Bottling Parasites

2018 WHOI Summer Student Fellow Emily Maness (foreground) and undergraduate summer student Sarah Lott collect water from Salt Pond in Falmouth, Massachusetts. In the water are single-celled parasites that attack tiny organisms known as protists. MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Taylor Sehein is working with WHOI microbiologist Virginia Edgcomb to study the ecology of these parasites (order Syndiniales) and their impacts on protist communities and nutrient cycling in coastal ecosystems. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)