Marine microbial data supports innovative research collecting whale blow microbiota

Description

New research using a drone to capture whale snot could provide an indication of whale health

Sampling the microbes living in whale blow could provide an indicator of the health of migrating whale populations.

“Microbes are an intrinsic component of the health of all levels of marine ecosystems” says Dr Ostrowski, “baseline genomic data being produced as part of the Bioplatforms Australia-
IMOS partnership will provide us with the framework to test the next generation of sensitive ecosystem diagnostic tools”.