Dr Karen Westwood - Voyage Project Manager / Biogeochemist

My research focusses on single celled organisms in the Southern Ocean called marine microbes (bacteria, phytoplankton, protozoa). These organisms are important for two main reasons: they form the base of the Antarctic food web, and they drive the biological pump in the Southern Ocean where up to 12% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed. I’ll be examining whether whales stimulate primary and bacterial production through their iron-rich faeces (iron normally limits growth of marine microbes), by deploying a marker buoy to drift with a whale “poo-patch”, and by sampling in regions where whales and krill are present or absent.