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Up in the Air

December 6, 2013

A video plankton recorder (VPR) is hoisted aboard R/V New Horizon before an August 2012 cruise led by WHOI biologist Gareth Lawson. The VPR is a system that images plankton and particulate matter as small as 50 microns and up to a few centimeters in size without destroying their delicate forms. Lawson and his collaborators are using the information from it and from water samples they collected to assess the impact of falling pH in seawater, a phenomenon known as ocean acidification, on zooplankton at the base of the ocean’s food web.(Photo by Peter Wiebe, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)