It's All About Collaboration!

Hi everyone! Isabel Romero here reporting from our cruise.

Enduring the long hours and challenges of shipboard research is only possible because of the incredible collaboration and support from everyone on board!

Field campaigns like this truly depend on teamwork, shared expertise, and a collective commitment to the science. It even goes beyond this cruise, as many samples are also shared with other institutions to support new ideas. Science at sea is never an individual effort!

My work is an example of teamwork and collaboration. My role in the project is to identify chemical signatures that help us understand temporal trends and ecological patterns in one of the most diverse and least understood ecosystems in the world: the deep sea. Specifically, I will be assessing exposure to legacy impact events (e.g., oil spills), banned chemicals (e.g., DDT, PCBs), and emerging contaminants of concern (e.g., phthalates, flame retardants) in relation to biological and ecological processes (e.g., proximate composition, fatty acids, potential trophic transfer to megafauna, and potential survival of early life stages).

The success of this work will reflect the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and mutual support. From logistics (conducted primarily by Nova Southeastern University), sample collection (involving everyone from technicians and faculty to students and crew members), animal identification (taxonomy experts Jon, Heather J., Heather BG, Tammy, Tracey, and genetics expert Pedro), analytical support (statistics and modeling expert Zan), visual recording (photographer Dante), and student training (Lisa, Bianca, Sydney, Ian, and Aiden), every contribution highlights the importance of teamwork and shared scientific goals.

I would not be able to do my work without the coordination, expertise, and help of everyone involved. Collaborative science is what makes expeditions like this successful and allows us to better understand complex marine ecosystems while also enjoying our brief time together at sea!

Enjoy some photos, and until next time… thanks for following along on this adventure at sea!