Remotely Operable MicroEnvironmental
Observatory (ROMEO)

Found in all marine environments, foraminifera ("forams") are single-celled, shelled creatures with a key role in the ocean food web. They may be planktonic - floating in the water - or benthic, living on shells, rock, seaweed, or in sand or mud at the bottom of the ocean. Their characteristic habitats, and the chemistry of their shells (which reflects qualities of the local water they live in) make them very useful as indicators of when and under what conditions they lived.

Previous studies have shown that the forams in Explorers Cove in McMurdo Sound consume a wide variety of prey, ranging from bacteria through a taxonomically diverse group of metazoans, including juvenile invertebrates. These studies have been restricted to specimens collected from October through early December, immediately following the austral winter.

But in the succeeding months, the austral summer shows a burst of biological productivity, both under the ice and in the benthos. Studies are lacking during this period to show how the forams might be responding to this summer food pulse. PI Sam Bowser, from the NY State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center, plans to document changes in relevant abiotic and biotic factors in the Explorers Cove benthos from austral spring to late summer and to characterize how the foram community responds. To accomplish this task, his group has designed a "Remotely Operable MicroEnvironmental Observatory (ROMEO)" instrument package. The unit currently comprises a steerable web camera, image storage hardware, and battery module. Ultimately, the camera will transmit data and photos to the Internet year-round so that Bowser and colleagues can access the information from anywhere in the world.

The initial ROMEO instrument has been constructed and was field-tested in November 2003. In 2004-05, ROMEO will be emplaced on the sea floor just seaward of an "ice foot" 30-40 m wide and up to 10 m thick along the shore of Explorers Cove. ICDS will drill a sloping hole through the ice foot, in which to place a conduit carrying ROMEO's power/signal cable from a base station on shore. The plan is to use a modified version of a portable shot-hole drill for this drilling. More information on the project can be found on the web at www.bowserlab.org.