A new school dedicated to the study of the ocean and its ecosystems, and it is based in the desert?

Beginning this fall, ocean exploration enthusiasts will have a new window into the deep sea and its inhabitants through the virtual world of subROV: Underwater Discoveries, a PC-based simulation video game. Developed with input from researchers at BIOS and the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) in Palo Alto, California (U.S.), subROV allows players to assume the controls of a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and pilot it on a variety of scientific missions.

It’s rare that we hear about a new species discovered in Bermuda’s waters. Even rarer to hear about dozens of new species. And rarer still when these species play a key role in the global carbon cycle. A team of researchers led by Josué G. Millán, PhD candidate at Indiana State University and including BIOS zooplankton ecologist Leocadio Blanco-Bercial, have discovered 40 new morphospecies, and likely one new genus, of undescribed coccolithophores—a type of phytoplankton.

Melissa Hicks is a professor at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York where she teaches introductory courses in geology and oceanography, including a study abroad program in marine ecology of the Bahamas. For the last two years, she’s also been interested in finding ways of incorporating real-world ocean science data into her curriculum.

Nicole Coots, a PhD student in her third year of evolutionary biology research at Arizona State University, is smitten by radiolarians, drifting plankton known for their complex, beautifully-sculpted miniature skeletons they make from minerals in ocean water. Like snowflakes, they seem to exist in almost unlimited variety. They are also key members of the food web throughout the surface waters of the global ocean, providing nutrition for other sea life.

BIOS Ocean Academy alumna Emma O’Donnell will take her interest in environmental sustainability a step further this fall at the University of Oxford in England with a Rhodes Scholarship, focusing her graduate work on studies of sustainability, enterprise, and the environment.

Growing up in Bermuda, Jessica Godfrey developed a fascination with the local corals and other sea life. While attending the island’s Saltus Grammar School, she studied oceanography, narrowing her interest to marine biology.

BIOS faculty members Leocadio Blanco-Bercial and Amy Maas study tiny zooplankton, essential to the marine food web, and fondly refer to students and researchers in their Bermuda lab as members of their “Zoop Group.” Three new student members have joined their ranks, including two who will complete their internships in the months ahead and another who will continue their work through mid-2022.

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.

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.