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Investigating the chemistry of a pond

Cara Manning (center), a 2009 Summer Student Fellow from the University of Victoria, Canada, works in the lab.  She investigated how much nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas — is entering Oyster Pond from sources other than the atmosphere, how much is being generated by microbial metabolic processes in the pond, and how much is released into the atmosphere. Oyster Pond, a Cape Cod kettle pond, has a high surrounding population density that is probably changing the pond’s chemistry. Using an inflatable boat, Manning collected water samples and incubated bacteria in the samples with different nutrients to see whether they produced more or less nitrous oxide. Her WHOI co-sponsors were Associate Scientist Karen Casciotti and Assistant Scientist Dierdre Toole.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)