Amanda Feuerstein

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Amanda Feuerstein scuba dives with a jellyfish.

Amanda Feuerstein’s ocean education began at age five at Compo Beach on the Long Island Sound where tide pools were her classroom. In later years she received a more formal education at Yale University where she got her Bachelors of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She also spent four years studying the invertebrate zoology collections at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History and focused on the relationship between sea turtles and the barnacles that call them home. You can now find her working with Nancy Knowlton as a program coordinator in the office of the Sant Chair for Marine Science.

Collaborator Contributions

For three weeks, the MV Chertan is home-base for the scientific team and will be transformed in a laboratory to study the effect of the CO2 seeps on reefs.

MV Chertain Lab Boat

For three weeks, the MV Chertan is home-base for the scientific team and will be transformed in a floating laboratory to study volcanic CO₂ seeps.

Intense volcanic CO2 vents in Ili Ili Bua Bua, Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea.

Carbon Dioxide Volcanic Seep

Intense volcanic CO₂ vents in Ili Ili Bua Bua, Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea where CO₂ bubbles out of the reef making water acidic as we would expect to see in the future due to the burning of fossil fuels. The town's name, Ili Ili Bua Bua, means "Water Water Bubble Bubble" in the local dialect.

As adults these crabs become voracious predators even eating members of their own species.

Adult Swimming Crab

When they get larger, Portunus sayi are formidable predators- quick to consume any smaller animal that comes within reach. Fish, other crustaceans, and even smaller members of their own species are not safe from this hungry sargassum swimming crab.

Sargassum Frogfish

The sargassum frogfish Histrio histrio (Antennariidae) is a small but voracious predator - it can ingest animals up to it’s own size! The fins of the frogfish are perfect for creeping around in the algae and stalking unsuspecting prey.

Winner of the ‘best camoflauge’ contest, the nudibranch Scyllaea pelagica is betrayed only by motion.

Seaslug Camouflages in Seaweed

Winner of the ‘best camoflauge’ contest, the nudibranch Scyllaea pelagica (Scyllaeidae) is usually betrayed only by its motion. Along it’s back, the sea slug has growths called papillae that help its masterful disguise. The papillae resemble the sargassum's own hydroids that these sea slugs love to graze.

Juvenile plane-head filefish

Relatively slow moving, juvenile plane-head filefish Monacanthus hispidus (Monacanthidae) travel along with the algae. They pick off and eat small animals as they move around in the rotating sargassum ball. Adult filefish only grow to be about 11 inches long.

This shrimp is colored to fit in - probably why they are common members of the seaweed community.

Shrimp hides in the sargassum

One of the most common inhabitants of the sargassum community, the shrimp Latreutes fucorum (Hippolytidae) is perfectly colored to hide on the leaf-like blades.

Mantis Shrimp Carries Eggs

A mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) holds her clutch of eggs in her clubbed claws. Usually these claws are weapons that punch hard-shelled prey at speeds of more than 50 miles an hour.

The sargassum hosts bryozoans, hydroids and more obviously, crustaceans like a baby swimming crab.

Tiny crab in the sargassum

The sargassum is coated with encrusting organisms, such as bryozoans and hydroids, that use it as a perch to filter feed in the oceanic waters, as well as crustaceans such as the swimming crab Portunus sayi (Portunidae).

Snapping Shrimp Queen with Eggs

This snapping shrimp female (Synalpheus regalis) is the queen of her colony which means she is the only female to have babies. She stores her clutch of eggs under her abdomen until they hatch - some of the eggs have already developed eyes. Similar to other social animals like ants and bees, non-breeding shrimp are tasked with protecting their sponge from intruders.

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