Alejandro Damián-Serrano, Ph.D.

Some of our favorite covers over the course of the past 11 years have been ones that feature images that beautifully and accurately showcase emerging science.

We might be a bit biased 🫣, but we couldn't agree more @science.org

www.science.org/content/blog...

#ctenophores @msarscentre.bsky.social

Spooky season royalty 👑🎃⁠✨️
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Atolla gigantea is the largest Atolla species found off the West Coast. This deep-sea crown jelly can reach a diameter of up to 15 centimeters (six inches) and is one of the most widely distributed jellyfish. The genus occurs worldwide, from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

The redhead larvacean is a deep-sea climate hero 🌊💙

These tiny animals build mucous houses to filter marine snow sinking from the waters above. When their filters clog, they abandon their homes, which sink to the seafloor packed with nutrients and large amounts of carbon: youtu.be/7swiAc8rZbk?...

Drawing of various Ctenophore anatomies showing the diversity of the phylum. center/front, top left, and right are lobate ctenophores, center/back is a beroid or nuda ctenophore, center/right is a cydippid or tentacled ctenophore, and bottom/left is a benthic ctenophore

A drawing of the Blood belly comb jelly ctenophore (comb jelly) which is known for its stricking red coloration that helps it live in the deep sea

Happy Ctenophore day! Its a perfect day to celebrate such a small yet beautifully diverse phyla that comes in a wide array of shapes and colors. #Ctenophoreday

Happy Ctenophore Day!
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore

Not uncommon, but always beautiful; the ever flappy-flappy #pelagic #SeaButterfly #Pteropod, Corolla spectabilis. This one is feeding, as can be seen by the mucus net that it’s currently reeling in.

#corollaspectabilis #plankton #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #gug #chrisgug #gugunderwater #ocean

Our science photo book The Radiant Sea is out Sept 2nd!!
30 years of research, 10 years of "we should", and a year of collating pix and writing.
Sönke and I show (mostly for the first time) images of how organisms produce, use, and interact with light in the sea. #bioluminescence #fluorescence 🦑🧪🌊

Had time to finish another Aliens dive’s memory card from May 6&8, 2024.
1) #Phronima with behbehies in a fantastically-colored salp
2/3) #Siphonophore (don’t lick)
4) #Ctenophore
5) #Swordfish
6) #Polychaete worm
7) #Scaleworm
8) Ctenophore
9) #MantisShrimp

Marine biodiversity: Gone with the wind? Our dispatch out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social

New research shows that wind and currents act as invisible barriers, reshaping our view of ocean connectivity. 🌊🪼

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lYLj3QW8S...
@iramaegele.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

Deep-sea raspberry ❤️✨️

The raspberry jelly (Aeginura grimaldii) is part of a small group of jellies called the narcomedusae. Species in this group are are known for having a relatively small number of tentacles that are attached higher to the bell compared to other groups of jellies.

Ctenophores possess a unique aboral organ that acts as a multisensory center, controlling complex behaviors. We’ve now created a ctenophore model integrated with our 3D volume EM data. Puts it into perspective.

Check out our recent work here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#ctenophores #volumeEM

Adding a little zest to your day with the lemon jelly—Aegina citrea. 🍋

The lemon jelly is different from other jellyfish because it has only four tentacles extending from its bell. Although jellies in the genus Aegina are relatively well known, they can evolve unusual forms or colors in deep water.

illustrations of four species of Physalia alongside original drawings and iNaturalist images. Maps of positively identified iNaturalist records show the distribution of each species.

My favorite outcome was validating species descriptions from 18th century scientists who illustrated animals on their voyages. Their descriptions were often rejected as implausible – we found that in many cases they were exactly right. Yet another reason why @biodivlibrary.bsky.social is so valuable

Portuguese Man o' War (Physalia physalis) Portuguese Man o' War from Hamilton Parish, Bermuda on April 29, 2022 at 12:59 PM by Miguel A Mejias, PhD.. Native species to the island. Blown in with strong NW winds.

We combined sequencing data with thousands of participatory science images via @inaturalist.bsky.social, to connect genomic clusters to distinct morphologies. Credit to awesome undergraduates River Abedon and Diego Ramirez on this part! www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Physalia megalista, a cnidiran with a gas filled float, raised sail, and long blue tentacles hanging below. Image credit: Dalila Destanović

Excited to share our study on sailing siphonophores, AKA bluebottles or man-o'-war! 🌊 we received hundreds of samples from scientists around the world, part of a huge effort to sequence genomes and test for multiple species 🧬 out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦑🧪📌

Two pictures of a ctenophore in the genus Callianira, collected during blue-water scuba dives off the coast of Hawaii. The figure on the left is a rather poor photo, in an aboral view, against a black background. The photo on the right is a lateral view on a white background. The ctenophore is shaped like an arrowhead, and in the white-background view you can see that it is covered with small reddish-brown speckles. Larger spots cover the body, and small spots are arranged in rows parallel to the base of each comb plate. One tentacle is extended showing the pink-pigmented tentilla.

I am used to photographing #ctenophores in darkfield, but under those conditions it is hard to see the pigment spots on this little (5mm) specimen.
Fun to see the patterns that show up when viewed against a white background. 🧪🦑🌊

A rare #Scina #Amphipod, who appears to have caught and is consuming a #ctenophore.

#amphipod #scina #hyperidean #crustacean #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #blackwaterphotography #gug #gugunderwater #chrisgug #underwater #scubadiving

ECR Spotlight – Alejandro Damian-Serrano ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career res...

And read more about @planktomancer.bsky.social career here:
doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Colonial architecture modulates the speed and efficiency of multi-jet swimming in salp colonies Summary: Linear arrangements in multi-jet propelled marine colonial invertebrates are faster than less streamlined architectures without incurring higher costs of transport, offering insights for bioi...

#Salps have a solitary and colonial phase in their lives, and the colonies of different species come in a variety of shapes. A new study led by @planktomancer.bsky.social uses videos of salps to examine the swimming of different colony shapes.
Check it out here:
doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

Might be a Callianira

Up close and personal with the angler siphonophore (Erenna sirena). 🎣

This cunning predator dangles luminescent lures that mimic crimson crustaceans and attract unsuspecting fishes. When a curious lanternfish gets too close, the siphonophore’s tentacles deliver a powerful sting and snare a meal.

Meet Eryoneicus, a deep-sea lobster larva. This cutie was spotted at 1,196 meters (3,923 feet) in Monterey Bay. Scientists originally called them Eryoneicus thinking they were a new species, before realizing they were the larval form of deep-sea lobster-like crustaceans in the family Polychelidae.

Picture of Beroe abyssicola from the northern Gulf of Alaska. This species is not part of the study. It is just meant to represent Ctenophore (comb jellies).

Our latest collaborative paper, led by NMNH intern Annemarie Wood, reports on a new tool for understanding ctenophore and medusozoan diversity. "Anthozoan eDNA primer set characterizes Ctenophora and Medusozoa ..." Characterizing #MarineLife

www.frontiersin.org/journals/mar...

Turning screen time into ocean action 📱🌊

The collective efforts of @fathomverse.bsky.social players around the world are enhancing AI models that researchers rely upon to deepen our understanding of marine ecosystems. Join us today and become part of the mission to discover all life in our ocean!

Two divers hover below a boat in the open ocean 4 miles off the coast of Hawaii. Crissy Huffard from Colleen Durkin’s lab is “flying” plankton into the view of their special ISIIS camera.

It’s hard to beat field work in Hawaii with @cadurkin.bsky.social @lenaunderwater.bsky.social and others of the @mbarinews.bsky.social team..!

We are using blue-water scuba diving to study #ctenophores, siphonophores, radiolarians, and #bioluminescence.
🦑🌊🧪🤿

These faster swimmers also tend to be more efficient in their cost of transport, as assessed by comparing their swimming vs. resting respiration rates. This research was funded by @MooreFound and @USNavyResearch 3/3

Linear architectures and others able to tuck many propeller zooids under a constrained frontal area present faster swimming speeds than those with a 1:1 ratio in zooids:area /2

Our paper on the developmental ontology of salp colonial architecture made the cover of The Biological Bulletin! @BiolBulletin With my photo of a developing Pegea chain! @SutherlandLab https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/731540

The pre-print for the last paper (under review) from my postdoc at the @SutherlandLab is up! Salp colonies vary in swimming speed and energetic efficiency across species and colonial architectures. Streamlining of propellers in a multi-jet system is key! https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20...