[Music]
so I want you to imagine that you’re at
the beach but rather than a teeming with
people you find that it’s eerily empty
you notice a sign warning that dangerous
creatures could be lurking beneath the
ocean’s surface
now while this may be the image that
first came to your mind what if I told
you rather than sharp teeth
these creatures instead had long
stinging tentacles right now around the
world blooms of jellies are invading our
oceans as our oceans health continues to
decline this means that there may be
less of the commercial fish species we
like to consume and more of these
gelatinous organisms my job as a
scientist is to find out why these jelly
blooms are occurring and what our future
oceans may look like if they continue to
persist so our story starts in 2014 when
scientists from the Northwest fisheries
Science Center started to find these
strange-looking creatures coming up in
their Nets off the Oregon coast now for
many of these scientists this was the
first time they had ever seen these
creatures outside of a textbook in 2015
and 2016 they started to see a few more
of these creatures but nothing prepared
them for what they’re about to see in
2017 thousands of these organisms known
as Pyro’s ohm’s were washing up on
beaches from Alaska to Northern
California now for many beachgoers they
looks like this alien species and in
many ways they are because we’ve
typically seen these creatures in the
tropics rather than the chilly waters
off the Oregon coast so why were they
here now so they’re known as Pyro’s
ohm’s and they’re a type of tunicate
which means they may be more similar to
humans than we think as they start out
their lives with a backbone they have a
hollow gelatinous tube like body but
rather than the stinging cells that most
jellies have they’d rather have these
hairlike projections known as cilia that
line the inside
that tube now the cilia helps the Pyro’s
ohm to swim and to feed now Pyro’s ohms
can be a few centimetres long to over a
meter long and what’s most fascinating
about them is they’re not just one
creature but many as their colonies of
these little organisms known as zoa’s
now the zoa’s all work together to help
the Pyro’s own to swim and to feed now
every single day higher isms take part
and one of the largest daily migrations
on earth known as a diam vertical
migration during the day they’ll stay at
depths of up to 700 meters and then at
night the migrate to the surface to feed
now we think this may be a way for the
pyre ism’s to avoid some of those
visually oriented predators that may be
lurking during the day and instead this
allows them to safely feed on the
microscopic soul plankton and
phytoplankton that they typically like
to feed on but right now there’s only a
handful of scientific papers that have
ever been published on pyros ohms which
means that we have a lot more work to do
to not only understand their
distributions but also their swimming
behaviors now while this bloom was
interesting to us as scientists it was
even more concerning for the fishing
communities that we’re finding that
rather than the pink shrimp albacore
tuna and salmon that they typically
target they were instead getting nets
full of these Pyro’s ohms and Lawton
there as well as on their lines which
shows what a magnitude that this bloom
is having on not only the coast but also
on the livelihoods of these fishing
communities so we may have an issue if
these paradigms continue to persist on
the catches along the west coast in the
future now there also may be a long term
impact on these ecosystems as we’re
finding that pyros ohms were coming up
in the bellies of rock fish now rock
fish sometimes do each aliveness
organisms along the coast but Pyrus ohms
are relatively have little nutrition and
are mainly made of water so you can
imagine if all they’re eating is
primarily this water light creature they
may not have the energy to not only
survive but to reproduce in the future
this means that the
could be a collapse and rockfish stocks
in the future so it’s incredibly
important for us to understand the
magnitude of this bloom and what is
long-term impacts may be so how do we
study these Pyro’s own blooms well one
way is by using something that you may
find at your local store GoPro cameras
this camera system was developed by the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
and it’s equipped with three different
GoPros in underwater housings now what’s
unique about this camera system is that
two of the cameras overlap in their
field of view this means that you’re
getting the same object from two
different perspectives now since we know
the distance between these two cameras
we can collect information such as the
Pyro’s ohm orientation their size and
the distance between Pyro’s ohms so we
can fully characterize this bloom now by
understanding some of these features
such as how the Pyro’s ohms are swimming
in the water and how they’re orienting
their bodies we can then incorporate
some of those secrets that they have
into some of the tools that we use like
submersibles now this camera system was
deployed about 15 miles off the Oregon
coast to a depth of about 50 meters and
the footage that we captured was
absolutely shocking from the surface to
about 10 meters in depth we didn’t see a
single pyro zone but once you search a
surpassed at 10 meters you start to see
them by the hundreds we found in only a
five hours almost 1200 Pyro’s ohms
now if you can imagine this is happening
all along the west coast and this is
just one patch of these Pyro’s ohms so
you can just imagine how many of these
pirates may be out there and what impact
that may have we also found that between
25 to 35 meters we are seeing almost 50%
of our Pyro’s ohms now this is if you
think about this this is a relatively
narrow 10 meter depth window so what may
be driving their abundances in this area
well one thing may be that there may it
may be temperature driven or it could
also be that more of that phytoplankton
prey that they like to eat is in this
area but we still have a lot more to
understand now one of the biggest
challenges of studying pirate zones is
that they’re extremely patchy
other days we go to the same exact
location that this footage was taken and
not see a single pyro zone you can
imagine this is extremely difficult when
we’re trying to relay this information
back to Fisher’s to tell them where they
can most find the best caches so instead
by understanding where not only where in
the water column they are we can also
use information on where they’re located
spatially so we can get this idea of how
we can help the fishing community
further now some ways we can use to
collect more of this data or some
equipment we can use to collect more of
this data is smaller camera systems such
as the one I’m showing you here now this
camera system is very similar to the one
I showed you previously but it’s a lot
smaller which allows us to mobilize more
quickly when these blooms occur again
that camera system I showed you before
is an amazing piece of equipment but it
takes many people to deploy and it can
be time-consuming when you’re trying to
load it on a research or a fishing
vessel by having smaller camera systems
that we can mobilize quickly it allows
us to when these blooms have happen we
can go out and capture the most data
possible so we can see if the trends you
saw in the previous footage are
happening at other locations we can also
use a camera system on the other end of
the spectrum known as a remotely
operated vehicle now our Ovie’s have
been used in the past so discover things
that many humans are interested in such
as shipwrecks and this camera system in
particular the ROV Jason was used off
the Oregon coast at the axial sea mount
which is about twelve hundred meters in
depth this gives us information on not
only how deep the pyros ohms are going
but also allows us to answer questions
that sometimes we forget about like what
happens when these pyar zones die by
being able to see the surface of the
seafloor we can understand not only how
these pyros ohms are how many pyros ohms
are dying in these areas but we can see
what creatures may be feeding on them
and also we can see how they’re
decomposing when these creatures are
decomposing they can emit a lot of
carbon into our water systems so this
means it’s important that we understand
what’s really happening on that sea
floor with these Pyro’s ohms
now while this pyro zone bloom was
unique other blooms of jellies are happy
around the world at an alarming rates
our oceans are facing a health crisis
like we have never seen before as they
are becoming warmer more acidic and
oxygen depleted this is due to causes
such as climate change pollution and
nutrient runoff these conditions are
less suitable for the diverse commercial
fish species we like to consume and more
suitable for the reproduction and
survival of jellies rights now
scientists predict that our fisheries
could experience a collapse by the year
2050 and jelly blooms could be a sign
that our oceans are moving in that
direction but if we act now to protect
our ocean resources and continue to
study how these jelly blooms impact
these local ecosystems we may be able to
prevent a life as we do not know it and
a life we do not want to know a life
where our oceans are dominated by
jellies but I challenge you today to
take a lesson from the Pyro’s own these
brainless creatures made almost entirely
of water have been able to unite and use
the power of working together to swim
hundreds of meters every single day
ultimately achieving their goal of
finding food but if a large part of that
colony fails to function the survival of
the pyro zone is unlikely it comes down
to this simple question are we going to
use the science technology and knowledge
we have today to influence the decisions
we make every single day now while some
of these decisions may seem small such
as choosing to carpool or use public
transportation on your daily commute or
learning how much water is used and the
production of the food that we eat or
even just saying no to single-use
plastics if every single one of us made
these decisions what change could we see
and the health of our oceans within our
lifetimes so today let us unite as a
colony of change
so that generations to come can
experience the same all and wonder as we
do over the strange and mysterious
creatures we find in our oceans thank
you
[Applause] [Music]
so I want you to imagine that you’re at
the beach but rather than a teeming with
people you find that it’s eerily empty
you notice a sign warning that dangerous
creatures could be lurking beneath the
ocean’s surface
now while this may be the image that
first came to your mind what if I told
you rather than sharp teeth
these creatures instead had long
stinging tentacles right now around the
world blooms of jellies are invading our
oceans as our oceans health continues to
decline this means that there may be
less of the commercial fish species we
like to consume and more of these
gelatinous organisms my job as a
scientist is to find out why these jelly
blooms are occurring and what our future
oceans may look like if they continue to
persist so our story starts in 2014 when
scientists from the Northwest fisheries
Science Center started to find these
strange-looking creatures coming up in
their Nets off the Oregon coast now for
many of these scientists this was the
first time they had ever seen these
creatures outside of a textbook in 2015
and 2016 they started to see a few more
of these creatures but nothing prepared
them for what they’re about to see in
2017 thousands of these organisms known
as Pyro’s ohm’s were washing up on
beaches from Alaska to Northern
California now for many beachgoers they
looks like this alien species and in
many ways they are because we’ve
typically seen these creatures in the
tropics rather than the chilly waters
off the Oregon coast so why were they
here now so they’re known as Pyro’s
ohm’s and they’re a type of tunicate
which means they may be more similar to
humans than we think as they start out
their lives with a backbone they have a
hollow gelatinous tube like body but
rather than the stinging cells that most
jellies have they’d rather have these
hairlike projections known as cilia that
line the inside
that tube now the cilia helps the Pyro’s
ohm to swim and to feed now Pyro’s ohms
can be a few centimetres long to over a
meter long and what’s most fascinating
about them is they’re not just one
creature but many as their colonies of
these little organisms known as zoa’s
now the zoa’s all work together to help
the Pyro’s own to swim and to feed now
every single day higher isms take part
and one of the largest daily migrations
on earth known as a diam vertical
migration during the day they’ll stay at
depths of up to 700 meters and then at
night the migrate to the surface to feed
now we think this may be a way for the
pyre ism’s to avoid some of those
visually oriented predators that may be
lurking during the day and instead this
allows them to safely feed on the
microscopic soul plankton and
phytoplankton that they typically like
to feed on but right now there’s only a
handful of scientific papers that have
ever been published on pyros ohms which
means that we have a lot more work to do
to not only understand their
distributions but also their swimming
behaviors now while this bloom was
interesting to us as scientists it was
even more concerning for the fishing
communities that we’re finding that
rather than the pink shrimp albacore
tuna and salmon that they typically
target they were instead getting nets
full of these Pyro’s ohms and Lawton
there as well as on their lines which
shows what a magnitude that this bloom
is having on not only the coast but also
on the livelihoods of these fishing
communities so we may have an issue if
these paradigms continue to persist on
the catches along the west coast in the
future now there also may be a long term
impact on these ecosystems as we’re
finding that pyros ohms were coming up
in the bellies of rock fish now rock
fish sometimes do each aliveness
organisms along the coast but Pyrus ohms
are relatively have little nutrition and
are mainly made of water so you can
imagine if all they’re eating is
primarily this water light creature they
may not have the energy to not only
survive but to reproduce in the future
this means that the
could be a collapse and rockfish stocks
in the future so it’s incredibly
important for us to understand the
magnitude of this bloom and what is
long-term impacts may be so how do we
study these Pyro’s own blooms well one
way is by using something that you may
find at your local store GoPro cameras
this camera system was developed by the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
and it’s equipped with three different
GoPros in underwater housings now what’s
unique about this camera system is that
two of the cameras overlap in their
field of view this means that you’re
getting the same object from two
different perspectives now since we know
the distance between these two cameras
we can collect information such as the
Pyro’s ohm orientation their size and
the distance between Pyro’s ohms so we
can fully characterize this bloom now by
understanding some of these features
such as how the Pyro’s ohms are swimming
in the water and how they’re orienting
their bodies we can then incorporate
some of those secrets that they have
into some of the tools that we use like
submersibles now this camera system was
deployed about 15 miles off the Oregon
coast to a depth of about 50 meters and
the footage that we captured was
absolutely shocking from the surface to
about 10 meters in depth we didn’t see a
single pyro zone but once you search a
surpassed at 10 meters you start to see
them by the hundreds we found in only a
five hours almost 1200 Pyro’s ohms
now if you can imagine this is happening
all along the west coast and this is
just one patch of these Pyro’s ohms so
you can just imagine how many of these
pirates may be out there and what impact
that may have we also found that between
25 to 35 meters we are seeing almost 50%
of our Pyro’s ohms now this is if you
think about this this is a relatively
narrow 10 meter depth window so what may
be driving their abundances in this area
well one thing may be that there may it
may be temperature driven or it could
also be that more of that phytoplankton
prey that they like to eat is in this
area but we still have a lot more to
understand now one of the biggest
challenges of studying pirate zones is
that they’re extremely patchy
other days we go to the same exact
location that this footage was taken and
not see a single pyro zone you can
imagine this is extremely difficult when
we’re trying to relay this information
back to Fisher’s to tell them where they
can most find the best caches so instead
by understanding where not only where in
the water column they are we can also
use information on where they’re located
spatially so we can get this idea of how
we can help the fishing community
further now some ways we can use to
collect more of this data or some
equipment we can use to collect more of
this data is smaller camera systems such
as the one I’m showing you here now this
camera system is very similar to the one
I showed you previously but it’s a lot
smaller which allows us to mobilize more
quickly when these blooms occur again
that camera system I showed you before
is an amazing piece of equipment but it
takes many people to deploy and it can
be time-consuming when you’re trying to
load it on a research or a fishing
vessel by having smaller camera systems
that we can mobilize quickly it allows
us to when these blooms have happen we
can go out and capture the most data
possible so we can see if the trends you
saw in the previous footage are
happening at other locations we can also
use a camera system on the other end of
the spectrum known as a remotely
operated vehicle now our Ovie’s have
been used in the past so discover things
that many humans are interested in such
as shipwrecks and this camera system in
particular the ROV Jason was used off
the Oregon coast at the axial sea mount
which is about twelve hundred meters in
depth this gives us information on not
only how deep the pyros ohms are going
but also allows us to answer questions
that sometimes we forget about like what
happens when these pyar zones die by
being able to see the surface of the
seafloor we can understand not only how
these pyros ohms are how many pyros ohms
are dying in these areas but we can see
what creatures may be feeding on them
and also we can see how they’re
decomposing when these creatures are
decomposing they can emit a lot of
carbon into our water systems so this
means it’s important that we understand
what’s really happening on that sea
floor with these Pyro’s ohms
now while this pyro zone bloom was
unique other blooms of jellies are happy
around the world at an alarming rates
our oceans are facing a health crisis
like we have never seen before as they
are becoming warmer more acidic and
oxygen depleted this is due to causes
such as climate change pollution and
nutrient runoff these conditions are
less suitable for the diverse commercial
fish species we like to consume and more
suitable for the reproduction and
survival of jellies rights now
scientists predict that our fisheries
could experience a collapse by the year
2050 and jelly blooms could be a sign
that our oceans are moving in that
direction but if we act now to protect
our ocean resources and continue to
study how these jelly blooms impact
these local ecosystems we may be able to
prevent a life as we do not know it and
a life we do not want to know a life
where our oceans are dominated by
jellies but I challenge you today to
take a lesson from the Pyro’s own these
brainless creatures made almost entirely
of water have been able to unite and use
the power of working together to swim
hundreds of meters every single day
ultimately achieving their goal of
finding food but if a large part of that
colony fails to function the survival of
the pyro zone is unlikely it comes down
to this simple question are we going to
use the science technology and knowledge
we have today to influence the decisions
we make every single day now while some
of these decisions may seem small such
as choosing to carpool or use public
transportation on your daily commute or
learning how much water is used and the
production of the food that we eat or
even just saying no to single-use
plastics if every single one of us made
these decisions what change could we see
and the health of our oceans within our
lifetimes so today let us unite as a
colony of change
so that generations to come can
experience the same all and wonder as we
do over the strange and mysterious
creatures we find in our oceans thank
you
[Applause] [Music]
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