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Photo: H. Vibhu

Yen for knowledge Sherine Sonia Cubelio. Right top: The manned submersible, Shinkai 6500 in which she went under water. Two of the seven crab species Sherine identified

She was there on a fellowship from the Tokyo University to do her doctoral research. Sherine’s demeanour changes when she begins talking about her deep sea research for the doctoral thesis. Her eyes light up at the mention of the seven species of crabs that she has identified, described and named. The seven that she has identified along with the nine known species takes the number of known crab species to 16 in the world.

“The seven that I have identified are commonly called squat lobsters, but they belong to the class Crustacea, genus Munidopsis and family Galatheidae,” says Sherine. She did her research at the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) where she was attached to the department of Extreme Biosphere. The species that Sherine has discovered flourishes in a specialised environment. This ‘environment’ is created when two plates of the earth shift and water from the sea goes in between the plates to the earth’s core and comes in contact with the magma, which makes the water buoyant and it comes right back into the ocean. But this water does not come alone, it brings with it different metals and minerals. It forms a chimney in the ocean. Through this vent the boiling water (which is around 300-400 degrees Celsius) comes out and mixes with the water in the sea, and cools down. This chimney is a solid structure, generally found very deep in the ocean bed. However, this creates a specialised environment where chemosynthetic bacteria flourish.

And it is in this special environment that these crabs that Sherine identified, flourish. What followed was a morphological description, followed by DNA sequencing. With the DNA sequencing it was learned that the age of the genera is 5.5 million years. She had help from her guide in JAMSTEC in identifying her research topic.

“Since I had previous experience of deep sea research while at Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), where I was a senior research assistant, my professor thought I was suited for the topic.” She collected the samples from the West Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

Sherine went underground aboard the ‘manned submersible Shinkai 6500’ and the ‘Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Hyper Dolphin’ which took her almost 2000 - 4000 metres under the sea. The whole experience for her was “thrilling.” And that is not all, she subsequently published five papers on the topic and presented a paper in the United Kingdom. The Japan Science Society awarded her the Japan Research Grant for her work in the field. “I am the youngest scientist in my chosen field,” the 35-year-old Sherine adds.

The self confessed workaholic completed her research and earned her doctorate in three years. Of the three-and-a-half years in Japan, the first six months were spent learning Japanese.

Although her Japanese is getting rusty after four months back in India, one of the things that she cannot forget and that which she has imbibed is the Japanese work ethic. “There, people work from 9 to 9. The levels of commitment are extremely high. They realise that they are working for their country and that drives them,” reminisces Sherine. At present she is a guest faculty at the Fisheries College, Panangad and at CUSAT. Shilpa Nair Anand

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