In collaboration with Dr. Joel Elliott here in the Biology Department, we are also interested in the microbes and symbioses associated with an unusual local environment in Puget Sound:  marine anthropogenic sulfide seeps.

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For many years, the lumber industry in Puget Sound generated enormous amounts of sawdust, which they promptly buried around Commencement Bay.  There are some areas of the shoreline that have several feet of sawdust just beneath the sand and rocks.  When the tide comes in, think of the region as an enormous fermenter.  When the tide goes out, the seawater leaving these "sponges" can be 4mM (that's right:  millimolar) in hydrogen sulfide.  That is 50 times higher than many hydrothermal vents.  

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Like those deep, deep vents, these areas seem to support a thiotrophic community.  Rocks are covered with enormous sulfur oxidizing chemoautotrophic bacteria (see upper left image). And in some cases, crabs covered with these same kind of growth can be found (see lower left).  I call these "Sasquatch Crabs" in counterpoint to the very deep Yeti Crabs in the literature.

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Research continues to study the microbial communities to be found in this unusual environment, and compare them to those found around deep ocean hydrothermal vents.  We are also quite interested in the microbial communities to be found on the crab carapaces:  are they incidental or is there a symbiosis?

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One thing is certain:  it is FAR easier to study this thiotrophic community than from a deep ocean submersible!