One of the 2015 expedition’s final sunsets at Anilao, on the west coast of Luzon.
Throughout this seven-week expedition, nearly 50 team members from the U.S. and the Philippines have explored the biological richness of the on the planet. They sampled mangrove thickets and eelgrass shallows. They examined ocean bottoms covered by little more than sand and rubble, and reefs crowded with multicolored corals. They ventured to depths beyond 400 feet, where light scarcely penetrates and where bizarre, resourceful creatures find a way to make a living despite the limitations. And now, the expedition has come to a close.
Late last week, several members of the team took a break from analyzing and processing their recent discoveries, and planning upcoming research trips, to chat with ’s Blogs Editor, , about their perspectives on this year’s expedition, and what comes next. The live event was part of the ’s series and featured and , two of the expedition’s scientific leads, Elliott Jessup, the head of the ’s diving program, and , one of the Academy’s collection managers charged with making sense of the specimens and data that have come back from the field. If you missed the live event, you can check out the recorded version (embedded above) via Google Science Fair’s YouTube channel.
As you know if you’ve followed this series, what the scientists discovered in the wide variety of habitats they explored was nothing short of spectacular. An overwhelming abundance of organisms and layered diversity were recurring themes on each and every dive. Novelty, though, is what seems to interest people most. A question the scientists get a lot at the end of an endeavor like this one is, “How many new species did you find?”
As simple as it might sound, this can be a difficult question to answer depending on the taxonomic group one studies. For example, Gosliner and Rocha tend to know right away when they have a new species of or fish on their hands. In contrast, a new algae, or , or might require months of careful study to distinguish it from other known species.
So here’s what we know just a few weeks since the field lab in was packed up and returned to its open-air restaurant status: During the nearly 1,200 scientific dives conducted on this expedition, the team discovered approximately 100 new species—a number that may increase significantly as specimen analysis deepens and intensifies. Of the 15 live fish that were collected from twilight zone depths and brought up via s, every one survived and made it safely to the Academy’s in San Francisco, where they’re waiting to go on exhibit in a new twilight zone exhibition planned for summer 2016. So did a small assortment of strange and colorful benthic that have become unlikely favorites of several of the aquarium biologists.
All told, the research team collected some 18,000 individual scientific specimens, which sounds like an awful lot. But, as I wrote in the , those collections, which include many organisms you can hardly see without a microscope, don’t add up to much in the way of volume or weight. And the number itself is tiny in comparison to the tremendous scientific value these specimens will provide for decades to come—and the impact that our knowledge and understanding of these plants and animals might have on efforts to protect the richest of reefs and the habitats that support them.
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