The next set of samples is cooking.

Now that I have the extraction process dialed in, it's time to start looking more broadly at the deep-sea samples. For this next pass, I'm looking at shrimp, squat lobsters, and barnacles from a hydrothermal vent in the western Pacific.

These three species represent 3 different feeding strategies: the shrimp hang out near the vents and feed on free floating bacteria, as well as bacteria that grow on their gills. The squat lobsters are scavengers of the deep sea, living on the vent periphery, and the barnacles are filter feeders.

Who accumulates the most plastic in their tissues? The vent-dependent shrimp? The opportunistic scavenger? Or the sessile filter feeders?