Seated at the dining table, he could look out the window and watch the grouper swim past. Looking at them, he’d think, “They’re looking at us like we’re the aquarium.” Steve McMurray, a UNCW Ph.D. candidate and aquanaut with the only remaining underwater research base, Aquarius, had many experiences the rest of us could only wonder at.

In Aquarius, the world was upside down. The fish watched you. The sky was ocean. If you shook a soda can, it would not explode.

McMurray also explained a rather unique concept: the gazebo shuffle. This was a complicated series of motions used to protect one’s rear end while using the ocean as a restroom. After all, there were tourists to avoid, cameras to dodge and waste-eating fish to fend off.

Living in Aquarius was like living in a car, according to Dr. Chris Finelli, chair of UNCW’s Biology and Marine Biology department. Of course, my car doesn’t have a microwave or bunk bed, but it’s the same basic idea: living in a cramped space for an extended period of time. Finelli also revealed another interesting fact about living in Aquarius: your voice sounds constantly like you had just sucked on a helium-filled balloon. At least there was entertainment.

Aquanauts were diving to do research, according to McMurray. To the observer, however, there is so much more. Aquarius is like a real-life Magic School Bus underwater, a playground for scientists to discover information that can impact the rest of the population.

Okay, so Aquarius is not actually a bus, but it is yellow and about the same size. Also, aquanauts use it as “a vehicle to conduct underwater research that could not be accomplished any other way,” according to the Reef Base’s website.

Some of this research is on sponges, McMurray’s specialty. McMurray will be returning to Aquarius this December to evaluate the effect of water temperature on the sponge pumping rates, as well as to quantify the topographic complexity provided to the reef by the sponges. His work will be partially funded by the Lerner-Gray fund for marine research, who awarded him a 1,258.00 grant July 26.

McMurray studies the populations of Xestospongia muta, or Caribbean Barrel Sponges, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. He discovered that some sponges there are hundreds of years old, while the largest sponges are likely thousands–they are the redwoods of the reef.

For his doctoral dissertation, McMurray is interested in how sponges function in their ecosystem. Since they filter water at 100 times their own volume per hour, sponges change the water’s chemistry. Also, this filtration clarifies the water, making growth easier and faster for the algae that corals rely on.

In his master’s work, McMurray studied sponge populations, discovering that sponge cover is increasing in the Florida reefs now. Meanwhile, scientists are documenting a decrease in coral cover. McMurray’s work reveals that the baby sponges are thriving, while some larger individuals are dying from “sponge orange-band,” a disease-like condition. McMurray cannot yet definitively say how sponge filtration and the changes in sponge population affect the corals.

McMurray published several articles, and while doing the research, he stumbled across a way to reattach sponges. This has made it feasible to consider sponge reattachment in reef conservation and repair efforts. As the corals are dying, it is important to discover if the increased number of sponges are helping or harming them.

The coral reefs are a vital part of the coastal tourism in Florida. They also attract many fish we eat. They, along with sponges, are home to many organisms, and the chemicals in the ecosystem may have pharmacological benefits. However, top UN Scientist Peter Sale believes that coral reefs will be extinct by the end of the century. This could be a huge hit to our planet and to our wallets.

McMurray’s work in Aquarius also enabled him to debunk the idea that bleaching is killing the sponges. Bleaching is when the sponge loses its color, becoming white. Unlike corals, sponges bleach in a cycle, but it does not usually cause them to die. With corals, this condition is the result of increased water temperature and can be fatal to them. With sponges, this is not the case. McMurray expects his article on bleaching to come out any time now.

For his excellent scholarship, McMurray received the Knauss Fellowship to work in Washington D.C. in the National Sea Grant Office, the Walter B. Jones Memorial Award for Excellence, and the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award in the Life Sciences at the 2010 annual meeting of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools.

All of the good work McMurray has done started in his undergraduate studies with professor Dennis Taylor at Hiram College during a trip to Alaska to study commercial fisheries. He began looking at the literature in the field as an undergraduate and stumbled across the work of Dr. Joseph Pawlik, a professor of Marine Biology at UNCW. By the end of his undergraduate work, McMurray knew for sure that he wanted to study Marine Biology, and because Pawlik’s work on sponges interested him, McMurray decided to study at UNCW.

After he completes his doctoral dissertation, tentatively titled “Demography and Functional Roles of Sponges on Coral Reefs,” McMurray says he will go wherever he can find work. His family is in Ohio, and there are opportunities for Marine Biology in many places, but according to McMurray, you can’t be picky. What he wants to do is work as a professor at a smaller university where he can teach and continue his research, though that research probably will not involve studying sponges forever.

Very little was understood about sponges when Pawlik started the first saturation dives from Aquarius to study them in 1997. Saturation diving allowed scientists to spend much longer underwater, studying sponge population, filtration rates and chemistry than if they had attempted to do the same work surface diving. Aquarius allows the scientists to decompress safely when ascending from depth.

Miners’ experiences showed scientists that if a person ascends from depth too quickly, they can get decompression sickness when a nitrogen bubble in the body expands too quickly. This made diving tables a necessity. Diving tables tell a diver how long they can be at depth, when they have to decompress on their way up, for how long, and when it is safe to dive again and for how long. With surface diving tables, there would be very little time a scientist could spend at the depths of the coral reef. Aquarius moves the tables 45 feet down, which allows scientists to spend nine hours diving each day.

Spending this amount of time underwater uses a lot of energy, and it’s cold, so Aquarius aquanauts eat food similar to the military’s MREs (Meals-ready-to-eat). McMurray said the food got boring after a while. There was also an extensive amount of Vaseline necessary after spending so much time in the wet environment and wearing wetsuits. Abrasions become infected easily, so to keep the rubbing from harming their skin, aquanauts cover up with Vaseline like conscientious beachgoers cover up with sunscreen.

After being cooped up for ten days, McMurray was ready to see the sun and the surface. Now, sitting in his office, as I examine the waterproof paper he wrote on while studying the sponges and listen to him describe their importance, I can’t help but be amazed at what he has experienced and accomplished.

SIDEBARS:

All About Aquarius

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration details the importance of coral reefs on their website.

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All about sponges from Steve McMurray and Joseph Pawlik: Caribbean Sponges

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Ode to a Grouper

Outside of my viewport is a grouper

He’s not just big, he is SUPER!

I’m inside, he’s out

And I have no doubt,

That I’d like to go join him

For a minute or twofer!

by Mark “Otter” Hulsbeck July 2011 Mission