When it comes to an organization like BIOS, with over 100 years of history, having anniversaries to celebrate is par for the course. The year 2016 presented such an occasion, with two of our education programs having reached important milestones. The Bermuda Program – our research internship program for Bermudian college students – celebrated its 40th year, epitomizing BIOS’s long-standing commitment to on-island education; while one of our programs for U.S. university students celebrated its 25th anniversary, reflecting BIOS’s international reputation and connectedness to the U.S. ocean sciences community.

Coral reefs have almost always been studied up close, by scientists in the water looking at small portions of larger reefs to gather data and knowledge about the larger ecosystems. But NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is taking a step back and getting a wider view, from about 23,000 ft above.

The cool darkness of the cave provided relief from Bermuda’s spring sun when BIOS scientist Leocadio Blanco-Bercial ducked down and slipped inside, eager to explore the quiet habitat of organisms smaller than sand grains. His cave research, which began in early April, teamed him with researchers from the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research to gather water samples from six of Bermuda’s renowned—yet mysterious—limestone caves.

Since the first sighting of a lionfish in Bermuda in 2000, the invasive fish has posed a growing threat to the island’s marine ecosystem. A single female lionfish can produce more than 2 million eggs every year and, with no natural predators, the voracious appetite of lionfish can rapidly reduce numbers of native fish and invertebrates that are commercially, recreationally, and ecologically important.

For millennia, the exchange of CO2 (carbon dioxide) between the ocean and atmosphere has been in balance. Now, with more human-caused, or anthropogenic, carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, the ocean is taking up more CO2 as well. This additional CO2 is negatively impacting sensitive ecosystems and scientists worry how changes to the ocean environment will affect the way carbon is cycled through the seas. Tune in to Changing Seas The Fate of Carbon, which features BIOS scientists working on the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS), which has collected data on the physical, biological, and chemical properties of the ocean since 1988. Learn how these measurements are helping us learn more about the role of carbon, and the ocean, in Earth’s changing climate.

BIOS oceanographer Amy Maas received $75,000 in June from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative to continue her research examining the swimming patterns and movements of sea butterflies.

If you have ever watched a documentary about deep ocean exploration, you have probably heard that “95 percent of the ocean floor is unexplored.” In fact, we do have a global map of the ocean floor generated by satellite data that allows us to see features on the ocean floor larger than 3 miles (5 kilometers) in length. Missing from this picture, however, are the geologic features smaller than this size, not to mention millions of plants and animals inhabiting the deep ocean and seafloor.

In an innovative collaboration, BIOS molecular ecologist Leocadio Blanco-Bercial and reef ecologist Tim Noyes are exploring how DNA can be recovered from seawater to reveal which fish species are active on Bermuda’s reefs. As fish swim, water passing over their gills and waste passing through their guts all deliver sloughed off cells to the surrounding seawater, leaving a trail of genetic material behind them. Within that genetic material, a specific short sequence of DNA can be recovered by scientists and traced like a fingerprint to a single fish species. But to learn more about fish communities from the DNA sequences swirling in the seawater, scientists first need to document which sequence belongs to which species.

The research vessel Atlantic Explorer sailed from BIOS in June sporting a new instrument package on its mast and bow designed to measure climate-relevant, constantly shifting gases, moisture, and heat between the ocean and the atmosphere.

The 13th annual International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) convened in Honolulu, Hawaii in June with more than 2,500 scientists, policy makers and managers in attendance from 70 countries. The conference theme ‘bridging science to policy’ provided students and professionals with the opportunity to communicate their recent findings and ongoing research programs to an audience with the shared goal of improving coral reef conservation through the application of science. BIOS associate scientist Eric Hochberg co-chaired a session on remote sensing of coral reefs, during which he gave a presentation about the NASA-funded COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) mission (of which he is the Principal Investigator). This symposium also saw three BIOS alums from the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Michael Wooster, Naomi Huntley and Mia Thomas (pictured) presented their research in both oral presentations and poster sessions, demonstrating the positive impact this program has on the careers of young scientists.