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Marine biologist David Gruber is passionate about the luminous life in the darkest parts of the ocean. He gives Deng Zhangyu the details.
Humans have always been fascinated with the underwater world and the mysterious deep that's often the setting of adventures in books and films.
Marine biologist David Gruber and his research team at City University of New York have deciphered the genomic code of scores of new fluorescent proteins in underwater animals, according to National Geographic.
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David Gruber dives into the deep sea searching for biofluorescent organisms glowing in colors of green, red and orange off Little Cayman Island in the western Caribbean Sea. Jim Hellemn / For China Daily |
"All marine animals in the dark ocean produce lights as their unique language to communicate with each other. It's an underwater disco party. We human beings are the last one to join in," Gruber, 42, tells China Daily.
The scientist was recently in Beijing, invited by cosmetic brand La Mer, to help promote World Ocean Day on June 8.
Gruber has been devoted to studying marine life since the age of 18. He first identified luminous creatures by accident, when he took hundreds of photos of the same coral reef to capture its fluorescent glow and a small bright green eel in one photo caught his attention.
For millions of years, Gruber says, these deep-sea animals have been communicating using a "secret language" with one another. Their fluorescent glow can't be detected by the human eye.
To search for the shimmering species of aquatic creatures, Gruber has explored remote sea areas across the world. There were times when he was underwater almost every day.
"My fingers never dried. I got more used to breathing under the sea with equipment than breathing normally on land," he says. Gruber has a lab in City University of New York and spends at least three months a year at sea.
Last year, on a remote island in the South Pacific, Gruber and his friend were surprised to come across a large group of fish glowing under shallow water about one finger deep. Usually, these glowing species are deep in the ocean where one needs to use a submarine to reach. Thousands of the shimmering fish swarmed around one of his friends, who had a 3-D camera and a mirror.
"I think it was the first time the fish saw themselves in a mirror. So amazing for us to see such density of flash-like fish in such a shallow depth," says Gruber, who plans to return to the same place in August hoping to see them again.
The deepest Gruber has ever traveled is about 1,000 meters under the sea. The average depth of the ocean is about 4,000 meters. Gruber was with two other men in a submarine. They stayed there for about seven hours. They turned off all the lights to give themselves a better chance to find the glowing species.
"It felt like we were the first to travel into the area," he says.
He even swam with more than 100 reef and tiger sharks early one morning in the Bahamas when conducting research on fluorescent sharks. Actually, the sharks were very shy and they are misunderstood by humans as a dangerous fish.
"There are about 600 species of sharks. Most of them have no idea they have such a bad reputation," jokes Gruber, who was selected as National Geographic's emerging explorer in 2014 and dubbed one of the new generation of explorers.
"Unlike the older generation that collected marine animals and showed them off at their houses, we mainly use cameras, sharing photos with the public to raise awareness on ocean protection," he says.
In 2012, Gruber worked with artists to create the exhibition Creatures of Lights at the American Museum of Natural History, which displayed photos he took of fabulous glowing marine creatures.
"To take photos of these shimmering creatures deep in the sea is one of the few challenging things in the world for me. Just imagine taking a photo in a dark house without a flashlight," Gruber says. Sometimes, capturing a good photo takes him several months.
Having spent decades exploring the ocean, Gruber feels like all marine lives are his family members. The decaying ocean environment and the death of most coral reefs anger this sea lover.
"Coral reefs are like cities for marine animals. But 70 percent of them are dead because of human actions. It's like we are burning their homes," says Gruber.
He says his dream is to protect the ocean. He will continue to find more glowing species, which can be developed to aid medical research for cancer.
China's Hainan Island is one area he wishes to explore in future.
Contact the writer at dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn
