Operation Bioassay ! Sophie Richier , January 25 , 2013
Another long and tiring day at sea . We started early today ( 2:00 am ) with a spectacular sunrise just to make it worth waking up in the middle of the night .
Sunrise on the Southern ocean @ Sophie Richier
The first objective of the day is to set up the third experiment to study the response of the natural microbial community to one of the highest threats to the ocean nowadays . While most of the marine organisms we are interested in are barely visible by naked eyes , their threat from “ ocean acidification ” is one of the highest concerns of this decade for scientists . At the base of the food chain they are also involved in removing the carbon dioxide we released into the atmosphere .
In order to understand what will be the future of microbes in the oceans we are performing “ bioassay experiments ” which are meant to mimic the future scenarios predicted by models .
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