Mote welcomes octopus researcher interested in camouflage, stone crab interactions
Mote Marine Laboratory is pleased to welcome Dr. Noam Josef, a next-generation Ph.D. scientist known for studying the camouflage capabilities of cephalopods: octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and related species.
Josef, who recently moved from Eilat, Israel to Sarasota, Florida, will study the camouflage of octopuses and their prey-predator interaction with the local stone crab population. Cephalopods are marine mollusks (animals with no backbones, including octopuses, cuttlefish and squids) that perform the fastest and most versatile camouflage displays in the animal kingdom. Josef will develop algorithms for predicting camouflage patterns in cephalopods. He will also study how octopuses interact with stone crabs, investigating how octopuses sneak into stone crab traps along Florida’s Gulf Coast and how to deter the octopuses from this crab fishery “buffet.”
His work will be carried out through the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) and Mote, which have joined together as part of an exciting new IHMC-Mote Postdoctoral Research Fellowship collaboration. Josef will be working with IHMC Research Scientist David Fries, whose research interests focus on developing and applying advanced technology in relation to the ocean. The two are pursuing novel flexible and biodegradable electronic displays that can mimic cephalopods. Such displays have the further goals of reducing electronics waste and advancing wearable electronics.
Josef earned his doctorate studying cephalopod camouflage at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. He began his Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in April 2016.
Q&A with Dr. Noam Josef
Which invertebrate animals have you studied, and why do they interest you?
I’ve been studying octopuses, squid and cuttlefish — all cephalopods — in the Red Sea, Portugal and Italy. I’m excited to now be able to begin studying octopuses here in Florida. Cephalopods are magnificent animals. Their rapid, dynamic and successful camouflage patterns have been the focus of my studies so far, and I also study their ecology and behavior, relating that to camouflage. I do basic research that might ultimately help us integrate the characteristics of cephalopods into something that can apply to humans.
How could cephalopod camouflage apply to us?
In general, advancing camouflage technology based on nature can be used for fashion, recreational diving, understanding ecological predator-prey relationships and many other sight-recognition applications.
We hope that our basic science with cephalopods will yield information that people in other fields can use. This is one area where we hope that joint efforts between Mote and IHMC could ultimately yield interesting findings. Our joint effort will harness the expertise of scientists from all over the scientific and technological spectrum, including behavioral biologists, material engineers, computer-vision technicians and others. We will quantify cephalopod camouflage patterns and integrate them using a computer model to mathematically describe these patterns better.
Why cephalopods instead of other animals?
Most living creatures use some form of camouflage, but cephalopods’ dynamic camouflage is thought to be an ideal biological model for man-made camouflage, and it has drawn the interest of an increasing number of researchers and defense industries worldwide. These animals have a very complex skin with chromatophores (cells containing pigment sacs) that expand to display color and contract to hide the color. Beneath them is a protein layer that reflects, absorbs and diffuses ambient light. It’s like a backlit LED screen with pixels that can change color. Each pixel on my computer is singly monitored by the computer. Each chromatophore cell in an octopus is neurally controlled by the animal’s brain. That’s why they can change color in blink of an eye — one-tenth of a second.
Moreover, I recently showed that cephalopods are the only species known to camouflage during movement — a fact that drew the attention of many industries and researchers from various fields.
The other animal that most people associate with camouflage, the chameleon, uses a hormonal mechanism to induce body color change. Chameleons have sophisticated skin with dense networks of chromatophore cells similar to octopuses, but their dynamic camouflage is much slower and less selective and versatile.
Will you study the local octopus populations here in Florida?
I will be studying how the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) uses stone crab traps and interacts with the crabs within. Octopuses are one of the main predators of stone crabs and in some recent years, fishermen have found many octopuses in their traps instead of stone crabs. I’ll be in touch with the stone crab fishing community here in southwest Florida to try and quantify, characterize and perhaps suggest strategies to minimize fishermen’s’ loss of stone crabs. Octopuses are resourceful and capable predators. Once they understand that a trap is a food-source, holding them back can be a challenge.
How will you study this prey-predator interaction?
I will use video recordings to see how octopuses enter and exit stone crab traps and interact with the trapped crabs. Moreover, I’ll experimentally test whether the declawing of stone crabs makes the crabs easier targets for octopuses. Very little is known about this population of octopuses and its interaction with stone crabs, except through reports from the fishing community.
Is it really that hard to keep an octopus out of the “cookie jar”?
Cephalopods are the only invertebrates that solve problems on their own, and they can be trained for multiple and complex tasks. If you have a tasty enough crab on the other side of a barrier, an octopus will likely get it. It’s no wonder they found the stone crabs in the traps — that’s like a buffet to them, and they are fast learners.
So how would a scientist in Israel say “octopus” in Hebrew?
It would be “tmanun” in Hebrew. This derives from the Arabic word for “eight,” which is “thamania.”