did we enlist the helicopters and all the support personnel to set up a field camp for us at New Harbor?
Why did we spend 36 hours drilling holes with hotsies through 18 feet of ice and then send divers and underwater robots down to 140 feet below the ice?
What are we learning from all of this?
Here are some answers from Paul!
Paul - always smiling and happy!
The main theme of the 1970s was to evaluate recruitment processes. That is, to understand the pattern of larval settlement (where the larvae actually come to rest before metamorphosing into adults) and survival. At the time the literature argued that most of the larvae never left the sea bottom and they did not move around in the water. We did not believe this hypothesis and attempted to demonstrate that.
How did these sponges, crynoids, hydroids and bryozoans get up here - 40 feet above the seafloor?
The program emphasized John Oliver’s thesis that focused on soft bottom recruitment patterns and settlement on hard substrata represented by artificial surfaces. Fundamentally we were interested in the processes that result in the patterns of successful recruitment (settlement and survival), so we attempted to understand the mortality patterns of the settled larvae.
These are the larvae that settled and grew successfully. Which ones died?
The hard settlement surfaces at New Harbor were plates both on the bottom and suspended in the water column to see if larvae would settle from the water, thus disproving the literature. We knew from our experience in the 1960s that a few larvae do settle from the water column, but the settlement surfaces that we emplaced in 1974 had very little settlement through the rest of the 1970s and almost none at New Harbor. However, when we returned in the 1980s we found to our surprise that sponges and hydroids and various predators were settling on our surfaces and by the late 1980s there were many species on the surfaces. At that point we did other experiments putting various animals on the floaters to compare growth rates in different parts of McMurdo Sound. I was not allowed to return to Antarctica until 2010 when I had this wonderful opportunity.
For the first 10 years or so not much settled on these surfaces. Then many hydroids, sponges, hydroids and bryozoans arrived and settled. Where did they grow faster - in New Harbor or in front of McMurdo?
As you can see from the pictures, all sorts of organisms have settled on the floaters and racks thoroughly disproving the hypothesis that the organisms do not have larvae that move around in the water. After a very long and happy career studying marine ecology, the most amazing thing in my career is the remarkable growth rates of a few species of sponges that had not grown at all between 1966 and 1989 but settled and reached massive sizes by 2010.
Julie and one of the smaller volcano sponges! For 20 years they didn't grow and then they grew to enormous proportions.
One important lesson from this trip is how important it is to maintain research programs over long time spans. It would be wonderful if readers of this blog became inspired to continue this program or other programs like it. Modern biology is overly restricted to laboratory and computer based research and there are almost no field biologists being trained to pursue fascinating research like this. It cannot be done in the lab or with theory; it depends on future generations (you, dear reader!) to force your teachers to teach field research and get young and enthusiastic scientists back into nature.
Here are pictures of Paul's day at work out in the field at New Harbor. Don't you want to be like Paul?
Paul helping the divers get ready.
Paul making sure the divers get out of the water safely.
Paul is always excited about life and all the things that happen during the day.
One of the neat things that Paul gets to see - an old and hungry sea anemone that ate all these scallops.
Paul helping Izaiah's WATER DROP and the Flat Stanley understand what SCINI is looking at with her cameras.
Paul taking pictures of critters that the divers have brought back for him.
Paul looking at pictures that the divers have uploaded to a computer.
Paul helping the field camp by doing dishes!
Paul helping the team by getting the last of the Frosty Boy to eat with his chocolate cake.
Can you see Paul through the eye of our field camp ice dragon?