Pressurized plankton observatory offers a new window into deep-sea larval behavior

The High-Pressure Plankton Observatory (HiPPO) is designed to quantify motions of zooplankton for behavioral study, including swimming and metabolic responses to environmental perturbations. It builds on prior chamber designs while filling gaps in capability for resolving orientation of small (< 1 mm) plankton, tracking their movements over ecologically relevant spatial scales, and recording in flow-through conditions on a vessel at sea. The HiPPO chamber has a direct light path for silhouette imaging of zooplankton as they move vertically and horizontally across a 3.56 cm diameter viewing area. Seawater forced by a high-performance liquid chromatography pump is exchanged continuously through the chamber, but flushing of zooplankton is prevented by fine mesh at the ports. A high-resolution camera/computer setup enables sustained imaging of plankton motions for quantitative analysis. Application of HiPPO to an investigation of larval behavior of deep-sea hydrothermal vent species revealed swimming behaviors similar to those of shallow-water species, including upward and downward helices, meandering, and short hovers. In conditions with microbial biofilm (a potential settlement cue) on a 2024 expedition, vent larvae unexpectedly swam rapidly upward in tight helices at velocities (0.15 cm s⁻¹) higher than those observed in prior experiments with no biofilm (0.03 cm s⁻¹). Many factors varied between the 2024 and earlier trials, so the difference cannot be attributed with certainty to a cue response. This study describes key new features of HiPPO and demonstrates the system's ability to document novel zooplankton behavior.