Image

Deep Culture

Katarzyna Melaniuk, a guest student visiting WHOI scientist Joan Bernhard‘s lab, examines cultures of single-celled foraminifera (forams) collected off Norway. She is investigating whether certain species live in chemosynthetic habitats, such as methane seeps. Melaniuk sets different carbon dioxide and oxygen levels in the culture boxes, mimicking different deep-sea habitats, and feeds the cultures either methane-consuming bacteria or surface-living algae. Analyzing foram growth and shell geochemistry will indicate whether they ate chemosynthetic bacteria and built carbonate shells at methane seeps. Melaniuk works with Giuliana Panieri at the Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate at The Arctic University of Norway. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)