Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

The Great Southern Coccolithophore Belt Expedition Enters Home Stretch

Research Associate Dave Drapeau preparing equipment for a carboy experiment on deck. Photo by Rebecca Fowler.

The 23-member Great Southern Coccolithophore Belt Expedition research team is in the final days of its five-week transect of the South Atlantic Ocean, and is scheduled to arrive in Cape Town, South Africa on February 16. Maine’s public radio station aired an interview with the Laboratory’s Dr. Barney Balch, the expedition’s Chief Scientist mid-way through the expedition. Education Director Rebecca Fowler is keeping a daily blog about the team’s life and work aboard the R/V Melville; corresponding directly with teachers in Maine, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Utah, and Texas; and answering questions from K-12 students and college undergraduates. Her photo gallery offers an inside view of research life at sea.

Cover Story

Journal cover photos courtesy of Joyce M. McBeth and Jennifer R. Fownes.

Bigelow postdoctoral researcher Joyce McBeth is the lead author of a paper titled “Neutrophilic Iron-Oxidizing ‘Zetaproteobacteria’ and Mild Steel Corrosion in Nearshore Marine Environments” published in the February 2011 issue (Vol. 77, No. 4, pp. p. 1405-1412) of the American Society for Microbiology’s journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The paper, selected as the issue’s cover story, examines the role of iron-oxidizing bacteria on microbiologically influenced corrosion of steel in nearshore and estuarine environments. This work establishes, for the first time, the unequivocal involvement of these iron-oxidizing bacteria in the corrosion of steel. Furthermore it reports the discovery of these unique bacteria in temperate coastal environments; previously, they had been thought to only be associated with hydrothermal vents. Co-authors include Brenda J. Little and Richard I. Ray from the Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, 2009 REU class member Katherine M. Farrar from Bowdoin College, and Bigelow Senior Research Scientist David Emerson. The SEM image used on the cover was taken by 2010 REU student Jennifer Fownes.

Inside Colby:
Student Podcast with Dr. Pete Countway
When he finished teaching his survey course on the diversity of life in the oceans (one of two courses taught by Bigelow scientists as part of the an intensive four-week January Program at Colby College in Waterville, Maine), Dr. Pete Countway spoke with Colby student Emily Fleming ’12 for the student-run website Inside Colby about the opportunities a career in oceanography offers young scientists. This four-and-a-half minute audio interview may make you want to become an ocean scientist yourself.

Inset: Dr. Pete Countway during an expedition to the Antarctic Ocean.

International Algae Competition:
A Global Challenge to Design Visionary Algae Food and Energy Systems

Bigelow Laboratory is a sponsor of the First International Algae Competition, launched at the World Algae Congress in San Francisco in early December 2010. The competition is open to everyone, anywhere in the world, and invites ideas for designing landscapes that integrate algae production systems, developing models for producing algae effectively and economically on a community scale, and creating new food and other products that use algae to sustain and improve health. The competition was created by Mark Edwards, Professor of Strategic Marketing and Sustainability in the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and green business entrepreneur Robert Henrikson, who is the founder Earthrise Farms. More information, guidelines, and online registration can be found on the official competition website. Registration closes on September 11, 2011.


Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences …exploring the world’s oceans, from microbes to global ecosystems