Researchers are bumping up their capacity to study corals in a new way thanks to a new diver-operated microscope – called the Benthic Underwater Microscope imaging PAM, or BUMP.
The scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography hope that this device will help them better understand coral bleaching, thanks to an advanced technology that uses pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) light techniques.
Seeing exactly what happens when corals bleach has been challenging in the past because it happens on such a tiny scale.
Zooxanthellae – the tiny algae living inside coral tissues, which provide the coral with food and their bright colours – measure just 10 micrometres (about one-tenth the width of a human hair).
We know that corals bleach when these algae flee their coral home – usually because of stressors such as increased water temperatures – but scientists can use this tool to see what’s going on in higher resolution and even map the algae’s photosynthesis.
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"The more time we spend with this microscope, the more we hope to learn about corals and why they do what they do under certain conditions,” says the study’s lead author Or Ben-Zvi, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Oceanography.
“The microscope facilitates previously unavailable, underwater observations of coral health,” adds co-author Jules Jaffe, a research oceanographer at Scripps.
Being able to see photosynthesis in unprecedented detail is exciting, says Ben-Zvi: “We are visualising photosynthesis, something that was previously unseen at the scales we are examining, and that feels like magic.”
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