The Outer Bay

Ivan Rudenko

The Outer Bay

The first phylum that is widely represented in the Outer Bay section of the Monterey Bay aquarium is Cnidaria. None of the polyp forms are present in the outer bay, which makes sense since the polyps like corals need a bottom to anchor and sunlight to feed during the day and there is no sunlight at the bottom in the outer sea. The Monterey Bay aquarium has a variety of jellyfish in the Outer Bay section, which have similar body styles that have been adapted as much as possible for the amount of features that the jellyfish have in their body plan. The first jellyfish that I encountered was Phacellophora camschatica commonly known as egg-yolk jelly. Egg-yolk jelly has a typical medusa body style of jelly. One specialized characteristic that the Phacellophora camschatica has is what gives rise to its common name and it is a yellow color on the inside of it, surrounded by the transparent umbrella like body. The only reason why would the yellow yolk-like look is advantageous is to hide from predators by looking like the reflection of the sun. The next interesting jelly I ran into is Aequorea victoria, which is a small clear jelly. The transparency is an adaptation for living in the open sea where there is no place to hide. In such place an organism needs either to be adapted for speed or invisibility, since jellies don't really have speed and just drift the clear jelly is adapted to disappear in the open water. Aequorea victoria is also small, which is another adaptation. Another representative of the Cnidarians is Velella vellela also commonly know was the By-the-wind Sailor. Velella vellela has a highly modified body that has adapted to living on top of the water surface. The body has structure that acts like a sail, which provides the means of locomotion of the organism. The color of By-the-wind Sailor is clear or bluish, which allows it to blend in with the seawater and not be eaten by predators above and below the water.

Another dominant phylum that was displayed in the outer bay section of the Monterey Bay aquarium is Chordata. The two obvious classes that were presented are Osteichthyes, bony fishes, and Chondrichthyes, the cartilaginous fishes that includes sharks and rays. The first fish that I looked was Scomber japonicus, which is a mackerel. Scomber japonicus is commonly known as Chub mackerel. Scomber japonicus has a torpedo shaped, which is build for speed. The torpedo shape is a dominant shape for the open water fishes because it provides the air-dynamic or water-dynamic shape rather, for the fish to be able to generate great speed with little drag. Drag creates energy waste and it wouldn't be evolutionary advantageous to have a body style that wastes energy through something that the organism has to do everyday, which is swimming. Just like swimmers shave and a wear Speedos to be slick in the water, Scomber japonicus adapted to the environment by developing the torpedo shaped body. Scomber japonicus also seems to have small scales, which also appears to be an adaptation for speed and speed is needed to be able to get away from the predators. In the open sea there is no where to hide, which means the only way to get away is either to disappear, which is to be transparent, or have great speed. Another adaptation that the Scomber japonicus has for speed is reduced pectoral fin, reduced pectoral fin reduces drag and there is no reason for Scomber japonicus to have a well developed pectoral fin because it doesn't need to navigate tight into tight spots like on a coral reef for example. Scomber japonicus is also counter shaded in order to disappear in the sun if the predator looks from the bottom or in the darkness if the predator looks from the top. Scomber japonicus has dark spots, with a greenish tint as it's top color of the counter shade, which is the color that helps the fish blend in the most with it's natural enviroment.

The big outer bay exhibit contained a wide variety of marine species. One of the most interesting species is Mola Mola or commonly known as Sunfish. The Sunfish is a very odd fish, it looks like only half of a fish, it has a dorsal fin and two anal fins, which are quite developed and are used for stabilization and locomotion in the water. The locomotion achieved with the fin set up that the Sunfish has is not very efficient, since it can't do the wriggling motion of a typical fish. Since the Sunfish can't move very fast it must feed on slow moving prey and not very large or ferocious prey since has a pretty small mouth. The Sunfish is flattened horizontally and is quite large. The size of the fish is believed to be a defense mechanism, since a lot of predators would have a hard time swallowing it whole. The Sunfish is silvery white color, which is possibly part of the defense mechanism to scare other fish away.

The next most notable organisms in the big outer bay exhibit are Thunnus orientalis and Thunnus albacares, which are Bluefin tuna and Yellowfin tuna respectively. These fish are noticeable by their huge size, but their body is still designed for speed in the open water. The body is torpedo shaped and is very streamed lined to reduce drag. Bluefin and Yellowfin tuna have a very interesting adaptation for reducing drag in the water and maximizing efficiency of their muscular movement that requires oxygen, which is scarce in the under water environment. These fish have developed an adaptation where they are able to retract one of the dorsal fins on the anterior side and fold their pectoral fins in to achieve better efficiency and higher speed. Giant tuna's fins also appear to be shark like, where they have what looks like a strong muscular connection between the pectoral fin and the body and the connection looks a lot more sturdy and immovable. The strong connection makes it look like a shark fin that is built for speed and to provide lift and seems to serve similar function for the tuna. Tuna have a pretty big mouth, which means that they are carnivorous and eat some big organisms, which makes sense since they a big body and need a high-energy food sources to support their metabolism. The giant tuna are counter shaded just like most of open water animals to be able to hide in the sunlight and in the darkness of the sea.

The outer bay exhibit of coarse has to display the some of the keystone predator of the environment and the predators that are displayed are the sharks. One of the sharks was the Carcharhinus galapagensis also know as the Galapagos shark. Galapagos shark looks like the stereotypical shark; it has a torpedo shaped body with a well-developed dorsal fin for stability and airplane-wing like pectoral fins. Galapagos shark is counter shaded, with gray on the top and a white ventral side. Galapagos shark has a tail that typical of the sharks with the upper lobe being larger than the lower lobe, which is believed to increase sharks vertical maneuverability. Another representative of the sharks is the Scalloped Hammerhead shark, which share most of the characteristics with Galapagos shark except for its head. The head looks like a double-sided hammer with they eyes being on the tips of the hammer, which is probably advantageous for increased field of vision. Stingrays, sharks' close relative, are also present at the exhibit, which is flat and is adapted to living at the bottom of the sea, with the brown dorsal side for camouflage and light underside. Another vertebrate that is present is the sea turtle, which fairly big in size and have a dominant counter shaded carapace where they can hide from predators.

The Preservation Exhibit

The preservation exhibit shows how the human demand for fish products is affecting marine populations directly and indirectly. The three species used to demonstrate human impact on marine wildlife and there are sharks, sea turtle and Giant tuna.

There is a huge demand for Giant tuna and the preservation exhibit does a good job portraying how a giant tuna can be sold for as much as $175,000. The Bluefin tuna is over fished and are caught when they are young, which means that they are caught before they can reproduce. Catching fish before they can reproduce means that fish is taken out of the ocean and a new one is not put back into the ocean, which means that a population can decline exponentially and exponential decline is quite rapid. Some of the tuna species are not over fished, since they reproduce and mature pretty quickly and the ones that do mature quickly are a good source of fish meat. The problem that arises from tuna most of the time is the way that it is being caught.

One of the ways that tuna gets caught is using longlines method. Longlines method of fishing consists of a long, strong fishing line that has a lot of baited hooks on it. The long line is dragged behind a boat for a long time and the huge problem for this type of fishing is the bycatch. Bycatch is a term used to describe marine life that is caught by the fishermen, but it is not meant to be caught. Bycatch is not a problem as long the catch is released back into the water alive, but the problem arises from when the catch dies while it is on the hook or dies after it has been released from the damage done to the organisms body from the hooks.

Sea turtles have been hurt by the longline fishing the most. Sea turtles go for the bait that is used for longline fishing and are caught onto the line and either die from drowning because they can't come up for air or sea turtles die from the damage caused by the hooks after they have been taken out. There are a few solutions that are propose to save the endangered sea turtles from being accidentally killed by the huge fishing industry. One of the ways that longline fishing could be adjusted is that the hooks can be set up deeper, where the sea turtles do not swim, so they don't get hooked on the bait of those hooks. Another way is to have fishermen carefully remove the hooks from the sea turtles and use round hooks that are easier to remove and cause less damage to the turtles. The other way to reduce by catch is to eliminate the longline fishing completely and use pole fishing or harpoons. Pole fishing and harpoons reduced by catch greatly allowing the fishermen to identify what they are catching before pulling them aboard. It would be great if the fishermen actually adapted these techniques, but these techniques take away some efficiency that the fishermen have.

Another marine animal that Monterey Bay aquarium uses to show how humans are endangering marine life is the shark. The exhibit shows quite dramatically how sharks are used for their fins. The video shows a skinned shark that is bloody laying on the deck of a ship with a fishermen cutting off every fin on the shark. The display is good because it makes people think about how do they get their shark products. The exhibit also explains the huge problem with over fishing of sharks. Sharks do not produce a lot of offspring and mature slowly. Same problem persists with the sharks as with Bluefin tuna where the sharks are fished out the sea before they have a chance to reproduce, which can decrease the population drastically. Sharks also have the same problem as the sea turtles where they are caught as bycatch and die from their injuries or are simply not released back into the water in time.

The exhibit does a good job showing what happens to the fish that are caught and what kind of trouble they get into by the hands of the fishermen. One of the things that I think is a good idea is the station where you can write a letter to the senator to pass legislature to save the ocean. I don't know how effective it would since it is so automated and the senators would probably dismiss, but still it applies some sort of pressure. Another tremendously positive things that Monterey Bay aquarium has is the seafood guide that advises people to ask where their seafood comes from. The seafood guide tells people what kind of food not eat due to their endangerment or it tells people to ask their food establishment where their sea food came from and then the guide shows from which parts of the world it is ok to eat that certain kind of food and which way they were caught. Another useful feature of the food guide shows the fish that has been documented to have toxic metals in it like mercury. The seafood guide is a useful idea, but during the time that I spent at the exhibit I heard numerous people that have said "whatever" to seafood guide, which goes to show that people don't care how they get their product whether it is a eight year old child sewing their shoes together or tons of fish dying needlessly.

Which brings me to the weakness of the preservation exhibit and that is the exhibit didn't show clearly how the demand for the fish from humans is what killing them. All the problems that arise with endangerment of marine life comes from the demand for the fish products by the humans and all the fisheries are doing are supplying that demand and making money of it. The exhibit would be more effective if it would make the people feel more responsible for endangerment of the species that they describe. Footage of people consuming tuna sandwiches or eating shark-fin soup along the side of the shots that they have of bloody skinned sharks with their fins cut of would make people think a little bit more.

The high demand for fish products like tuna is what drives the fishing business and the solutions that the Monterey Bay aquarium proposed are a little bit naïve if they believe that they would work. The solutions that they proposed like using a fishing pole or a harpoon decreases fishing efficiency, which makes the fisherman loose the only thing that matters in America and that is money. As long as there is money to be made on some kind of fish, the fisherman will supply that demand because that is the American way of life. They have the right idea and try to lower the demand for the fish by trying to guide the people towards trying to preserving the marine life by not eating or buying certain products.

Another thing that I have discovered that the aquarium acts a little bit bias towards the fishermen and make them out to be the bad guys, when again all they are doing are feeding the gluttons that are hungry for seafood. One thing that I found that Rockfish is on the list of endangered or not eat fish list due to over fishing, but I have read an article that says that giant squid have moved into the coast of California and basically wiped out a lot of the Rockfish population and a fisherman had to close down his business of bring people out for to go Rockfishing. So I don't think there isn't any simple solutions to solve the exploitation of marine life except to stop the people from consuming massive amounts of sea food.

Impressions of the Aquarium

The Monterey Bay aquarium is a great tool to learn about the marine environment. They do a good job presenting all of the different habitats that exist out in the ocean. The aquarium presents the life forms that are in the immediate surroundings around California and especially in the Monterey Bay. They explain that the Monterey Bay is an pretty deep underwater canyon and that is why it is interesting to study this habitat, since it's rapid depth creates many different niches for marine life to occupy.

The aquarium does a good job of presenting a huge array of marine wildlife to the public. The vast array includes life as simple as diatoms and ends with sea otters, sharks, and penguins. There is no better way to present the marine wildlife to the public, but to fully understand what each organism is about people have to read the plaques that are put up by the aquarium. Not a lot of the public would stop and read everything about an organism that is in front of them. To knowing person like a zoology student it is absolutely amazing of what kind of diversity the Monterey Bay aquarium was able to gather and built exhibits that display them in an orderly fashion. Most of the exhibits are representative of the marine life that is found in the Monterey Bay, but some of the exhibits are like the penguin exhibit shows wildlife that is outside the Monterey area. It is important to know what kind of organism live in the ocean that sometimes we swim. People are scared of the water sometimes because they don't know what is in it, but the aquarium can open people's eyes to some amazing creatures that wonder the deep sea or shallow sea for that matter. It is also nice to see the organism that live outside the Monterey area, which can stimulate people's interest in seeing other places and organisms like a coral reef community.

The exhibits are built to show the organisms to the general public that is most likely not educated about the environments that the organisms live in and what kind of adaptations they have in order to thrive in those environments. The exhibits come close, but do not show the feel of a natural habitat of those organisms. The example that stood out in my mind is the outer bay exhibit, which is a pretty big tank, but still has a very concentrated population of species. To general public it would appear that the open water are just infested with sharks and rays and turtles, when in reality it is hard to encounter an organism around in the open sea away from the shore. The outer bay exhibit again comes close, but doesn't quite recreate the feeling of endlessness of the open sea, which intern doesn't make the public appreciate how the animals that live there have perfectly adapted to that environment. It is extremely hard to create an environment that feels exactly like the outer bay with the sharks, tuna, stingrays, and barracuda all spread out, but Monterey Bay aquarium did an excellent job to coming as close as possible to that. However the general public still needs to have information from the outside of the aquarium to fully understand and appreciate a lot of exhibits that are displayed. Exhibits other than the outer bay, like the kelp forest, are done in very accurate manner and provide a great snapshot of what a community like that looks like under the water.

It seemed to me like people most of the people were wasting their time by coming the Monterey Bay aquarium in sense that most people look at like a zoo/circus type of place. Most of the time all that comes out of people's mouths is "Isn't that cool", which is fine, but the pieces of the puzzle do not connect in any way in their head. Most of the people that I have noticed do not stop and read about any organism that they are witnessing, they just look like and move to the next with out examining the basic questions of how do they feed, why are they this color, what would happen if they disappeared. I think the most important thing that people need to learn is how the organism connect and affect each other in any kind of habitat not just out in the ocean, but on the land as well.

The biggest flaw of any normal human being is they are fascinated with big, attractive organisms. I noticed that when I was in the section of the aquarium where the copepods and the diatoms where on the display. The aquarium was pretty crowded that day, but practically no people stopped in the section about the copepods and diatoms, since they are small and pretty simple looking. But if people took the time to read about these organisms, and the readings are generously provided by the aquarium for the people to learn from, then people would understand that these little tiny guys pretty much support all the big animals that they are fascinated with. The only time I saw people stop in the section of the diatoms is when they stopped and played with the interactive bottoms, but then quickly lost interest and moved on not giving the tiny organism another thought for the rest of their visit to the aquarium. Another phrase that lingered the crowd especially people with children "It's like finding Nemo." It is great experience for kids to come and witness what the animated creatures actually look like in real life and start to expand their horizons early about wild life in the ocean. It would be nice if they could expand their horizons with some direction and have somebody actually explain something about those animals, which would help both kids and adults.

It would be nice if the aquarium would explain how all of the organisms are evolutionary connected. It doesn't have to be complicated, just using progression of a few characteristics along the evolutionary latter. I think if there was some connection between the exhibits people wouldn't be like lab rats just running around in there just looking at images and not even scratching the surface of how amazing the animals are in their development and adaptation to every kind of environment and food source. However Monterey Bay aquarium does a marvelous job of trying to actually teach people about the organisms that they are looking at, but it is hard to get people to focus on a plaque with fifty words on it in the this age of ADD and TV. Monterey Bay aquarium tries hard to get people attention by having interactive exhibits, which force people to think about and pay more attention to the animals they are looking at.

Monterey Bay aquarium does a good job displaying the diversity of marine life across all kinds of different habitats that are found right there in Monterey Bay or in the coral reefs in the tropics. It was nice to see all the animals alive and not just pictures of them in book, but that didn't make me think about how much diversity exists out there in the ocean. What made me think about how much diversity truly exist in the oceans is that it is possible to fit almost everything we know about the ocean into a single building Granted it a pretty big building and the exhibits do not fully represent real life, but what made me think a lot more is that how much we still don't know about the ocean life and there is still a lot more to be explored that hasn't been described in any of the books or have been put into an aquarium. The visit to the aquarium made me think of how big of an aquarium would we need to display the wildlife that is still out there. That is why it would be nice if people would stop running around the aquarium and stop to think about these animals. Maybe somebody would get interested enough and go on to discover something completely revolutionary, but that can happen with people going to an exhibit saying "That's cool" and moving on to the next without asking a single question about what they just saw.