Mikayla, Victoria and Pierre are back from the EN657 NES-LTER fall cruise on board the R/V Endeavor. This exceptional fall cruise provided the opportunity to investigate the effects of marine heat waves on ocean life, following this particularly warm summer. Moreover, it was a unique opportunity for the Menden-Deuer lab to have access to phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing estimates in fall, a season that we’ve never had the chance to study for the LTER project thus far. It was also a great opportunity for Victoria to perform some experiments on micro-plastic bead ingestion by microzooplankton, in parallel to our classic dilution experiments. Finally, the “incubation team” (joined on the picture by Erin Jones) performed 13C primary production incubations in the absence of Diana. Despite a limited team, we were able to sample 7 stations along the North-South transect from Martha’s Vineyard to the shelf break. Well done Incubation Team!

Here is a press release on the subject: https://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/westerly/uri-scientists-investigate-effects-of-marine-heat-wave-on-ocean-life-off-southern-new-england/article_ab990376-16e8-11eb-8f8b-0f5525aca04c.html