Sponges, The Reef's Filters - Project SeaCAMEL
Students will get to see careful in situ measurements, the strength of using a saturation laboratory like Aquarius, in action in real time!
Sponges, the Reef’s Filters Video: The history of science shows that science often advances the fastest when people make new tools that allow the test of new questions, rather than vice versa. One tool developed by Dr. Patterson is a profiling instrument that can be carried by a SCUBA diver to measure temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH, at a precise point in the water column (Fig. 5). Several years ago, he and his aquanaut team starting using this device to profile the water chemistry near Aquarius (the subject of Module 5). But the device can do double duty. By sticking the oxygen sensor into the water near sponges and then in their excurrent flows, we can see whether oxygen is being depleted by the sponges (aerobic respiration) or increased through the process of photosynthesis by any symbiontic algae living inside them. If we know the pumping rate, we can then estimate the metabolic activity of the sponge, as it sits undisturbed on the reef (see Quantitative exercises below). We will examine giant barrel sponges of differing size using this technology, and measure their pumping speed using dye release, while keeping an eye out for other interesting sponge denizens of Conch Reef. Students will get to see careful in situ measurements, the strength of using a saturation laboratory like Aquarius, in action in real time!
