{"100681":{"#nid":"100681","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mark Hay\u0027s Aquarius research featured by Wall Street Journal","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003Efrom The Wall Street Journal, Dec 6th, 2010 (used by permission) \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMark Hay checked his scuba gear one last time, then stepped off a boat and dived toward the seafloor. His destination was Aquarius, the only manned underwater lab in operation in the world. The metal structure-about the size of a school bus-is anchored 60 feet beneath the surface near a flourishing coral reef a few miles off Key Largo...\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hay has been on a quest to find out if there is any tangible benefit to preserving a large number of species from extinction, and he has done key aspects of his research during stays here at Aquarius.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMarine researchers like Dr. Hay are drawn to Aquarius because they can conduct experiments on the deep reef for nine hours each day or night without fear of getting the bends-a potentially dangerous buildup of nitrogen in the blood that forces divers to limit the length of a dive.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nPlus, the views aren\u0027t bad. On a recent visit, yellow damselfish peered through a porthole and a mean-mouthed barracuda lurked nearby. \u0022You\u0027re in this reverse aquarium-an air bubble with windows,\u0022 said Saul Rosser, operations director of Aquarius.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut the scuba-dive commute isn\u0027t the only reason it can be a tricky place to work. Scientists-or \u0022aquanauts\u0022-stay for 10 days at a time, living, eating and sleeping in the confined habitat. The high-pressure atmosphere in Aquarius means soda cans brought down barely fizz when opened. But food cans get squeezed and distorted. A person\u0027s voice also tends to have a different timbre. Whistling is hard.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the end of each mission, the interior pressure is slowly reduced until it becomes the same as that on the surface. Aquanauts can then safely return to the surface without fear of the bends.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe lab has six bunks and a shower, and the food is of the astronaut variety. The \u0022outhouse\u0022 toilet attached to the lab isn\u0027t fun. For starters, you have to swim to it, even if in the dark. A person must stand in the gazebo-like structure, breathing from an air pocket in the upper section of the structure. Waste disappears into the sea.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThere are phones, computers and a wireless link to shore. During a mission, a land-based \u0022watch desk\u0022 constantly monitors the habitat\u0027s vital signs-including pressure and oxygen levels-while also keeping an eye on the aquanauts via video cameras.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAquarius is owned by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is funded largely by a roughly $2 million annual grant from the U.S. government. The habitat is run by the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and has been used for 119 missions since 1992.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe reef base draws astronauts, too. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has used Aquarius for 14 training missions to acclimate astronauts to isolated, extreme environments and conduct outside drills that mimic spacewalks.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hay\u0027s focus is biodiversity, an issue that has become urgent. A recent study in the journal Science found that a fifth of all vertebrates are threatened with extinction. A July paper in Nature found that warmer oceans were altering marine diversity patterns. Sea plants are in decline.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022You hear about species loss all the time,\u0022 said Dr. Hay, a biologist at Georgia Institute of Technology, as he sat at the small dining table at Aquarius during his recent visit. \u0022The question is, if you\u0027ve got a thousand species and you lose one, does it make any difference?\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hay\u0027s underwater research may provide only a snapshot of a complex global problem, but it offers vivid evidence of why biodiversity matters. On a reef, for example, \u0022it\u0027s not enough to have herbivores but the right mix of herbivores,\u0022 said Dr. Hay. \u0022If you remove one particular fish, things can quickly go to hell.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hay\u0027s mission is to observe the fish. In a previous Aquarius experiment, his team built large undersea cages on sections of the reef, and stocked them with a varying mix of herbivores, including parrot fish and surgeon fish.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHerbivorous fish that eat algae are important to coral reefs because if algae proliferate, the corals die and the entire reef ecosystem is damaged. When Dr. Hay placed two surgeon fish in a cage, for example, 22% of corals died. But cages with one parrot fish and one surgeon fish-a greater diversity-showed no coral death and a 22% increase in coral growth over 10 months.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Hay\u0027s results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008. He believes that because different species have very different feeding habits on the reef, it helps to maintain the ecological balance and give corals a greater chance to grow. Humans are now upsetting that balance, he says.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESuch research \u0022is starting to tell us that we do need a mix of species or we run into problems,\u0022 says Paul Snelgrove, a professor in the Ocean Sciences Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. \u0022What we don\u0027t know is if there are key species [vital to an ecology] or biodiversity itself-there hasn\u0027t been enough work to tease apart those issues.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn November, Dr. Hay was set to embark on another Aquarius mission, to install new fish in a new set of 32 cages and study a different mix of herbivores over 10 months. But the mission got canceled over a safety issue. (The Aquarius operating team has become more skittish about safety since a diver died during a mission in 2009.)\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESo Dr. Hay\u0027s team reverted to doing things the old way-lowering cages by boat and coming up after each dive. Over the next 10 months, the scientists plan to dive to the cages once every six weeks to observe the changing health of the coral under the influence of a varying mix of fish species.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESuch findings about biodiversity can help with reef protection. Says Dr. Hay: \u0022By manipulating a few key fish species, we may be able to help reefs recover.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELink to the original article: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703865004575648871293777954.html#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB10001424052748704594804575648840378100432%26articleTabs%3Darticle\u0022\u003ELink\u003C\/a\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor videos from Aquarius: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/video\/a-unique-laboratory-far-below-the-sea\/5072B9C8-203E-48C2-8396-A5BC16229C8C.html\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/online.wsj.com\/video\/a-unique-laboratory-far-below-the-sea\/5072B9C8-203E-48C2-8396-A5BC16229C8C.html\u003C\/a\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA photo gallery from Aquarius can be found at: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ace.biology.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.ace.biology.gatech.edu\/\u003C\/a\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Mark Hay checked his scuba gear one last time, then stepped off a boat and dived toward the seafloor. His destination was Aquarius, the only manned underwater lab in operation in the world. The metal structure\u00e2\u0080\u0022about the size of a school bus\u00e2\u0080\u0022is anchored 60 feet beneath the surface near a flourishing coral reef a few miles off Key Largo...","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mark Hay\u0027s Aquarius research featured by Wall Street Journal"}],"uid":"27245","created_gmt":"2010-12-21 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:11:09","author":"Troy Hilley","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-12-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2010-12-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"100691":{"id":"100691","type":"image","title":"Divers approached the manned underwater lab Aquari","body":null,"created":"1449178159","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:19","changed":"1475894717","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:17"},"100701":{"id":"100701","type":"image","title":"Dr. Hay\u0027s team built large undersea cages, at cent","body":null,"created":"1449178159","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:29:19","changed":"1475894717","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:17"}},"media_ids":["100691","100701"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Biology"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.biology.gatech.edu\/people\/mark-hay\/","title":"Mark Hay"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ace.biology.gatech.edu\/","title":"Aquatic Chemical Ecology Center"}],"groups":[{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Biology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBiology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:admin@biology.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EContact School of Biology\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-3700\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["admin@biology.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}