Participant Perspective - July 24, 2001

Interview with Jeff Engebretson
Ecological Microbiologist - Western Washington Univ.

Jeff G: What project are you working on at Axial Volcano?

Jeff E: I'm working with bacterial traps, which are 3 little PVC pipes filled with glass wool with nytex screens on either side to keep out larger organisms that eat bacteria. The idea is to place the bacterial traps on top of a hydrothermal vent for short term (1-2 week) and long term (1-2 year) studies. We'll come back and collect the samples and freeze them on the ship. Once we get to land we start the process of extracting DNA. We acquire the DNA signature through a method called TRFLP (Terminal Restriction Fragmental-length Polymorphism). It's relatively new - so good, clean methods haven't been developed yet. That's what I'm working on. The method doesn't allow us to identify specific bacteria but definitely distinguishes between one bacterial community and the next. It also allows us to compare the similarities of the communities. It's a good first-approximation method to try and figure out which communities are related at different vent sites. We don't even know how many types of hydrothermal vent ecosystems there are. This project has helped push that question a little further and developed some of the answers.

Jeff G: What do you think of being at sea for extended periods of time.

Jeff E: It's interesting. Before I come out I have mixed feelings about it. It's really great to be out here with scientists from multiple disciplines. I learn a lot about the geology, chemistry and the macrobiology. In terms of the living conditions it's like a sensory depravation tank. After about a week out here all my dreams are about the ship. This continues for the first week I get back to shore because all my short-term memory is of ship-associated events. It's nice to be out of the academic atmosphere at school, where there's always pressure to get things done. Out here there's definitely some slower moments where you can relax with a colleague and have discussions for as long as you want. When you're on land you're possibly seeing over a hundred people per day. The environments are open spaces. Out here, the commute is two floors up to "home" and to work in the lab you walk back down those same two flights of stairs. Being outside here is nice for the sunlight, fresh air and ocean view, but it's pretty nondescript. You're senses are deprived.

Jeff G: How did you become interested in environmental microbiology?

Jeff E: The vents are places where there's new exciting things to learn. Our knowledge here is limited, when compared to a lot of other types of ecosystems. What really got me into environmental microbiology is the idea of life on other planets. In my lifetime I'd like to see feasible cruises to places like Mars or Europa. We're possibly in the beginning stages of developing methods to sample on places like Europa. We'd have to drill under two kilometers of ice, travel down to the seafloor to collect samples, analyze them and send the information back to Earth. Developing methods here that transfer to interplanetary exploration is a really exciting field to me. This type of exploration addresses some big picture questions: What life is, how fragile or tough it is. If we want to explore other planets there are so many environments on Earth that we could practice in.