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By Cindy Landrum<\/b>
\nPhotography by Craig Mahaffey \u201998<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/p>\n
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Clemson researcher Antonio Baeza \u2014 with his marine biology students \u2014 has discovered a tiny parasite that has implications for a multibillion-dollar fishing industry and, in some ways, the future of our planet.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
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Antonio Baeza spotted something unusual. The marine biologist was looking at some female Caribbean spiny lobsters recently plucked from an offshore reef during a dive in the Florida Keys.<\/p>\n
Ribbon-like worms <\/span>\u2014 about the size of a dog\u2019s hair \u2014 were among the egg masses tucked beneath the lobsters\u2019 tails. Baeza, who was researching parenting behavior and reproductive performance of the lobsters, also noticed the broods that contained thousands of tiny, bright orange eggs had many dead lobster embryos and empty embryo sacks.<\/p>\n He and his student researchers tried to identify the worm based on published studies.<\/p>\n Surprisingly, despite more than 50 years of intensive scientific research on the Caribbean spiny lobster P. argus,<\/i> they found no information on the parasite, which had a long body and pale coloring with slight tints of orange.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> WATCH<\/p>\n The Experience<\/b><\/p>\n \n The Experience | What Lies Beneath | 2022<\/a> from Clemson University<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section> Baeza, an associate professor in the College of Science\u2019s Department of Biological Sciences, named the parasite Carcinonemertes conanobrieni<\/i> after Conan O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n While the worm\u2019s slim nature and coloring reminded Baeza of the late-night comedian, Baeza didn\u2019t choose the moniker in hopes the celebrity connection would help make his discovery go viral. Instead, he wanted to pay homage to O\u2019Brien\u2019s status as a social commentator.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cComedians comment on issues. They make it funny. But while they are presenting it in a funny way to people, they are also making them aware,\u201d he explains. \u201cTo me, that has value. If I agree with that, I honor them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Antonio Baeza goes for a dive off the shore of Long Key alongside his Creative Inquiry students, Erin Griffin, Alyssa Baker and Natalie Stephens.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> What\u2019s In a Name?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Scientists who discover<\/span> a new species can name it whatever they want if they follow some basic rules, such as making sure the combined genus and species name is unique \u2014 and not named after themselves. Historically, names were based on the species\u2019 physical characteristics, where the researcher found it or after the discoverer\u2019s scientific mentor.<\/p>\n But that is no longer the case.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also use it as an opportunity not to take ourselves so seriously,\u201d Baeza explains.<\/p>\n While a noteworthy characteristic, place or scientist still inspires some names, other species\u2019 names are inspired by the famous, often to create social media buzz for a species that otherwise wouldn\u2019t receive much \u2014 or any \u2014 notice. Other names recognize social causes or honor people or cultures who may have been overlooked in the past. Musicians, comedians and writers are common namesakes.<\/p>\n Reggae pioneer Bob Marley is immortalized by a crustacean parasite. Thanks to their golden locks, Beyonc\u00e9 shares a name with a horsefly with gold hairs on its abdomen. A wasp in the eastern Andes mountains of Ecuador is named after singer-songwriter Shakira because of the caterpillar\u2019s motions in which the wasp lays its eggs when the larvae hatch. Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury, Brian May and John Deacon, members of the rock group Queen, each has a damselfly named after them. Not to be outdone, a whole genus of orb-weaver spiders is named for Pink Floyd.<\/p>\n Fittingly, a shark is named after Peter Benchley, author of Jaws,<\/i> the novel that was later made into the blockbuster film.<\/p>\n After comedian Stephen Colbert asked scientists to name something \u201ccooler than a spider\u201d after him, they obliged with the Neotropical diving beetle, Agaporomorphus colberti.<\/i><\/p>\n New species are also frequently named after politicians and activists.<\/p>\n The list of species named after former President Barack Obama is long \u2014 two species of spiders, a fluke, lichen, a beetle, two fish, a bee, a bird, an extinct lizard, an Ediacaran biota<\/i> (a marine organism), a horsehair worm, a sea slug and an ant. No other U.S. president has more species named after him. Theodore Roosevelt comes in a distant second with seven.<\/p>\n Former President Donald Trump hasn\u2019t been left out of the naming game, either, with a yellow-headed moth, a nearly blind, wormlike amphibian that burrows its head underground, and a venomous caterpillar sporting some version of his name in theirs.<\/p>\n President Joe Biden has a species named after him, too. Shortly after he was inaugurated, two paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History named an extinct vampyropod, an ancestor of the octopus, Syllipsimopodi bideni.<\/i><\/p>\n The Carcinonemertes conanobrieni<\/i> isn\u2019t the only species Baeza has named after a celebrity. He and his colleagues named a tiny shrimp they discovered in the Caribbean after the actor and former teenage heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. Perhaps that\u2019s fitting since that genus of shrimp is popularly called sexy shrimp because of the way it sways its abdomen back and forth while walking. The name wasn\u2019t Baeza\u2019s first choice, but he relented because of the actor\u2019s work to bring attention and funding to ocean conservation.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope those names age well,\u201d Baeza says.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> In the clear-blue waters of the Florida Keys, Antonio Baeza signals underwater while scuba diving for spiny lobster.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Red-Beanie-Wearing Explorer<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Baeza credits<\/span> his marine biology career, in part, to a celebrity: a French, red-beanie-wearing explorer with a blaze of white hair and eyes framed by glasses and bushy eyebrows.<\/span><\/p>\n To fill its programming lineup, a TV station in Baeza\u2019s hometown of Santiago, Chile, aired years-old episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.<\/i> The documentary-style series from the 1960s and \u201970s chronicles Cousteau\u2019s adventures aboard the retired Royal Navy minesweeper turned research vessel Calypso.<\/p>\n A young Baeza was mesmerized as he watched Cousteau unlock the mysteries of the ocean one hour at a time.<\/p>\n \u201cThose old programs really captivated me. I still remember when I was a kid, and they showed Jacques Cousteau going into the Deep Blue Hole in Belize,\u201d says Baeza.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just blew my mind \u2014 how he told the story, the exploration, the contact with nature, the diversity, everything. I was hooked.\u201d<\/p>\n Watching Cousteau descend into waters where few had ventured before triggered something in Baeza, who had an innate hunger for learning.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the \u2018inquiry gene.\u2019 I was always wanting to learn something new, to understand nature and society around me,\u201d he explains. \u201cWatching Jacques Cousteau, it clicked that maybe exploration and trying to better understand nature was something that I should try as a career. Although I\u2019m not that old, I like to say that I\u2019m from the Jacques Cousteau generation.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came time for him to go to college, he applied for admission to the Universidad Catolica del Norte in three \u201cologies\u201d \u2014 marine biology, anthropology and archeology. The school\u2019s marine biology program in Coquimbo, a small port city in northern Chile and a hot spot of marine diversity, accepted him.<\/p>\n \u201cI was thrilled,\u201d Baeza says. \u201cI still am.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to earn his bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in Chile, then came to the U.S. in 2001 to work on his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University, with only $100 in his pocket and a big box of books he sent by regular mail. The box \u2014 half destroyed but with all the books still inside \u2014 finally arrived a few months later.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Earth\u2019s Life-Support System<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n More than<\/span> a half century has passed since the first episode of\u00a0 <\/span>The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau<\/i> originally aired, but much remains to be discovered about what is, essentially, our planet\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>life-support system.<\/span><\/p>\n Occupying 70 percent of the Earth\u2019s surface, the ocean drives our weather and climate. It has a critical role in the hydrological cycle \u2014 the process in which water in the sea, lakes and rivers evaporates, turns to water vapor in the atmosphere, condenses and falls back to Earth as rain or snow. Half of the oxygen produced on Earth comes from oceanic sources.<\/span><\/p>\n Beneath the ocean\u2019s surface is home to hundreds of thousands of living species \u2014 240,694 as of June 2022. There are potentially millions more, given that less than 20 percent of the ocean has been explored.<\/span><\/p>\n While the discovery of new species on land has slowed, more marine species have been discovered in the past decade than ever before. In 2021 alone, 2,176 marine species new to science made the list, including two identified by Baeza.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe cataloging of species in the world is far from finished,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n And why should we care about cataloging species, species that most people will never see?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWidespread habitat destruction and deterioration coupled with global climate change are resulting in the unprecedented extinction of species at a local and global scale,\u201d he says. \u201cHaving a more complete catalog of species will help us understand how evolution has proceeded. Why do we have more of one species in one evolutionary lineage than others? Why are some species present on some continents and not others? With that base, we can understand the connections.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> WATCH<\/p>\n The Research<\/b><\/p>\n \n The Research | What Lies Beneath | 2022<\/a> from Clemson University<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section> Grad student Alyssa Baker successfully captures a spiny lobster for analysis while snorkeling, carefully taking it back to the Keys Marine Laboratory, a full-service marine research and education field station serving students, faculty and researchers from state, national and international scientific communities. The lab is operated by the Florida Institute of Oceanography.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Vital Role<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Take those Caribbean spiny lobsters,<\/span> which get their name from the forward-pointing spines that cover their bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n They live in the Atlantic Ocean as far north as North Carolina\u2019s Outer Banks and in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike the lobsters found at roadside stands in New England or in restaurant fish tanks, spiny lobsters don\u2019t have big front claws.<\/span><\/p>\n They play a vital role in the marine ecosystem and the economy of the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n Spiny lobsters are prey for sharks, large fish (think grouper and snapper), turtles and octopuses. They are predators, too, and eat snails, crabs and clams.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf lobsters are declining in abundance, the whole industry and coastal communities along the entire Caribbean basin are affected. They are really an important component to the community,\u201d Baeza says, \u201cand they sustain the most valuable fishery in that region, estimated to be worth $1 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n Landings of the commercially lucrative species have decreased over the past decade. Scientists have several possible reasons \u2014 overfishing, declining water quality, global climate change and environmental degradation. Caribbean spiny lobsters live in coral reefs, and many coral reefs in the Florida Keys and Caribbean are dying at dramatic rates.<\/span><\/p>\n The tiny ribbon-like worm Baeza discovered also could contribute.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA whole industry and coastal communities along the entire Caribbean basin rely on this species of spiny lobster,\u201d says Baeza, who came to Clemson in 2013 after spending time conducting research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n Preliminary research shows the worm, the first species of Carcinonemertes<\/i> reported to infect the P. argus<\/i> or any other lobster species in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic Ocean, negatively affects brooding females\u2019 reproductive performance.<\/span><\/p>\n That could have a long-term effect on the fishery\u2019s sustainability. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time a nemertean worm adversely affected a fishery. Nemertea is a phylum of animals that are also known as ribbon worms. When a crab fishery in central California collapsed in the 1960s, scientists tied that to a different species of nemertean worm.<\/span><\/p>\n Baeza and his students are conducting research into the parasite\u2019s behavior, including how it eats the eggs and mates. In addition, they are trying to ascertain how climate change and pollution effects could differ for the parasites and the host lobsters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe more we know, the more those managing the fishery can minimize the adverse effects,\u201d Baeza says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to generate more information that will help maintain a healthy population of spiny lobsters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Left to right, grad students Natalie Stephens and Alyssa Baker, Associate Professor Antonio Baeza, and undergrad student Erin Griffin observe the behavior of a spiny lobster in the wet lab of the Keys Marine Laboratory.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> WATCH<\/p>\n The Students<\/b><\/p>\n \n The Students | What Lies Beneath | 2022<\/a> from Clemson University<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section> Filling the Gap<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The Florida Keys isn\u2019t the only place<\/span> worms belonging to the genus Carcinonemertes <\/i>live. They inhabit the southwestern and northwestern Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the southwestern Indian Ocean, and the north and southwestern Pacific Ocean.<\/span><\/p>\n But before Baeza discovered a species off of the Chilean and Peruvian coast in 2021 that he <\/span>subsequently named Carcinonemertes camanchaco,<\/i> scientists had not identified any in the southeastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a hole of knowledge in the southeast Pacific, so, working with colleagues in Chile, we went hunting for these types of species in that area, knowing the effect these parasites can have on species that are intensively used (fished) by humans,\u201d Baeza says.<\/p>\n Baeza and his colleagues found the new worm in egg masses of two commercial crabs that inhabit the central-north Chilean coast, near Coquimbo, the place where Baeza was first trained as a marine biologist.<\/span><\/p>\n Carcinonemertes camanchaco<\/i> has two ovaries on each side of the intestines and produces a simple, not ornamented, mucus sheath.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe crab species, which are in the same family as Dungeness crabs, are already impacted by fishing. If we have an outbreak of this parasite, the fishery can collapse. It has happened in other fisheries,\u201d Baeza says. \u201cWe are trying to understand the worm\u2019s effect on the crab\u2019s reproduction and gain the scientific knowledge necessary to manage the fishery toward the goal of sustainability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Baeza named the new parasitic worm after the Camanchaco, indigenous people who inhabited the Pacific coast from southern Peru to north-central Chile for thousands of years and relied on the area\u2019s abundant marine life.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cA whole industry and coastal communities \u2026 rely on this species of the spiny lobster.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> New Shrimp<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Last year, Baeza<\/span> also identified a new shrimp species, the Lysmata malagasy,<\/i> a tiny shrimp that could have significant implications for the ornamental aquarium industry and potentially become a new fishery in Madagascar and East Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n Scientists collected the specimen in 2010 from waters near Madagascar during a French National Museum of Natural History\u2019s \u201cOur Planet Revisited\u201d expedition. They have kept it in alcohol ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n Lysmata malagasy<\/i> is a species of peppermint shrimp, scavengers that are often added to saltwater aquariums to \u201cclean\u201d the tanks by consuming detritus, uneaten food and decomposing organic matter.<\/span><\/p>\n Peppermint shrimp live in the shallow waters of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the east Atlantic Ocean and Florida\u2019s coasts.<\/span><\/p>\n Peppermint shrimp are \u201ca multimillion-dollar industry,\u201d says Baeza. \u201cIf you go to a pet store, especially in Florida or on the East Coast, they sell them by the millions. They capture them by the millions and sell them by the millions. They\u2019re cute shrimps. Besides providing this cleaning service, they are also beautiful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Baeza named the new species after \u201cMalagasy,\u201d the native inhabitants of Madagascar where the specimen was collected. \u201cMalagasy\u201d is the English version of the French word \u201cMalgache,\u201d the word used for both the people and their language.<\/span><\/p>\n He sees a chance for Madagascar to generate a new industry, <\/span>especially if marine biologists can learn enough about the biology of the new species to cost-effectively produce them en masse in an aquaculture facility and export them to Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n
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