Psychotherapy for Plankton

WHOI graphic artist Amy Caracappa-Qubeck drew this humorous cartoon after Erin Bertrand described her research on environmental “stressors” that govern the productivity of microscopic marine plants, or phytoplankton, at the base of the oceanic food chain. Among those stressors are finding and competing for essential nutrients they need to survive. Bertrand, an MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate student who recently earned her Ph.D., wrote about her research in the newly published issue of Oceanus magazine featuring all student authors. Freud aficionados will notice that Caracappa-Qubeck remained faithful to the doctor’s famous couch.(Illustration by Amy Caracappa-Qubeck, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)