It’s an awe-inspiring display, one which Jim Morin has witnessed thousands of times: tiny pulses of blue, emitted from sesame seed-sized crustaceans called ostracods, lighting up Caribbean ocean reefs in the dark of night.
The emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and former director of the Shoals Marine Lab has spent his career studying marine organisms, especially the mechanisms, functions, ecology and evolution of light emission by bacteria, cnidarians, comb jellies, polychaetes, brittle stars, crustaceans and fishes.
In the process, he has illuminated his field—and the broader scientific community—with many important discoveries, including naming and first applying the green fluorescent protein (GFP), which has become a vital reporter molecule in gene expression.
Now, he is being honored for that and other work with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Society of Naturalists. The organization of marine biologists bestowed the award on Nov. 9 during its annual meeting in Oxnard, California.
Morin was recognized for his individual achievements, as well as the breadth of his understanding of the natural history of marine organisms, his dedication to education, and his teaching.
“Jim truly is the consummate naturalist,” said Trevor Rivers, Ph.D ’07, a former student in Morin’s lab who presented the award. “You can go into almost any marine environment, be it tropical or temperate, and Jim would have a solid understanding of the habitat and the organisms found within. It was obvious by the numbers of former students and colleagues who came up to talk with Jim at the conference that he has influenced and impacted the lives of many current and future biologists.”
Morin first described the fantastic luminescent courtship displays of ostracods in 1980. The spectacular natural light shows are caused by the pulsed secretions of the male crustaceans, who face stiff competition for attention from an extremely small receptive female population. A tripeptide substrate is secreted from one set of tiny nozzles on their upper lips, an enzyme is secreted from another set lateral to them, and mucous is secreted from a third set. These mix in the water to produce a sustained, discrete pulse of bright blue light. They repeat this as they swim to produce a species-specific, coded display.
Some species’ pulsed displays are just a few centimeters long while others may extend many meters. Some move downwards in the water column, others upwards, and still others laterally or obliquely. Some make relatively long-lasting pulses of luminescence (10-20sec) in a train while others are like little strobe lights. Some even swim and display in formation.
From recording the details of each species’ luminescent display and making collections of the displaying individuals, Morin and his students have discovered dozens of new species in several new genera, identified their phylogenetic relationships , and determined the sequence of evolutionary events that has led to their complex courtship displays—a first for any luminescent organism.
“We now know more about the entire luminescent system—from biochemical mechanisms to ecology to evolutionary origins—of ostracods than any luminescent system, including the bacteria and fireflies,” Morin said.
Morin has examined all aspects of luminescence, from chemistry to ecology and evolution, in the lab and in the field—often underwater in the dark of night, off all the continents and major oceans.
“Because field work on luminescence is arduous and stressful, few individuals have chosen to examine bioluminescence in situ under ambient conditions,” Morin said. “I have spent endless nights underwater in many parts of the world watching a plethora of types of luminescence.”
Morin joined the Cornell faculty in 1997, served as the John M. Kingsbury Director of Shoals from 1997-2005, and retired in 2012. Prior to that, he was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
