In mid-August 2020, the shores of Monterey Bay were illuminated by a bioluminescent plankton bloom that ignited the waves with blue flashes of brilliance from billions of dinoflagellates. Here are 20 minutes of footage of waves breaking with ocean sounds from one night at Del Monte beach recorded by the Aquarium's video team for your #relaxocean needs. May it serve you well a screensaver, or something to study/work/relax/sleep to.
(Note: The low-light camera used to record the plankton bloom didn't record sound at the same time, the ocean sounds were recorded separately. The bioluminescent bloom has dissipated as well, so the waves are no longer glowing.)
More info about bioluminescence:
Bioluminescence-or when living organisms make light-is relatively rare on land-fireflies or glow-in-the-dark mushrooms are some common examples-but it’s a staple in the ocean. Our colleagues @MBARI_News found that over 75% of species they’ve found in the deep sea in our backyard bioluminesce: www.mbari.org/...
Bioluminescence has many purposes: Anglerfish use it to attract food in their lure, strawberry squid use it to disguise themselves, lanternfish use it for communication-and many organisms, from worms and shrimp to jellies and dinoflagellates, use it as a defense mechanism!
When a dinoflagellate is shaken up, a light-emitting chemical reaction inside the plankter produces a blue flash that startles a would-be predator, limiting their effectiveness-imagine a strobe light going off with every bite of a sandwich!
On their own, each dinoflagellate is just one sparkle in the night. But when there is a big bloom of them-sometimes called “red tides”, though they’re not always red and have little to do with the tides-their collective trillions agitated in the waves produce the aquatic fireworks we’ve been experiencing recently.
When they’re this abundant, the dinoflagellates are able to create somewhat of a burglar alarm with their individual defensive spark. Animals swimming through the soup leave a trail of light breadcrumbs for larger predators to track through living night-vision seas.
Besides their beauty, some dinoflagellate blooms can be noxious to marine life and to people. Lingulodinium polyedra is able to produce toxins that accumulate in shellfish and affect their predators, and other dinoflagellates can produce soap-like substances that can harm seabirds and irritate humans that come in contact with them.
This particular bloom came and went, and we're still not quite sure which species was responsible for the glow-it's likely a Polykrikos sp. amid a bloom of (nonluminescent) Akashiwo sanguinea dinoflagellates.
Bioluminescent waves won’t typically look as blue as you see in the photos and in videos-as your eyes adjust to the dark, you lose your color vision, so the waves will mostly look bright white. The darker the coast, the more pronounced the luminescence. This video was shot with a low-light camera that brings out the brilliance of the glow in a way our eyes can't usually see!
Thanks everyone for reading this far-and thanks most of all to the dinoflagellates for putting on such a show! We hope you enjoy the video.
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