Kersey Sturdivant is a busy guy. Thanks to the McCurdy Visiting Scholar program at the 91社区福利 Marine Lab, he鈥檚 bringing his energy and drive to the 91社区福利 Marine Lab, along with Wormcam, an innovative new way of looking at the ocean floor.

Wormcam is an underwater camera that Sturdivant developed while earn- ing his doctorate at Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), working with Robert Diaz, professor of marine science. It provides scientists and students with images of physical and biological processes as they occur in real time on the ocean floor.

A benthic ecologist by training, Sturdivant comes to the Marine Lab from the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, where he served as research coordinator. His research background is in hypoxia, a condition where the lack of oxygen in marine waters and sediment leads to environmental problems, from fish kills to dead zones.

As a McCurdy Visiting Scholar, he鈥檒l have the opportunity to spend up to a year with scientists and students at Duke to explore coastal hypoxia issues.

It鈥檚 very important to be at 鈥渁 really good institution that does really good work but (where) the people are very open and there鈥檚 a really tight sense of community,鈥 Sturdivant says. 鈥淭he ambience of the Marine Lab very much mirrors that.鈥

While at the Marine Lab, Sturdivant is continuing his research on the causes and effects of hypoxia on local and global ecosystems and economies, and he鈥檚 hoping to explore how hypoxia affects the way worms鈥 bodies function in sediment, and how that impacts their ability to tolerate lower oxygen levels.

Wormcam will continue to play a role in Sturdivant鈥檚 research. The device can be left on the ocean floor to take pictures of the sediment layers, providing a look at processes that are often hard to visualize.

鈥淭hink of it as an ant farm, but an ant farm in the actual natural environment that鈥檚 as minimally invasive as possible,鈥 Sturdivant explains.

Sturdivant and undergraduate Lucy Ma T鈥14 are using Wormcam to look at how chemical cues from prey species of crustaceans, such as crabs, affect behavior. But while they鈥檙e looking at that, Wormcam is simultaneously helping them to get data on how the crustacean behaviors are affecting other species that live in the sediment.

Wormcams have been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico, where Sturdivant is part of a research group assessing the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on coastal Louisiana. The cameras are helping the team look at how oil on the seafloor changes the behavior of the animals that live there and affects the chemical composition of the sediment.

You can follow the progress of Wormcam on Twitter at #Wormcam.

Sturdivant, like his invention, is doing some multitasking. While continuing his research on hypoxia, he also is hoping to teach while at the Marine Lab. And in his spare time, he鈥檒l be working on a book about the application process for graduate school in the natural sciences and thinking up ways to develop more applications for Wormcam in the classroom.

鈥淚f you talk to people, even scientists, and ask them, 鈥榳hat does bioturbation look like in real time,鈥 most people haven鈥檛 seen the actual way the sediment works and turns over and the high level of activity that occurs,鈥 he says. 鈥(But) any time anyone views a Wormcam movie, they鈥檙e just like, 鈥榟oly cow, I can鈥檛 believe this is what goes on!鈥 So I think that has a lot of application for expand- ing people鈥檚 knowledge.鈥

The nature of the McCurdy Visiting Scholars program allows the Marine Lab faculty to be strategic in selecting young scientists from disciplines that might not currently be represented in Beaufort.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a real chance for the Marine Lab faculty to try out ideas. We haven鈥檛 had a benthic ecologist of Kersey鈥檚 ilk for some time, so it鈥檚 nice to have that on the island again,鈥 says Cindy Van Dover, director of the Marine Lab and a former McCurdy Visiting Scholar.

Sarah Gillig Sunu MEM'14 is the Nicholas School's Communications Assistant for 2012-13 and Leader of the Duke Environment Blogging Team.