Meyer-Kaiser lab

"Be the kind of woman who, when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says 'Oh no! She's up!'" - Joanne Clancy My alarm went off at 7, like usual. As I picked up my phone to silence it, I noticed a text message from Kharis, my PhD student: "She's up!" I sank back into the pillows and let out a deep breath. Wonderful. She's up. Thank goodness.  "She" in this context is CATAIN , the camera system that my lab invented a few years ago. CATAIN is specifically designed to capture settlement - the process of a larva metamorphosing and attaching to its new juvenile habitat on the seafloor. A lot of animals die right after they settle, so it's really difficult to study settlement itself. Most of the time, researchers leave out fouling panels and then collect them with all the attached animals a few months later. The problem with that strategy, though, is you only see the sum total of everything that settled and everything that die

Settled larvae in my culture dishes I sat down at the microscope with a dish of anemone larvae in one hand and a glass pipet in the other. Time for a water change. For about a week and a half, I had been tracking everything I could about my Metridium senile larvae - size, shape, buoyancy, swimming speed, survival. All those parameters would inform a high-resolution model of their dispersal, so I needed to record everything.  Peering into one of my dishes, I noticed something I hadn't seen before: small blobs attached to the glass. They were about the size and shape of a larva, actually. Same color, too. I sucked up a little water with my pipet and blew it on one of the blobs. The blob did not move. It was firmly attached to the dish.  Zooming in, I noticed that the blobs had a bit of internal structure. A central point, some pale lines radiating out from it. A mouth and septa. Just like a juvenile anemone.  Ladies and gentlemen, we have settlement! Those blobs can only be one thin

Two project team members bringing the grab  on board Tioga , hopefully with a good sample! As a benthic ecologist, I've taken plenty of grab samples in my day. It's pretty much a staple of the field. You lower a grab over the side of a boat, scoop up some sediment, sieve it, and preserve the animals. Every benthic ecologist knows how to collect a good grab sample. I can't even tell you how time I've spent sieving sediment samples in the field. The whole process is second nature by now.  As you might guess, grab sampling is not second nature for everyone. Recently, I had the opportunity to bring others up to speed when a local consulting company asked me to partner with them. I joined the team on WHOI's boat, R/V Tioga , as the resident expert on benthic ecology.  It was a fun trip. Two of the consultants deployed and recovered the grab - they didn't need me for that part. But once the sampler was on deck, I had to check it. Ideally, you want a grab that fills t

A Metridium senile larva I pulled into the parking lot at work. It was 6:30 am. Every morning, I stopped by the lab before my safety training class to take care of my larvae. Every afternoon, I went straight back to the lab as soon as my training was finished. Sure, I was burning the candle at both ends, but I was getting amazing data.  I have wanted to study the larvae of Metridium senile for several years now. I actually had a lightbulb moment in 2017, when my husband dragged me to a dive show north of Boston. We had just started dating, and he wanted to get me interested in SCUBA diving (the plan may have worked a   little too well ). There was an exhibit at the dive show about the shipwreck Andria Doria , which rests just south of Nantucket. As we walked through the exhibit, I stopped short. Every photo of the shipwreck on display that day had the same species in it: Metridium senile . I new Metridium well - it was the dominant species on a shipwreck I studied in grad school.

I stood in the hallway of an academic building at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Sunlight filled the cathedral-like hall and glistened on the waters of the Cape Cod Canal just outside the windows behind me. Like all academic buildings, this one held classrooms and labs behind numbered doors. But education at Mass Maritime goes beyond topics you can learn at a desk. Large glass doors to my left were labeled "Diesel Engine Lab." Students wearing zip-up, grease-stained jump suits and hard hats filed in for their class. They gathered around a giant, hulking piece of metal - a diesel engine, probably from a ship. I guess if you're going to fix them for your career, you have to learn on the real thing.  Out in the hallway, I was wearing my standard work-casual outfit: leggings and a fleece. But over top, I had a full-body harness, work gloves, a hard hat, and protective eyewear. My feet were clad in steel-toe shoes. Twin lanyards with quick-release hooks dangled from my hi

I got to the lab at 6:30 am. I was due at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy for all-day safety training starting at 8, so I wanted to check on my fluffy anemones beforehand. Just to make sure they weren't spawning, you know? Over the past few weeks, I had tried light shock, heat shock, cold shock, combination light-heat shock, and just standing over them, staring them down. Nothing seemed to work. They probably weren't going to spawn for me. I pretty much knew it was going to be a useless trip. But the literature said spawning can happen spontaneously right after dawn, so I had to check. Just to be sure.  You can probably tell where this is going.  Yep, I had sperm in one bin and eggs in another - from two different females, even! All three spawning individuals were different colors, too! That meant I had gametes from a cross-section of the population. Amazing!  Metridium senile eggs (and one dividing embryo!) I looked at my watch. 6:45 am. I was due in Bourne at 8:00, and i

For the fiftieth time that day, I heard a high-pitched toddler voice say "arriba." I looked down to see Sebastian standing near me, hands in the air. Arriba. Up. The little stinker was teaching me Spanish.  I lifted Sebastian, rested his puffy, diaper-clad bottom on my hip, and gave his fleshy cheek a kiss. At just under 2 years old, he was unbelievably cute. He smiled at me - a saliva-filled, giggly, genuine smile. So stinking cute. Then he started wriggling and said "Runter" - German for "down."  For some reason, he always asked to be picked up in Spanish but asked to be set down in German.  This was our routine for days. Arriba. Runter. Arriba. Runter. Arriba. Runter. The kid was non-stop.  All of us at the Cape Cod National Seashore Don't get me wrong, it was an incredible visit. Sebastian's parents - one from Germany, one from Colombia - have been my friends for several years. I met Theresa when I lived in Germany in 2011-2012 and Juan a few y

I feel like I haven't seen Johanna in weeks, because...well, I haven't. She's in town. She's working hard. But she's been spending her time at WHOI's engineering hub, AVAST, instead of in the lab. When I asked her for an update recently, she had nothing but good news to share.  DeepZoo components in assembly at AVAST. Photo by Johanna Weston. You see, Johanna's main postdoc project has been developing a one-of-a-kind hadal zooplankton sampler. She realized soon after joining our lab that there was no way to collect the types of samples we work with (larvae) from the areas in the ocean that fascinate her the most - the hadal zone, below 6,000 m depth. So Johanna set to work. She and I wrote a grant proposal to make the case for the new instrument; the proposal was awarded funding, and Johanna has worked full-steam-ahead ever since.  The design process has gone through multiple rounds. We use the term "iterative" in science to describe a process that

With Marty at Sandwich Town Beach. We parked the car at 6 am. I expected the parking lot at the Cape Cod Canal Visitor's Center to be empty, but instead, about 10 cars were scattered around. Must be fishermen. There's certain phase of the morning when it's just you and the fishermen - usually right after dawn. I love that time of day.  Gingerly, Marty and I walked over the stones on the side of the beach. The sand would have been easier on our feet, but we weren't going for easy. We were on a mission to collect anemones.  I had never been to Sandwich at low tide before. In fact, I had come to the same jetty just a week before and concluded there were no anemones to be found. I was in the right place, but at the wrong time. When the tide goes out, the deep parts of the rock jetty are exposed, and the anemones become accessible. They hang like limp balloons on the sides of the boulders. Clusters of white and pink and brown individuals fill every crack and gap between the

Usually, when I post on this blog, I'm telling you stories of science in progress. Either I'm in the field collecting samples, or I'm crunching numbers in a dataset. Sometimes, I tell you about the end result of science: a published paper. But sometimes, the work doesn't end when my paper hits the press. Sometimes, a whole new project develops out of one that's just finished.  I'm experiencing a new beginning this week, as a brand-new project grows out of one I already completed. You can think of this project as Stellwagen 2.0. Back in 2019-2020 , I led a team investigating shipwrecks in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. We went to sea  on a small boat, used a robot to record videos , and analyzed the communities that lived on four shipwrecks . My team published a total of 4 papers and a book chapter based on our data. We penetrated the Portland shipwreck for the very first time. We held telepresence broadcasts and reached thousands of students ar

The best part of my job is seeing the scientists in my group succeed. This week, I had the chance to cheer on one of our own - my lab's Summer Student Fellow, Marty.  A satellite photo of the fjord Marty worked on this summer, Rijpfjorden. You can see the gradient in  sediment load and ocean color from the fjord head to its open-ocean mouth. Credit: TopoSvalbard. Marty is a student at Eckerd College in Florida, and she was selected to join my lab this summer for a larval biology project. Last fall, my PhD student, Kharis, collected plankton samples in three fjords in Svalbard. The samples have waited in our freezer ever since for someone to come along and analyze them. I'm so glad that Marty took on the project.  Most Svalbard fjords have a gradient of environmental conditions. Large tidewater glaciers calve off icebergs and melt at the head of the fjord. Cold, low-salinity meltwater forms a lens on the surface of the inner fjord. Small grains of sediment that were trapped in t

A scallop shucking party! By the time I crawled into bed, it was 1 am. I thought about going straight to the lab, but I would have ended up napping on the couch. There was no way I could start processing my samples right away - in my exhausted state, mistakes were a real risk, and I didn't want to mess up the samples I had just worked so hard to collect. If I was going to nap, I may as well nap at home.  When the alarm went off at 7, the first thing I did was text my lab group. "Good morning," I wrote to Kharis and Johanna, "if you want free, fresh scallops, show up at WHOI and help me shuck."  It was actually a lot of fun. My husband, Carl, my student, Kharis, my postdoc, Johanna, and Johanna's husband all lined up at the lab bench. I had bought a couple shucking knives, and Kharis brought a few tools of her own from home. Carl and Kharis worked out an effective technique for separating the adductor muscle (the scallop "meat") from the rest of the

Wychemere Harbor Wychemere Harbor was smaller than I expected. If I hadn't told the map app on my phone to give me loud, verbal directions, I certainly would have driven past it. In fact, I had missed Harbor Road once already and had to turn around at the Episcopal church on the corner. Grassy, flowery lawns surrounded summer homes. Tourists in bright designer dresses and pristine white sandals peered into shopfront windows just a block away. As I pulled into the tiny parking lot of Wychemere Harbor, I could hardly believe this was where a commercial fishing boat called home.  Three Graces was lashed to the front face at the end of the pier - her boxy frame was too long for a standard slip. The diesel engine puttered, and a dark-skinned man moved boxes around the back deck. I approached on foot and tried to find the boat's name on the hull, but the captain spotted me first. I guess a feminine scientist is not something you see every day in Wychemere Harbor.  It took us 30 minu

Coming home from an expedition is always hard. It feels like you've been on another planet , or that your whole time at sea was just a really good dream. The people you've spent every waking minute with for a whole month are suddenly gone . It helps if you have a few days to decompress before settling back into normal life .  Unfortunately, I did not have a few days. I went straight from Tromsø, Norway to my home in Massachusetts, slept, and went to work the next day. I had important things to attend to.  Two of the pluteus larvae that Hollis found Important things - like my intern, Hollis. The last time I saw him, he had blue hair , but it was black when he arrived in the lab this time. He had some new life updates to share with me, and I was very excited to listen. Admittedly, conversations with Hollis sometimes involve me learning new vocabulary so I can keep up with the ever-evolving modern lingo. Hollis also peppered me with questions about my Arctic trip - larvae, polar

Sea ice! Deploying the hand net. Photo by Kyra Marie Böckmann The CTD descending to the water. Our hand net deployments corresponded with the CTD casts.  Photo by Johanna Weston. In the ROV van during my dive. Photo by Johanna Weston. Waiting for the ROV recovery with Melanie and Lydia. Photo by Melanie Bergmann. ROV Kiel 6000 coming on board Polarstern after a dive. One of the "dragon amphipods" collected during my ROV dive.  Photo by Johanna Weston. We got close enough to Svalbard that we could actually see land! A puffin flying around the ship. Photo by Lydia Schmidt.

I stood in the so-called "working hallway" on Polarstern 's main deck. The doors to outside were wide open, and the cold Arctic air surrounded me. Two technicians used the ship's built-in tracked winch system to lift and move the CTD onto the main deck. It was a familiar procedure. As soon as that CTD was in the water, I would get my next larval sample.  Another researcher, Peter, walked up and stood next to me. I nodded a greeting. He nodded back and pointed to the CTD.  "This is my extra sausage," he said in German.  "Good for you!" I responded, giggling a little inside. It's true - things have gone well enough this trip that we've barely had to cancel anything. What cancellations we did have were because of ice conditions, not equipment malfunction. The chief scientist was even able to honor requests for extra samples toward the end of the expedition. If this was an American ship, Peter might have told me that the CTD was the icing on hi

My experiment had to wait 5 years for me to return, but it was not the only patient experiment in the HAUSGARTEN this year. My friend and collaborator, Melanie, started an experiment of her own in 2015 to figure out how plastic litter impacts deep-sea sponges. After 9 years, she was finally able to finish the experiment.  An anemone on the base of Melanie's experiment. I volunteered to help Melanie during her ROV dive by keeping notes. The ROV team has a specialized system that automatically time-stamps and georeferences every observation during the dive. A dedicated laptop in the ROV control van and a second one in the winch control room are used for data logging. We don't want to miss anything that happens on the seafloor.  As I watched the video feed from Melanie's dive, I started to notice something unexpected. Small white lines appeared on many of the plastic pieces in her experiment. Looking closely, I realized they were worm tubes! The worms must have settled on the

It has been 5 years.  Back in 2019, I started a series of experiments at a station in the HAUSGARTEN . We call the station "Senke," but that's actually a misnomer. "Senke" is German for "depression." There is a depression in the seafloor, sure, but right next to the depression is a giant rocky reef. And I go to Senke for the reef.  It's been my mission for the last several years to understand the assembly of hard-bottom communities in the Arctic deep sea. How are new stones colonized? Who arrives first? Where do the larvae come from? Ever since an 18-year experiment showed that Arctic communities take decades to form, I have wanted to dig into that process.  One of my larval traps, successfully opened and even covered with life! If you want to understand hard-bottom communities, Senke is the ideal study site. It has bedrock and boulders and is covered in sponges like you wouldn't believe. I find it fascinating and incredibly beautiful. It is m

The past few days, we have sampled at the northern HAUSGARTEN stations. Honestly, it feels a bit weird to say "the northern stations" because, well, we're in the Arctic. Every station is a northern station in a way. But further north we went, to nearly 80 N.  Johanna deploying our larval net while I  manage the line.  The ice at the northern stations is different from East Greenland. It's thinner, more delicate, ridden with holes and so, so blue. From the ship, you can watch the ice floes crack and break under the strain of the hull. They act like soft cotton compared to Polarstern 's sturdy steel. As we drive between stations, the ice floes make the ship's motion bumpy, like so many pot holes on an uneven country road. If East Greenland ice is a deep January freeze, the northern HAUSGARTEN stations are a slushy day in late March.  The ice edge is one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth, at least for a short time. Each spring, as the ice begins to melt,