Dive Into Your Imagination

Miriam Goldstein is a PhD student at Scripps and was the principle investigator on the SEAPLEX cruise!  Through many manta tows, Miriam received over a hundred samples of plastic to analyze.  She is particularly interested how plastic affects the biology in the ocean, so she studies zooplankton and fouling communities.  Find out what these are and how they are impacted by the plastic floating in the North Pacific Gyre! See a Flickr album about Miriam's studies here.

What do you feel is the most important thing for people to know about plastic waste?
Plastic does not rot or rust. This is great when using plastic items for their intended purpose - for example; I love my SCUBA gear, which is mostly made of plastic or nylon. But when plastic makes it into the environment, it can be unsightly and harmful for many, many years.

What are plankton and fouling communities, and why do you specifically study them?
I'm interested in the impact of plastic on marine invertebrates, so that's why I study zooplankton, which are tiny floating animals, and fouling communities, the animals that live directly on the plastic, like barnacles. I think one of the most interesting implications of having all that plastic in the middle of the ocean is the addition of hard surfaces that wouldn't otherwise be there. This could be changing the way that zooplankton and fish move through the ocean, or transporting potentially invasive species to new habitats.

How exactly is this plastic affecting the marine life? How does this subsequently affect our lives on land?
Large pieces of debris can entangle birds, mammals, and turtles. However, most of the debris in the North Pacific Gyre is very, very small, less than the size of your little fingernail. We don't know what affect those tiny pieces may be having on marine life, but we are trying to find out.  For us, seeing the undeniable influence of people in the midst of the vast open sea is far more disturbing than seeing it in a forest or a field. People want to know that there are wildernesses out there somewhere, and if even the open sea is no longer a wilderness, what is?

Give us a quick summary about what you discovered on the expedition.
There sure is a lot of tiny bits of plastic floating around in the middle of the ocean far from land, and that plastic is creating habitat for all kinds of bottom-dwelling animals that wouldn't otherwise be there in such great numbers.

What is a manta net, and why was it the best tool for your research?
The manta net is a net that samples the surface of the ocean and captures zooplankton (tiny animals) along with tiny plastic pieces. Since we think most of the plastic is floating on the surface, the manta is the right tool for the job.

What was your favorite part of the expedition?
The dead giant squid! I was so happy to be able to scoop it up, even if it was really smelly and rotten. I have the squid's beak and pen, and will be sending them off to experts who can figure out what species it was.

What are you working on and finding now that you are back on dry land?
I am processing all the many, many samples from SEAPLEX! I have over 125 jars of plastic and plankton, and I have to figure out how much plastic we caught.

Keep following Miriam!  She will be announcing some of her results at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon this February 2010!  Miriam will also be speaking at ScienceOnline2010 along with Annie and Lindsey Holshaw! You can see hers and other SEAPLEX videos on our SEAPLEX youtube playlist.

Miriam is a 3rd year PhD student at Scripps studying biological oceanography.  For her thesis work, she investigates the distribution and abundance of plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre, as well as the potential for plastic debris to impact the distributions of invasive species.  She is the principal investigator on the SEAPLEX cruise.

SEAPLEX main site: http://sio.ucsd.edu/Expeditions/Seaplex/
Blog: http://www.seaplexscience.com
Twitter: @seaplexscience

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