Jellies Down Deep

From Goo to Zoo

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Monterey Bay is an ideal harbor from which to launch jelly expeditions. Its waters are biologically rich, and not far offshore the seafloor plunges into Monterey Canyon which, at 3,800 meters (13,000 feet) deep, is one of the deepest submarine canyons along the continental United States. In just a few hours’ travel time, an ROV can be positioned for a plunge into the deep sea. Such speed cuts the expense of jelly research, so more of it can be done, and any live jellies captured by the ROV can quickly be returned to shore for further study.

MBARI scientists have put ROVs to work performing various tasks. One simply involves gathering data about jellies: how many of which kind are where, what they do, and when they do it. The ROVs make underwater runs of a certain length at different depths, filming all the while. Later, scientists watch the video and count all the jellies they can. The work is tedious but enlightening. For the first time, scientists are estimating how many jellies are actually down there. And they can monitor how jelly populations change over time—with the seasons or in relation to long-term climate cycles like the El Niño southern oscillation.

Submersible vehicles also offer a unique window on jelly behavior and ecology. “One of the advantages of working on jellies is that they’re blind and deaf,” Robison says. “They don't seem to mind at all when we fly up to them and zoom in with our lights and cameras. We can make good observations of the interactions of jellies with one another, their prey, and their predators, without disturbing them.” And the jellies themselves, being transparent, offer an additional window onto their lives. “Who eats whom—that’s easy to see with a transparent animal,” Robison says. “You don’t have to cut them open to find out what was for lunch.”

Finally, submersible vehicles have provided MBARI scientists with the ability to capture unusual jellies and transfer them live to the lab. It’s a delicate process involving what California State University, Monterey Bay researcher Kevin Raskoff calls “the slurp gun,” a suction device that gently draws a jelly and a small volume of its watery habitat into a container. When the submersible returns to the surface ship, the jelly is quickly transferred to a dark, temperature-controlled environment.

“These animals are in a very stable, low-temperature environment for their entire lives, and many of them live in almost complete blackness,” Raskoff says. “Even a slight temperature change or a little bit of sunlight can be damaging.”

What the ROV doesn’t catch, it can capture on video. These videos—thousands of hours worth—have helped MBARI scientists identify several new jelly species. In May 2003, Raskoff and his colleague George Matsumoto announced the discovery of Tiburonia granrojo, a meter-wide, tentacleless jelly that they’ve nicknamed “Big Red.” The animal, which lives 650 to 1,500 meters (about 2,000 to 4,800 feet) underwater, was captured on video as early as 1993, but Raskoff and Matsumoto needed several years to confirm that it wasn’t just bizarre-looking but was in fact a distinct, undescribed species. “The majority of the jellies we’re now finding never saw the light of day,” Matsumoto says. “They’re down deep, out of the reach of the nets. And even if they could be reached by the nets, they would be crushed by the time they finally got back up to the surface.”

The exploration is only beginning. The deep sea is an enormous place. The ocean surface itself occupies 71 percent of Earth’s surface area, and below every square foot of ocean surface are, in many cases, miles of water teeming with life—much of it gooey and translucent. As available space goes, the deep sea is by far the largest ecosystem on Earth. And Monterey Bay, one of the best-explored deep-sea regions, represents only the smallest slice of the total. “We’ve still only explored a tiny fraction of the deep ocean,” Robison says, “so we know relatively little about all the different kinds of jellies that are out there.”

There’s a huge amount to be learned: not only which (and how many) jellies exist, but just as important, what they’re all doing down there. “ Jellies have had a bad reputation for a long time, because most people only encounter them in negative situations,” Robison says. “They’re far more important and significant and interesting than that.”