When we name a species, a species of fish,
for example, we might be interested
in looking at specific characters
like length of fins, number of fins,
how is their head shaped,
how are their fins shaped,
do they have spines,
do they not have spines.
Maybe something about their lifestyle, too:
are they shy or are they predators?
Over the nineteen dives on this expedition,
we’ve covered depths from 300 meters
on the shallow end down to as much as
near 6,000 meters on the deep end.
Examining fish communities at
different depths provides us with
some insight into a healthy ecosystem.
Within the Phoenix Island Protected Area
and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument,
we are really just at the beginning
of understanding what the fish communities
are within these environments and
what species are being protected
by these protected areas.
The bottom line for the managers
within both of those reserves is that
they need to know what’s there so they can
better manage, conserve, and protect those
biological resources and habitats that
And so this exploration that we’ve
been doing provides these managers with
that essential information so they can
do their job and better manage these species.
In the deep sea, we really don’t know
too much about how fish live.
There aren’t a lot of direct observations.
So one of the things that we’re trying to
understand about fishes is
how they’re distributed,
get some ideas about their behavior,
and that might allow us to better protect
some of the species we have
in deep water environments.
These communities are still being discovered.
Deep sea fishes are still being identified.
This type of exploration really
helps open our eyes to
how diverse these systems are.