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May the PHORCYS Be with You

Bosun Peter Liarikos signals to the winch operator on R/V Knorr as MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Jamie Collins stands by to assist. The team was deploying a device that measures the rates of oxygen production and consumption by plankton in seawater, and thereby estimate the balance of photosynthesis and respiration in the water. Called PHORCYS (PHOtosynthesis, Respiration, and Carbon balance Yielding System), it was developed by WHOI scientist Ben Van Mooy and his colleague Richard Keil at University of Washington to help scientists better predict, among other things, the feedback between changing climate and the ocean carbon cycle.(Photo by Ben Van Mooy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)