WEBVTT 00:00:10.735 --> 00:00:13.710 NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer is America’s ship for ocean exploration. 00:00:14.735 --> 00:00:18.950 It really represents NOAA’s commitment to collecting baseline information and 00:00:19.150 --> 00:00:25.370 better understanding areas of our ocean that are poorly known or unknown and poorly understood. 00:00:25.570 --> 00:00:31.660 So, for us, that means that we’re looking at places that people have never been, looking at things that people have never seen. 00:00:54.573 --> 00:01:04.500 This is one of our nation’s national marine monuments and we know very little about the fauna in this entire area. 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:13.160 So in order for our resource managers to be able to better manage these resources, both living and non-living resources, we need to know what’s there. 00:01:22.212 --> 00:01:28.510 There are a lot of places in the world where we have no idea what’s down there or very little idea, 00:01:28.710 --> 00:01:31.650 and especially in the Pacific Ocean, it’s a huge, huge ocean 00:01:31.850 --> 00:01:37.890 and there are many parts of it that have simply never had submersibles or ROVs go down into the bottom. 00:01:38.655 --> 00:01:48.170 So in particular, here in the Mariana Islands, Mariana Trench, we’ve never had any ROV surveys to look at what sorts of species might be living there. 00:01:52.419 --> 00:01:56.480 If we find coral species, are they different species than we find in other places? 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:58.690 What sort of things are living with the corals? 00:01:58.890 --> 00:02:02.500 They are creating new habitat wherever it is they grow. 00:02:03.081 --> 00:02:08.820 Just think of a tree growing out of the forest, and there are birds and squirrels and butterflies and caterpillars. 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:10.870 Well, it’s the same thing with the corals. 00:02:11.417 --> 00:02:19.270 We see lots of brittle stars climbing on them, crinoids, shrimp, and fish, and octopus may lay their eggs in the branches of the corals, 00:02:19.470 --> 00:02:27.240 and so the presence of the coral itself actually increases the biodiversity of the species richness of a particular area. 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:38.180 So, that is one reason why we think that corals are important to focus on, because they show us places in the ocean that are “hotspots of diversity.” 00:02:50.236 --> 00:02:56.930 So much like deep-sea corals provide habitat for other organisms to live on, sponges do as well. 00:02:58.490 --> 00:03:01.310 These are almost like oases for other organisms. 00:03:06.647 --> 00:03:12.250 And in addition to that, some of these organisms actually are the source of chemicals 00:03:12.450 --> 00:03:21.280 that can be developed into drugs that can be used to treat diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and infectious diseases. 00:03:21.825 --> 00:03:27.160 And the reason for that is that these sponges are attached to the bottom, 00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:30.730 they can’t get away from something that’s trying to eat them or grow over top of them. 00:03:30.930 --> 00:03:33.821 So they’ve evolved a very sophisticated chemical defense system. 00:03:42.028 --> 00:03:48.000 On this expedition alone, on this leg of this expedition alone, we have observed, in place, 00:03:48.200 --> 00:03:55.390 in their natural environments, organisms that are interacting with each other in ways that we didn’t know existed. 00:03:55.590 --> 00:03:59.460 Or in ways that maybe we just hypothesized might be happening. 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:07.920 To me, the excitement has been seeing the diversity of life in the deep sea. 00:04:08.619 --> 00:04:17.010 And some places, the real abundance, not only the diversity, but the abundance of this diverse fauna in the deep sea. 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:22.590 I remember one dive in particular just a few days ago where we weren’t expecting to see this at all, 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:30.170 but it was just like, massive sponge, massive coral heaven in the deep sea that I just never expected to see. 00:04:30.370 --> 00:04:33.850 And so when people say there’s not much growing in the deep sea, that’s just not true.