Field work – Yung Lab

Ocean Adventure: Microbe Hunters Set Sail!

From June 28th to July 10th, 2021, a team of 24 scientists embarked on an important research cruise to the Pearl River Estuary and the South China Sea. The expedition was fully supported by the Hong Kong Branch (HKB) of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou).

The research team, comprising experts from the HKB’s area 1 and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, conducted extensive studies during their two-week journey. Among the dedicated researchers were Yangbing and Wenqian, who focused on an intriguing aspect of marine microbiology.

Yangbing and Wenqian’s project involved studying the diel cycle of microbial and viral communities across a range of water types, from estuarine to oceanic. This required tireless effort as they filtered numerous water samples throughout the cruise.

Intensive Diel Sampling Reveals Temporal Dynamics of Coastal Marine Microbes

Our research team conducted a 48-hour sampling campaign to investigate the temporal dynamics of coastal marine microbial communities. The study involved collecting water samples at six-hour intervals, providing a high-resolution snapshot of microbial activity over two full day-night cycles. This sampling protocol was designed to capture the diel variations in marine prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses.

Water samples were carefully filtered to isolate different microbial components, allowing for comprehensive analysis of the diverse marine microbial ecosystem. Concurrent with biological sampling, we recorded crucial physico-chemical parameters to contextualize the microbial data within the changing environmental conditions.

This intensive effort aims to shed light on the short-term fluctuations in microbial populations and their potential drivers in coastal marine environments. The resulting dataset promises to offer valuable insights into the complex interplay between marine microbes and their dynamic coastal habitat over diurnal cycles.

Research cruise in Northeast Pacific

Charmaine returned to Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Insitute (MBARI) to join the Worden lab’s DVM 2019 research cruise. She performed diel sampling to explore the diversity and temporal dynamics of viral assemblages in relationship to their hosts in the mesotrophic ocean. She also helped other scientists on board, i.e. collecting DOC and click-iT samples for Dr. Kristin Bergauer (GEOMAR) and dissecting deep-sea invertebrates with UCSC PhD student Charlotte Eckmann.