New underwater microscope provides ringside seat to coral turf wars

Marine scientists are getting an up-close view of never-before-seen coral sea life thanks to a newly-developed microscopic imaging system built for underwater use. The diver-operated microscope from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) allows researchers to observe millimeter-scale interactions and processes as they happen live in the wild, including "kissing" behavior between coral polyps and battles over turf.

The Benthic Underwater Microscope includes an underwater computer/diver interface attached to a microscopic imaging unit that’s...
The Benthic Underwater Microscope can be set up and left on the reef for up to...
Marine researcher Andrew Mullen holding the Benthic Underwater Microscope
The Benthic Underwater Microscope has been used to study coral polyp behavior during competition, coordinated behavior...
While coral reefs can span up to hundreds of kilometers, they're built by tiny individual polyps around one millimeter in size, which makes studying these small life forms and the processes that occur at the micro level vital for monitoring the health of larger ecosystems like reefs. But when scientists bring these organisms out of the ocean and into the lab to study them, the larger context is lost and the information gleaned is limited, while fragile features might be destroyed.

In response, Scripps oceanographer Jules Jaffe and his team developed the Benthic Underwater Microscope (BUM). It's the first instrument to capture underwater images of seafloor organisms with near micrometer resolution which can study reef microorganisms in their native habitat without disturbing them.