In this video, Jonathan treks all the way to Antarctica to investigate life south of the polar circle. Along the way he dives in the majestic kelp forests of Patagonia, where crabs rule the sea floor. Once he arrives in Antarctica, his adventures continue. He swims with penguins, dives under an iceberg, meets a massive jellyfish 3 feet across, and has an incredible encounter with a Leopard seal, the apex predator of Antarctica. Part 2 finds Jonathan continuing his exploration of Antarctica including an encounter with a Leopard seal. This program won a New England Emmy Award! Please see the accompanying lesson plan for educational objectives, discussion points and classroom activities.

Here in the Dunn lab, siphonophores are our favorite animal and the focus of much of our research. Dr. Phil Pugh is a good friend of the lab, and he also happens to have described more new species of siphonophores than anyone who has ever lived. In the video below, he describes what it’s like to come across a siphonophore in the deep sea with a submarine. What looks like one long body in this video is actually a free-swimming colony of clones — many genetically identical bodies that are all attached. But each body in the group isn’t just like its neighbor. They each do a specific job for the colony. Some individuals will swim, some will catch food, and some will reproduce.

Riley Thompson made this animation about the fascinating lifecycle of narco babies. We usually don’t think of babies that grow inside their mothers as parasites, but sometimes the lines get very blurry. This is especially true in Narcomedusae, a group of poorly known jellyfish found throughout the world’s oceans.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Although it might appear simple, the box jellyfish has evolved a system of vision nearly as complex as our own. The jellyfish has four sets of six eyes linked to a gravity-detecting structure known as a statolith. Inspired by this combination of natural light and gravity sensors, researchers reporting in the _Journal of Bionic Engineering _are paving the way toward improved environmental detection in robots. They’ve devised a new method for calibrating a camera linked to an inertial measurement unit, or IMU, on a robotic arm. By programming the robotic arm to spiral toward a set of visual markers during calibration, this new method produces smaller reprojection errors than popular calibration methods such as ICSR and Kalibr. Using this calibration approach, the team envisions a jellyfish-like robotic system equipped with a camera and IMU at its joints..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The relationships between cnidarians such as corals and their symbiotic microbes, including algae, bacteria, and other microorganisms, are key to reef health. However, along with ocean warming, eutrophication threatens these relationships by overwhelming the algal symbionts with dissolved nutrients. Some cnidarians with symbionts, including certain jellyfish, are very tolerant of eutrophication, and understanding these host-symbiont units (holobionts) could provide insights for reef preservation. A recent study investigated nutrient cycling in the eutrophication-resistant upside-down jellyfish. Isotope labelling revealed that the jellyfish shared carbon and nitrogen from food with their algal symbionts, but the algae had very limited access to nitrogen dissolved in the water. According to DNA metabarcoding, symbiotic jellyfish had lower bacterial diversity than algae-depleted (aposymbiotic) jellyfish, and lower diversity was correlated with lower nitrogen assimilation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Synopsis: A salmon hatches from its egg, making the perilous journey downstream into the ocean and adulthood. Along the way, they find courage and purpose in a sometimes scary world. Themes: Salmonid ecology, cooperation, emotional well-being, self-regulation