House Call

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Bennett Spencer Lambert helps install a FlowCytobot at the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory as a school of fish passes by. The instrument uses a laser to identify and count tiny marine plants known as picophytoplankton. By deploying FlowCytobot alongside Imaging FlowCytobot, which captures high-resolution images of large-celled phytoplankton, scientists like WHOI biologist Heidi Sosik are able to monitor seasonal and long-term changes to a fundamental part of the marine ecosystem. (Photo by Sean Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)