The DEEPEND team will be heading back out to the Gulf of Mexico next week to conduct their 10th MOCNESS cruise! The main goal of this cruise will be to continue the deep-pelagic time series work as well as adding a new component to create a genetic reference library that can be used to validate eDNA sampling efforts by researchers all over the world. DEEPEND’s famed photographer, Dante Fenolio, will be out there capturing images of the animals we collect and the operations at sea.

The plan is to set sail just after midnight on Tuesday, April 22 and sample for 12 days, arriving back in port on May 3, 2025. The ship tracker will be updated daily on the DEEPEND website's home page as to where DEEPEND is sampling. Cruise blogs will keep everyone updated as to what is happening at sea. You can subscribe to the DEEPEND cruise blog or view it anytime here: https://restore.deependconsortium.org/index.php/cruises/cruiseblog

The DEEPEND (Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics; www.deependconsortium.org) program has been studying the epipelagic, mesopelagic, and bathypelagic fauna of the Gulf of Mexico for the last 14 years (and counting). Given the progress made offshore, we are excited to announce an addition to the DEEPEND research portfolio, a detailed examination of the interactions of mesopelagic and deep-benthic (particularly deep coral) assemblages along the outer continental slope.

A recent research article led by Dr. Matthew Woodstock and two other DEEPENDers, Dr. Tracey Sutton and Dr. Yuying Zhang, was recognized by Limnology and Oceanography, one of the world’s premier oceanographic journals, as one of the most viewed new papers for the journal.

Dr. Heather Judkins and her grad student, Claire de Noyo, both presented new DEEPEND research at the 2024 Ocean Sciences Meeting in February in New Orleans! Heather shared results from her ongoing cephalopod diet metabarcoding study which helps piece together the complex deep-sea food web of the Gulf of Mexico. Of the 63 individuals analyzed, fishes accounted for the majority of prey items.