Drifting World through the Scripps Plankton Camera. In Art of Science

Caption: The collage of tiny ocean drifters imaged by the Scripps Plankton Camera showing the hidden beauty of the underwater world that is unseen to naked eyes. Participant category: Graduate student Department: Scripps Institution of Oceanography This image is a collage of many representative species of plankton from the Scripps Plankton Camera, showing the hidden beauty of these tiny organisms that cannot be seen by naked eyes. The Scripps Plankton Camera, developed by the Jaffe Lab, is an underwater microscope system that autonomously collects in situ images of plankton at Scripps Pier. The system utilizes darkfield microscopy technique to image these small and mostly transparent marine organisms. The underwater microscope has been running for more than five years and has collected more than millions of images of these plankton. The Jaffe Lab collaborates with many ecologists, both at UCSD and at other institutions around the world, to capitalize on this novel underwater imaging technology and on the large dataset it produces. The system has helped scientists better understand these organisms and can ultimately contribute to new discoveries of the ecology of the ocean.