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Who’s On First?

October 30, 2017

This summer, WHOI postdoctoral scholar Kirstin Meyer hung plastic panels off the WHOI pier and a dock at Eel Pond in Woods Hole, to learn what organisms would settle on them, and how that “fouling community” would change over time. As part of the experiment, she removed certain organisms from some panels to see what would grow in their absence. Each week, Meyer took panels back to the lab to tally what she found and the order that they settled. Her preliminary results suggest that both water temperature and competition play a key role in driving community composition. (Photo by Véronique LaCapra, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)