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Profiling Plankton

WHOI biologist Gareth Lawson (foreground) and colleagues from the University of Rhode Island prepare to deploy the Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) during a September 2010 expedition to the Gulf of Maine on the RV Endeavor. The VPR, which was developed at WHOI, is a video microscope system that captures images of plankton from near the surface to a depth of 350 meters, giving scientists a profile of plankton abundance at various depths. The VPR takes about 20 images per second, or tens of thousands in a single deployment. Scientists sort and analyze the images with the help of image identification software.(Photo by Peter Wiebe, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)