In the marine environment, there's a lot of really small scale processes that affect large ecosystems. For example, coral reefs, while they can extend hundreds or thousands of miles, they're built by individual coral polyps that are around a millimeter in size. Currently, if you want to study an individual coral polyp, you take a sample from the reef and bring it back to the lab. But, that sampling process in itself is going to disturb the organism a lot. To help get a better, up-close look at tiny sea life -but without disturbing this delicate underwater world -scientists developed a new underwater microscope that brings the lab to the ocean.

Originally released by Inside Science, 2016. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on September 25, 2017.

Underwater Microscope (3:36);