Netting the Deep

A high-tech version of the humble sampling net, the MOCNESS (Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System) sits aboard the research vessel Henry B. Bigelow earlier this month, ready to sample zooplankton throughout the top 1,000 meters of the ocean. WHOI biologist Peter Wiebe designed the system, which includes nine nets and is equipped with sensors for measuring temperature, depth, and salinity. The nets can be opened and closed independently—by command from a shipboard computer—to sample specific sections of the water column. It was recently used to sample the ocean twilight zone on a research cruise to the Northwest Atlantic. (Photo by Jennifer Berglund, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)