The weird wonderful world of bioluminescence Edith Widder

so I want to take you on a trip to an

alien world and it’s not a trip that

requires light-years of travel but it’s

to a place where it’s defined by light

so it’s a little appreciated fact that

most of the animals in our ocean make

life I’ve spent most of my career

studying this phenomenon called

bioluminescence I study it because I

think understanding it is critical to

understanding life in the ocean where

most bioluminescence occurs I also use

it as a tool for visualizing and

tracking pollution but mostly I’m

entranced by it since my first dive in a

deep diving submersible when I went down

and turned out the lights and saw the

fireworks displays I’ve been a

bioluminescence junky but I would come

back from those dives and try to share

the experience with words and they were

totally inadequate to the task I needed

some way to share the experience

directly and the first time I figured

out that way was in this little single

person submersible called deep Rover

this next video clip you’re going to see

how we stimulated the bioluminescence

and the first thing you’re going to see

is a transect screen that is about a

meter across in front of the Sun a mesh

screen will come into contact with the

soft bodied creatures of the deep sea

with the subs light switched off it is

possible to see their bioluminescence

the light produced when they collide

with the mesh

this is the first time that has ever

been recorded

so I recorded that with an intensified

video camera that has about the

sensitivity of the fully dark-adapted

human eye which means that really is

what you would see if you took a dive in

a submersible but just to try to prove

that fact to you I brought along some

bioluminescent plankton in what is

undoubtedly a foolhardy attempt at a

live demonstration so if we get up the

lights down and have it as dark in here

as possible I have a flask that has

bioluminescent plankton in it and you’ll

note there’s no light coming from them

right now either because they’re dead or

because I need to stir them up in some

way for you to be able to see what

bioluminescence really looks like Oh

I spend most of my time working in the

dark I’m used to that okay so that light

was made by a bioluminescent

dinoflagellate a single-celled alga so

why would a single-celled alga need to

be able to produce light

well uses it to defend itself from its

predators the flash is like a scream for

help it’s what’s known as a

bioluminescent burglar alarm and just

like the alarm on your car or your house

it’s meant to cast unwanted attention

onto the intruder

thereby either leading to his capture or

scaring him away it’s a lot of animals

that use this trick for example this

black dragon fish it’s got a light organ

under its eye it’s got a chin barbel

it’s got a lot of other light organs you

can’t see but you’ll see them here in a

minute so we’d have to chase this and

the submersible for quite some time

because the top speed of this fish is

one not which was a top speed of the

submersible but it was worth it because

we caught in a symmetric capture device

brought it up into the lab on the ship

and then everything on this fish lights

up it’s unbelievable the light organs

under the eyes are flashing that chin

barbel is flashing it’s got light organs

on its belly that are flashing fin

lights it’s a scream for help it’s meant

to attract attention it’s phenomenal and

you normally don’t get to see this

because we’ve exhausted the luminescence

when we bring them up in nets there’s

other ways you can defend yourself with

light for example this shrimp releases

its bioluminescent chemicals into the

water just the way a squid or an octopus

would release an ink cloud this blinds

or distracts the predator this little

squid is called the fire shooter because

of its ability to do this

now it may look like a tasty morsel or a

pig’s head with wings

but if it’s attacked it puts out a

barrage of light in fact a barrage of

photon torpedoes I just barely got the

lights out in time for you be able to

see those gobs of light hitting the

transept screen and then just glowing

it’s phenomenal so there’s a lot of

animals in the open ocean most of them

that make light and we have a pretty

good idea for most of them why they use

it for finding food for attracting mates

for defending against predators but when

you get down at the bottom of the ocean

that’s where things get really strange

and some of these animals are probably

inspiration for the things you saw in

Avatar

but you don’t have to travel to pandora

to see them there are things like this

this is a golden coral a bush it grows

very slowly in fact it’s thought that

some of these are as much as 3,000 years

old which is one reason that bottom

trawling should not be allowed the other

reason is this amazing bush glows so if

you brush up against it anyplace you

brushed against it you get this

twinkling Bluegreen light it’s just

breathtaking

and you see things like this this looks

like something out of a dr. Seuss book

just all manner of creatures all over

this thing and these are flight wrapping

enemies now if you poke it it pulls in

its tentacles but if you keep poking it

it starts to produce light and it

actually ends up looking like a galaxy

it produces these strings of light

presumably as some form of defense

there are starfish that can make light

and there are brittle stars that produce

bands of light that dance along their

arms this looks like a plant but it’s

actually an animal and it angers itself

in the sand by blowing up a balloon on

the end of its stock so it can actually

hold itself in very strong currents as

you see here but if we collect it very

gently and

bring it up into the lab just squeeze it

at the base of the stock it produces

this light that propagates from the stem

to the plume change in color as it goes

from green to blue colorization and

sound effects added for your viewing

pleasure but we have no idea why it does

that

here’s another one this is also a see

pen it’s got a brittle star hitching a

ride it’s a green saber of light and

like the one you just saw it can produce

these as bands of light so if I squeeze

the bass the band’s go from base to tip

if I squeeze the tip they go from tip to

base so what do you think happens if you

squeeze it in the middle I’d be very

interested in your theories about what

that’s about so there’s a language of

light in the deep ocean and we’re just

beginning to understand it and one way

we’re going about that is we’re

imitating a lot of these displays this

is an optical lure that I’ve used we

call it the electronic jellyfish it’s

just sixteen blue LEDs that we can

program to do different types of

displays and we view it with a camera

system I developed called I in the sea

that uses far red light that’s invisible

to most animals so it’s unobtrusive so I

just want to show you some of the

responses that we’ve elicited from

animals in the deep sea so the camera is

black and white it’s not high resolution

and what you’re seeing here is a bait

box with a bunch of like the cockroaches

of the ocean they’re isopods all over it

and right in the front is the electronic

jellyfish and when it starts flashing

it’s just going to be one of the LEDs

that’s flashing very fast but as soon as

it starts to flash and it’s going to

look big because it blooms on the camera

I want you to look right here and it’s

something small there that responds

we’re talking to something it looks like

a little string of pearls basically in

fact three strings of pearls this was

very consistent this is in the Bahamas

at about 2,000 feet we basically have a

chat room going

on here because once it gets started

everybody’s talking and I think this is

actually a shrimp that’s releasing its

bioluminescent chemicals into the water

but the cool thing is we’re talking to

it we don’t know what we’re saying

personally I think it’s something sexy

and then finally I want to show you some

responses that we recorded with the

world’s first deep-sea webcam which we

had installed in Monterey Canyon last

year we’ve only just begun to analyze

all of this data this is going to be a

glowing source first which is like

bioluminescent bacteria and it is an

optical cue that there’s carrion on the

bottom of the ocean so this scavenger

comes in which is a giant sixgill shark

and I can’t claim for sure that the

optical source brought it in because

there’s bait right there but if it had

been following the odor plume it would

have come in from the other direction

and it does actually try to seem to be

trying to eat the electronic jellyfish

that’s a 12-foot long giant sixgill

shark okay so this next one is from the

webcam and it’s going to be this

pinwheel display and this is a burglar

alarm

and that was a Humboldt squid a juvenile

Humboldt squid about three feet long

this is at 3,000 feet in Monterey Canyon

but if it’s a burglar alarm you wouldn’t

expect it to attack the jellyfish

directly it’s supposed to be attacking

what’s attacking the jellyfish but we

did see a bunch of responses like this

this guy’s a little more contemplative

hey wait a minute there’s supposed to be

something else there he’s thinking about

it but he’s persistent he keeps coming

back and then he goes away for a few

seconds to think about it some more

and thinks maybe if I come in from a

different angle

nope so we are starting to get a handle

on this but only just the beginnings we

need more eyes on the process so if any

of you ever get a chance to take a dive

in a submersible by all means climb in

and take the plunge this is something

that should be on everybody’s bucket

list because we live on an ocean planet

more than 90% 99% of the living space on

our planet is ocean it’s a magical place

filled with breathtaking

light shows

and bizarre and wondrous creatures alien

life-forms that you don’t have to travel

to another planet to see but if you do

take the plunge please remember to turn

out the lights but I warn you it’s

addictive

thank you