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When we name a species, a species of fish,

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for example, we might be interested

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in looking at specific characters

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like length of fins, number of fins,

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how is their head shaped,

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how are their fins shaped,

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do they have spines,

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do they not have spines.

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Maybe something about their lifestyle, too:

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are they shy or are they predators?

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Over the nineteen dives on this expedition,

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we’ve covered depths from 300 meters

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on the shallow end down to as much as

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near 6,000 meters on the deep end.

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Examining fish communities at

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different depths provides us with

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some insight into a healthy ecosystem.

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Within the Phoenix Island Protected Area

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and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument,

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we are really just at the beginning

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of understanding what the fish communities

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are within these environments and

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what species are being protected

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by these protected areas.

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The bottom line for the managers

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within both of those reserves is that

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they need to know what’s there so they can

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better manage, conserve, and protect those

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biological resources and habitats that

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And so this exploration that we’ve

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been doing provides these managers with

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that essential information so they can

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do their job and better manage these species.

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In the deep sea, we really don’t know

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too much about how fish live.

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There aren’t a lot of direct observations.

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So one of the things that we’re trying to

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understand about fishes is

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how they’re distributed,

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get some ideas about their behavior,

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and that might allow us to better protect

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some of the species we have

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in deep water environments.

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These communities are still being discovered.

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Deep sea fishes are still being identified.

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This type of exploration really

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helps open our eyes to

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how diverse these systems are.